A Bias Event Approach

Chapter 10 develops an approach for identifying empirical cases of violence against women in politics. It begins by outlining methodological challenges related to under-reporting, comparisons, and intersectionality. The chapter argues that work on hate crimes offers a way forward, as this approach explicitly seeks to develop tools to ascertain whether bias against particular groups was a motivating factor behind a given crime. Because not all acts of violence against women in politics constitute crimes, the chapter proposes to focus instead on “bias events”: actions of both a criminal and non-criminal nature driven by bias against women in political roles. It then builds on existing legal guidance to propose six criteria for determining whether an incident was potentially motivated by bias.