On January 6, the world watched in disbelief as a violent mob stormed the U.S. Capitol, an event that was not a spontaneous explosion of anger but the culmination of a political movement built on extremism, fed by misinformation, and nurtured for years in the toxic corners of the internet. In the aftermath, lawmakers, regulators, and ordinary citizens began to ask hard questions about the role of digital platforms in incubating such violence. Could social media companies be held accountable? Should they be? It was a necessary reckoning, but something important was left out of the conversation: the deeply gendered nature of disinformation and its connection to violent extremism. For too long, the way misogyny intersects with falsehoods and political violence has been treated as a side issue, a niche concern for women’s rights advocates rather than a central national security challenge. That is a dangerous mistake. Around the world, autocrats and their allies are using gendered disinformation to silence critics, undermine democratic institutions, and consolidate power. By placing this issue at the heart of the policy agenda, the Biden-Harris administration has a rare chance to advance women’s rights while also protecting democracy at home and abroad. But first, we have to understand what we are actually facing: a coordinated, malicious, and deeply sexist campaign to push women out of public life and, in doing so, weaken the very foundations of democratic governance.
The problem is stark and well documented. Women in politics are disproportionately targeted by gendered disinformation campaigns that use fake stories, threats, humiliating images, and sexually charged attacks to frame female politicians as untrustworthy, unintelligent, or too emotional to hold office. This is not just mean-spirited trolling; it is a deliberate strategy designed to distort public perceptions of women leaders and discourage them from seeking political careers. During the 2020 U.S. Democratic primary, for example, data analytics from the nonpartisan firm Marvelous AI found that female candidates were attacked by bots and trolls at higher rates than their male counterparts, with negative messaging focused more on character than policy. Vice President Kamala Harris faced a relentless campaign of disinformation that attacked her record and included degrading allusions about her rise through American politics, a tired and familiar playbook aimed at reducing powerful women to sexualized stereotypes. This pattern repeats across the globe. In Europe, Ukraine, and Brazil, women politicians have had their morality and dignity smeared by false narratives. The abuse is even worse for women from racial, ethnic, religious, or other minority groups, and for those who speak out on feminist issues. A recent study involving thirteen female politicians across three countries and six social media platforms found that nine had been targeted by gendered disinformation. The 2019 report #ShePersisted, which interviewed eighty-eight female politicians and experts, found widespread concern that online abuse and disinformation are serious barriers to women’s political participation. Many young women are deciding that a career in politics is simply not worth the harassment. Some women have even faced physical violence after online threats fueled by disinformation. Even in milder cases, the psychological toll is immense, and the time and energy wasted on defending one’s character rather than doing public work is a devastating cost. Pushing women out of politics is rarely the final goal; it is often the first step in a broader strategy to erode democracy and human rights.
This is where the global picture becomes even more disturbing. While sexism has always existed, the weaponization of misogyny for political gain has been cynically embraced by a new wave of authoritarian leaders and illiberal actors. These leaders take advantage of algorithms and business models that reward outrageous and fake content, using gendered disinformation to roll back progress on women’s and minority rights. Vladimir Putin in Russia, Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines, Viktor Orbán in Hungary, and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Turkey have all used gendered disinformation campaigns to attack women in politics, undermine feminism, and challenge liberal values. These efforts are not incidental; they are part of a larger strategy to weaken the human rights system. The U.N. Human Rights Council has called the erosion of women’s rights “a litmus test for the human rights standards of the whole of society.” When women are silenced, all voices become vulnerable. State-aligned gendered disinformation is used to smoother opposition, erode democratic processes, and suppress demands for accountability. Women’s political participation often disrupts male-dominated networks where corruption and abuse of power thrive, which is why those in power are so eager to push women out. In India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has followed Twitter accounts responsible for rape and death threats against female politicians in his own government, and his party has been accused of running a “troll army” that targets prominent female figures. In Brazil, after the murder of human rights activist Marielle Franco, a network close to President Jair Bolsonaro spread gendered smears against her, claiming she had led an “immoral” life. In Russia’s 2016 election interference, deeply dehumanizing stereotypes were deployed against Hillary Clinton. In Belarus, opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya was dismissed as a “teleprompter woman” by Russian propaganda, while President Lukashenko tried to paint her as a Western puppet. In Ukraine, female politicians have faced absurd fabricated stories, from fake tweets about running naked through Kyiv to wild accusations designed to humiliate and discredit. This is not just about women; it is about who gets to hold power and shape the future of societies.
Given the severity of the threat, the response must be much stronger than media literacy programs and calls for critical thinking. Those tools are useful, but they cannot stop the deluge of targeted disinformation against female political leaders. Because gendered disinformation is a national security threat and undermines U.S. foreign policy goals, it demands a coordinated, high-level response. President Biden’s agenda for women’s empowerment includes a commitment to support women’s leadership globally and break down barriers to political participation. But this cannot be achieved without directly tackling the disinformation and abuse campaigns that make it so difficult for women, especially women of color, to participate in democratic life. In its first hundred days, the administration must build an architecture of actors and institutions tasked with understanding how authoritarian leaders, and authoritarian-like actors at home, are using social media to undermine women in politics. This means convening the National Task Force on Online Harassment and Abuse that Biden proposed during the campaign, with a mandate that includes gendered disinformation and abuse against women in politics both domestically and globally. The task force should bring together academia, women’s rights organizations, and technologists to map disinformation campaigns and their connection to online abuse. It must center women’s perspectives and lived experiences as new regulatory approaches are developed and as transatlantic dialogues on platform accountability and Big Tech take place. Without gender experts at the table, these conversations will remain dangerously incomplete.
The newly established White House Gender Policy Council must also make gendered disinformation a top priority. While it has pledged to address gender-based violence, it must also tackle the online attacks that are becoming increasingly pervasive and damaging to women’s political participation and civic engagement, both in the United States and around the world. These attacks extend even to election workers, as seen in Georgia, where women poll workers faced harassment and threats. The council has representatives from across government and is well positioned to consider the national security and foreign policy dimensions of this issue, giving it the weight it deserves. In addition, the administration should quickly nominate a new ambassador-at-large for global women’s issues to operationalize the president’s commitment to women’s political empowerment and the full implementation of the U.S. strategy on women, peace, and security. Fighting gendered disinformation must be central to this strategy, and the ambassador must make it a priority in global forums like the Freedom Online Coalition and the Global Democracy Summit. As governments around the world consider reforms to technology oversight, from establishing a “duty of care” in the United Kingdom and the European Union to increasing transparency requirements, gendered disinformation should be a bigger part of the policy agenda aimed at reducing online harms. Greater investments are needed in research on “inoculation” strategies, technological innovations like ParityBOT and Harmony Square, and citizen literacy programs that target women. Women leaders who are at the forefront of democratization efforts are becoming primary targets of disinformation, and they need real-time tools to respond effectively and safely.
There is a strategic window of opportunity right now. In the summer of 2020, the U.S. Democratic Women’s Caucus sent a letter to Facebook urging the company to protect women from rampant online attacks and disinformation campaigns that have caused many women to leave or avoid politics. The letter, signed by one hundred current and former female legislators from thirty countries, warned that these tactics are meant to silence women and ultimately undermine democracies. That action was a first coordinated global effort to hold social media platforms accountable for the harm they cause to women in politics, but much more needs to be done. The events of January 6 are still fresh, and the memory of that violence should not fade without meaningful action. The Biden-Harris administration has the opportunity to promote dialogue and active engagement with civil society, philanthropies, academia, and technology companies to explore solutions to the full range of harms enabled by digital platforms. So far, gender experts have been absent from many of the influential processes shaping the technology and disinformation agenda. That must change. Gendered disinformation is no longer a mere bug or minor inconvenience of social media; it has gone mainstream and begun to intersect with violent extremism, with predictably tragic results. We cannot afford to treat it as a niche issue any longer. The fight to protect women in politics is inseparable from the fight to protect democracy itself. The Biden-Harris administration must rise to this challenge and confront the threat it poses to democratic values, at home and abroad. The stakes have never been higher, and the time to act is now.