“Even if we use powder, we’re humiliated on Facebook,” says Ananthy Sasitharan, an Ilankai Tamil Arasu Kachchi (ITAK) politician.
In any field, women face many challenges, and this is no different in the field of politics. As modern-day politics adapts to the harsh realities of technology of trolling, sexualisation, ‘hate engine optimisation’, and misinformation, women politicians are encountering fresh problems. This is shown through the experiences of women politicians in the North and the East who faced serious social media harassment following the 2020 parliamentary election.
On social media, women politicians are forced to battle attacks on their dignity, being disregarded by their male counterparts, subsequent interruptions to their career progression, and the reality that this ‘new age harassment’ would push even the few women in politics out of it completely. Watch their story here.
The visual story was originally published on MoJo News.lk on 11 October 2024 under 𝐃𝐢𝐠𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐥 𝐃𝐢𝐜𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐩, 𝐎𝐧𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐞 𝐓𝐡𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐬, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐖𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐧’𝐬 𝐏𝐨𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐑𝐞𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 of Center for Investigative Reporting, Supported by the Friedrich Naumann Foundation (FNF).
