Politicians routinely dismiss allegations of bullying made by women by painting it as just the “cost of doing politics” or as something that happens to men just as much, new research has found.
University of Adelaide psychologists found female Liberal MPs were undermined, silenced and discredited by the way those in their own party treated their accusations.
The peer-reviewed study was published on Thursday in the Australian Journal of Social Issues.
The academics chose a specific period in 2018 when four female Liberal MPs had complained of bullying and interrogation. In the paper they acknowledged that since gathering the data for the study there had been more incidents that fed into the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements, including former staffer Brittany Higgins’ allegation.
The paper was published as Labor continued to battle allegations the late senator Kimberley Kitching was bullied by senior party figures.
Researchers looked at the responses from men and women to:
Former Liberal MP Julia Banks, who quit after citing “cultural and gender bias, bullying and intimidation” from both her own party and the opposition.
Former foreign affairs minister Julie Bishop, who said she had witnessed behaviour in parliament that “wouldn’t be tolerated in any other workplace across Australia”.
Government services minister, Linda Reynolds, who said there was “bullying and intimidation” in the lead-up to the spill that saw Malcolm Turnbull replaced by Scott Morrison as prime minister.
Former Liberal senator Lucy Gichuhi, who said she would name and shame bullies in the party (she later backed down on that threat).
They picked 601 transcripts over six weeks, then narrowed them down to 46 interviews that were specifically about those accusations of bad behaviour, then used coding to pull out the “discursive repertoires”. These were the recurrent words and phrases used to frame the discussion.
The research found Liberal politicians “routinely mobilised” two ideas – that bullying applied equally to men and women, and that “politics is tough”, which together “served to downplay and legitimise bullying and intimidation as normative and unproblematic”.
Politicians including the prime minister, Scott Morrison, used alternative descriptions to bullying, talking about the pressure women were under or using the phrase “robust discussion”.
Talking about the ballot process that delivered him the leadership, Morrison said: “Both men and women are subject to a lot of pressure when they are making these decisions.”
The authors wrote that women were often reluctant to report abuse, bullying or intimidation because of shame, fear of retaliation, or the desire to avoid being seen as a “victim”. When they did speak out, they risked being seen as unsuited to the rough and tumble of politics when it was framed that way.
Those who responded to allegations of abuse or bullying then often didn’t recognise it as a problem, considering it “the cost of doing politics”.
“In politics, these actions serve to constrain women’s contributions by systematically undermining, silencing and discrediting them,” the authors wrote.
They said there was “growing literature on violence against women in politics” and they wanted to understand how politicians responded to allegations of violence.
That violence includes threats, intimidation, injury, rape, sexual harassment, economic controls, and sexist language and behaviour.
Parliament is a male-dominated space, they wrote: “The bullying and intimidation experienced by women may continue to be the cost of their political engagement unless systemic change occurs that acknowledges the ongoing relevance of gender in politics.
“Understanding how politicians routinely make sense of gender discrimination in the workplace is important, given the increased number of women entering politics and the increased reporting of sexism, harassment and sexual assault in recent years.”
They also made the point that having a growing number of women in politics was not proof that gender equality had been reached.
