Gendered Linguistic Patterns in the Online Harassment of Female Politicians in Pakistan

Abstract

Although social media is playing its significant role in political discourse but in a patriarchal culture such as Pakistan, it is used to assault and harass the female politicians as well. This study investigates how gendered language is used in online harassment of females and how different abusive words and sentences are spoken in political campaigns to denigrate women. This study also highlights how ethical crimes such as hate speeches, moral attacks and personal insults etc. are committed by the political parties on each other by launching their special social media teams. This research focuses on three famous and renowned female politicians of Pakistan including PMLN’s Maryam Nawaz, PTI’s Bushra Bibi and PPP’s Sherry Rehman. This is to examine how these female politicians face sexual insults, physical mimicry and false allegations on their religious practices through social media. Critical discourse analysis (CDA) and feminist linguistics are applied to reflect how abusive and harassing language is used for these female politicians. The findings analyze how this gendered and harassing language used in social media platforms to hurt and degrade people particularly women and female politicians of Pakistani society.