FM fears women will be put off politics because of social media abuse and recounts how her own fears have increased
Nicola Sturgeon fears women will be put off entering politics in future due to the impact of social media abuse and concerns over their personal safety.
The First Minister said there was no doubt politicians felt “less safe” than ever before because of the way political debate had become so much more polarised and toxic.
Interviewed by actress Nicola Roy for The Cultural Coven podcast, the First Minister recalled the impact of having her home address posted online and being confronted in the street by a far-right candidate on election day in Glasgow.
Ms Sturgeon also recalled feeling overwhelmed and "really terrified" during the early days of the Covid pandemic due to the magnitude of decisions she had to take and admitted regularly bursting into tears.
Asked how safe she felt as a modern-day politician, Ms Sturgeon said: “I have a degree of security that other politicians won’t have.
“I think all politicians, and I would feel this too, we are less safe than when I was starting out in politics. I don’t think there is any doubt about that at all.
The political climate and culture is much more polarised and toxic. Social media has a big part to play as it allows people who always existed, but were on the margins but never had a platform before, to have that platform to hurl abuse directly at people.
"Sometimes that spills out into the real world and people confront politicians, attack politicians and sadly as we’ve seen twice in recent years in the UK murder politicians.
“It's definitely, definitely much more of a worry and a thought than it was in previous years.
These are the kind of things that you would never have worried about in the past.
“I fear we are going to find it more difficult to attract people into politics, particularly women, who get abuse on social media much, much more than men do.
“For people like me, you have to not give into that.”
Ms Sturgeon was asked whether there had been times during the pandemic when she “had a good old cry and thought ‘I can’t do this today’.” She said: “Oh yeah, absolutely, many many times, particularly over the early months.”