There have been calls for greater women representation in the Parliament of Singapore from both the ruling party and the opposition. In the 2025 General Election (GE), the People’s Action Party (PAP) fielded 13 female candidates – the most in its history.
While that was a promising sign, women candidates found themselves facing misogynistic comments both offline and online, from comments on their physical appearances to outright sexualization and sexist vitriol. The most widely covered example were the comments that Workers’ Party candidates Alexis Dang faced: from catcalling and shouts of “chiobu” (pretty girl) during her rally speeches to a fanclub on online forum Hardwarezone (“WP Alexis Dang’s Fan Club”), which unfortunately engaged in sexualizing her. Dang’s running mate Harpreet Singh called out the comments, sending a message to “men out there” that such messages are unacceptable and that “we must respect women” and “see them as individuals.”
Interestingly, the misogyny in this year’s GE did not escape the public’s attention. Commentaries pointed out that candidates who are women will always be seen as “female candidates,” who, like minority candidates, face judgments based on their identities rather than merits. The Association of Women for Action and Research (AWARE) also took to Instagram to criticize sexist remarks that reduce women in politics to “what they look like, their clothes, or their roles at home,” calling for a stop to such “distasteful” and “dangerous” discourse. AWARE also drew attention to a YouTube series called “Chio Bu of GE2025”, which featured female candidates from various parties and attracted comments like “to be impartial, i feel [redacted] is better, both in bed and in the boardroom.”
Misogyny in Politics
Women in politics face a plethora of challenges, from representation to stereotypes and gendered abuse. On representation and stereotypes, a 2021 article exploring the representation of “political women” in Singapore in English newspapers during the 1984, 1988, and 1991 elections argued that they are portrayed in two manners. The first is a stereotype-based construction where a women is a wife or a mother, portrayed “as the helped” and “as ‘the weaker sex.’” In the other, lexicon-based construction, women are defined as “the other” with respect to their relation to men.
Although Singapore has come a long way in women’s representation in politics since 2021, stereotypes and linguistic classification of women as the other continue to be a problem. This is especially so amid the growth of the media covering women in politics beyond traditional media to online outlets. Evidence from research across various contexts have found that gender stereotypes held by voters negatively impact the electoral performance of women candidates.
Besides facing unfair representation in the public sphere, women are also disproportionately targeted by online attacks, harassment, and (gendered) disinformation. To cite an example from beyond Singapore, German Green candidate Annalena Baerbock received much more online harassment (which included conspiracy theories, disinformation, and sexist attacks) than her competitors (both male), which potentially undermined her credibility and thus her campaign.
Misogyny toward women in politics has at times been brushed off as a symptom of online discourse and banter; however, it carries very real and tangible consequences. There is a consensus among global researchers on misogyny that it deters political participation in terms of running for office, electoral outcomes, and voting. In general, democracy suffers when misogyny is weaponized against women in politics.
Furthermore, when misogynistic narratives resonate with a society, misogyny may be weaponized by bad actors in disinformation efforts. Interviews with women who were targets of Russian, Iranian, or Chinese state media reveal that “gendered tropes” formed the basis of the disinformation and smear attempts against them.
Similar dynamics can be witnessed in Singapore. Back in 2020, MP Tin Pei Ling lodged a police report over a Chinese New Year banner circulating online with a photoshopped image of her wearing a revealing outfit. Women MPs also cited the misogyny they faced in an interview with Straits Times, reporting comments like women are “not so good” for a political party and calls for them to stay home with their children rather than run for office. Some were also told to tone down on the aggressiveness and to “dress well.”
Intersecting identities also play a role in the intensity and nature of misogyny that women face. Women with other minority identities are often found to be more “viciously” targeted. In the recent Singapore GE, Red Dot United (RDU) candidate Liyana Dhamirah, a Malay-Muslim woman, faced online comments that had “racist and sexist undertones.” She filed a police report.
Representation Moving Forward
During the 2024 U.S. elections, a report by the Center for Countering Digital Hate revealed that Meta’s Instagram failed to remove abusive comments against women politicians, leaving up 93 percent of harmful content that breached platform standards. Locally, while Dhamirah’s efforts to “speak up about the harassment” and “lead by example” were commendable, the mechanisms for addressing racism and sexism still rely on the victims themselves to report instances of harassment. More reactive measures need to be in place to protect women in public life, and more generally, women online. Proactive approaches will also demarcate the boundaries of socially unacceptable speech and behavior.
In Singapore, the dominant national narrative of meritocracy has perhaps given rise to the unintended effect of obscuring gender inequality. As mentioned in the Ministry of Social and Family Development’s 2024 report “Progress on Singapore Women’s Development,” while Singapore has made further progress in terms of equal opportunity for women, it takes “a whole-of-society effort to shift mindsets on gender roles” both in women’s private and public lives. Misogyny against women in politics unfortunately reflects the view of women that larger society harbors – and these views must be actively countered in efforts to forward national gender equality agendas. As mentioned above, misogyny in society also presents a vulnerability for bad actors to exploit through the weaponization of misogynistic narratives and disinformation, which can divide the populace.
There is cause for some hope in the results of the 2025 elections. Singapore has finally achieved over 30 percent of women among elected Members of Parliament, a percentage identified as necessary for a “critical minority.” While still falling far short of a representative parliament, this, along with the proliferation of online and published discourse on sexism in relation to GE 2025 and Singapore politics more broadly, is an improvement. These developments reflect a public awareness of the need for greater gender representation and equality.