In a country that has become accustomed to presenting itself as a world champion of gender equality, the government equality agency is now warning that the increase in threats and harassment is silencing women in politics and keeping them away from public life. And this is a “great risk for democracy”
Sweden is that country that so many Portuguese leaders cite when they want an example of mature democracy and gender equality: almost half of the Parliament is female, the laws on freedom of expression are among the most permissive in the world and the external image is that of a robust social state.
But it is precisely there, in this almost textbook scenario, that the government agency for gender equality now says it sees a retreat: the climate of hatred, threats and harassment is pushing women out of politics and silencing them on the most sensitive issues. Line Säll, head of the Swedish Agency for Gender Equality, even speaks of a “huge risk for democracy” and says that the current climate is “scaring many groups” and leading many women to “think twice” before getting involved in politics, she describes to The Guardian.
The warning gained face in October, when Anna-Karin Hatt, leader of the Center Party, resigned after five months, saying she no longer felt safe or at home. Before her, Swedish politics had been shaken by the murder of Ing-Marie Wieselgren, responsible for coordinating psychiatry in the municipalities, and by a plan to kill the then centrist leader Annie Lööf during a democracy festival on the island of Gotland.
The three stories, aligned, forced the country that prides itself on being “the most egalitarian” to admit that there is a fracture between its reputation and what many women feel on a daily basis. The numbers confirm this feeling.
According to the 2025 security survey of politicians, 26.3% of elected officials reported having been the target of threats or harassment in the last year, compared to 23.6% of men. More striking is the difference in the perception of vulnerability: a third of women (32.7%) say they feel exposed by their role, compared to 24% of men.
Among elected officials with foreign origins, the situation worsens: 31.5% report feeling vulnerable, compared to 24.1% of politicians of Swedish origin. The most immediate consequence, describes the report, is self-censorship: less intervention on social media, silence on certain dossiers and an early exit, especially of the youngest, from local politics.
Researchers such as Sandra Håkansson, from Uppsala University, speak of a “cooling effect”. As the debate becomes more radical, especially on topics such as migration or crime, many women choose not to expose themselves and this pushes the public debate towards a more narrow vision, where the most hostile positions gain volume. “Violence is defining the limits of public debate”, summarized Håkansson to The Guardian.
The rise of the far-right Sweden Democrats, with a strong digital presence and history of aggressive campaigns, is seen as part of the context in which online abuse, sexism and xenophobia intersect.
The paradox is that this happens in one of the countries with the best statistical photography: in 2024, women held around 45% of seats in the Riksdag, the Swedish Parliament, one of the highest figures in Europe.
Sweden continues to appear at the top of international reports on equality, but what the equality agency and the Government now emphasize is that it is not enough to count seats: if the institutional response does not keep up with the increase in threats, with more protection, clear rules for digital platforms and a political culture less tolerant of abuse, some of the women who reached the top may simply decide to leave. “When women are removed from politics or silenced, both democracy and free debate are damaged,” warned the Minister of Gender Equality, Nina Larsson.
Seen from Portugal, the Swedish warning comes at a time when the country continues to move closer, through legal means, to a more equal picture, but is still far from normalizing it in practice. The so-called parity law obliges parties to guarantee a minimum of 40% of each sex on the lists for national, European and local elections, with a sequence rule that prevents more than two candidates in a row of the same sex, to prevent women from being pushed to the bottom of the lists.
Even so, after the 2024 legislative elections, there were 82 female deputies in 230 seats, which means 35.7% female representation. Above the world average, but still clearly below the Swedish bar.
In Portugal there is not yet a national survey focused solely on elected women, as in Sweden, but the signs are in the same direction: a study presented in the Assembly of the Republic and coordinated by the Commission for Citizenship and Gender Equality (CIG) concluded this year that digital violence disproportionately affects women in public functions. In a sample of profiles on the X network, more than 13 thousand accounts were identified interacting with these women, of which 5,340 were classified as violent. And a small group, around 10% of these accounts, was responsible for almost a third of all hate and threatening messages.
In the last Government of Luís Montenegro, seven of the 17 ministerial portfolios were handed over to women (41%), one of the most equal government teams in recent democracy, but, as in Stockholm, the official photograph does not say everything: the challenge, argue equality experts, is to ensure that the public space remains habitable for the women who are already there and for those who still hesitate to enter there.
