The aim of the study is to identify and expose, during the election period in Georgia, instances of gender discrimination, including sexist hate speech and gender stereotypes, used against women politicians and other representatives of public institutions.

The study is conducted by applying mixed methodology – quantitative data processing and qualitative analysis.

The social media monitoring applies Crowdtangle, a Facebook analytical tool, to monitor pre-selected subjects (see, monitoring subjects). In addition to social media monitoring, findings of the traditional media (TV, print, online) monitoring are used too.

The gender discrimination/violation is monitored by: Topics,

  • Typology of violations,
  • Terminology,
  • Sources,
  • Targets.

A quantitative component of the study includes statistics on types of violation, topics and sources (monitored media, clergy, society, authority, former authority, NGOs, political parties, other) as well as targets of sexist hate speech and used terminology.

A qualitative part includes the typology of messages, examples of sexist hate speech by their forms and indicators, as well as types of visual (photo and video) manipulation. Purpose behind attacks is also analyzed (intimidation, shaming, silencing, enhancement of gender roles, etc.).

Profiles of most aggressive Facebook pages will be provided and their interaction (likes, number of followers, comments) will be described.

Comments on randomly selected posts containing sexists hate speech will be studied (to see whether a hate term used in a post is repeated throughout comments). A vocabulary of sexists hate speech will be compiled.

The typology of violations has been defined in accordance with the indicators of Gender Barometer which was developed by the Union Sapari on the bases of conducted focus groups with experts.

Selection of subjects for monitoring. To monitor sexist hate speech in social media, as many as 117 Facebook pages were selected in advance. The selected pages cover a wide political spectrum: anti-opposition pages, Georgian Dream party pages, pages/media affiliated with Georgian Dream, opposition party pages, pages affiliated with opposition political parties, pages/media affiliated with the Alliance of Patriots. Furthermore, the list of monitored subjects is updated by newly emerged Facebook accounts.