Facing a torrent of online and in-person abuse, Fiona Patten, leader of the Reason Party in Victoria, is in "almost daily" contact with parliamentary security.
The hatred directed towards her has been so threatening and constant that she and her staff have been up until two in the morning some days trying to filter it out from her social media page.
Speaking with SBS News, Ms Patten said her office has been vandalised and she has had to install a security system in her home due to the escalating harassment.
On one frightening occasion, Ms Patten said she was confronted by someone outside her house who yelled at her while they rode a bicycle past.
"The people in my office are getting calls by the minute with people just yelling abuse at them, calling us all sorts of names," Ms Patten said.
"There are people now knocking on our door and filming us while they hurl abuse at the staff."
by Victoria’s Department of Parliamentary Services noted members had become "targets" for those opposing lockdowns and COVID restrictions.
“This led to a 50 per cent increase in security incidents in Victorian electorate offices,” the report said.
"Protective security has seen a significant increase in activity, with Members and staff frequently targeted by protest activity and serious security incidents growing significantly."
A man was sentenced to last November after he made a video addressing Ms Patten in which he threatened to shave her head and drag her "up the street naked" for supporting COVID-19 laws.
The man described Ms Patten as "sitting in bed" with Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews, who he called a "communist" and a "f***ing dog".
Overwhelmed with the escalating violent and sexist nature of the commentary, Ms Patten decided to take a break from social media earlier this month.
Ms Patten said the comments had become “so toxic” that her supporters could not defend her without being targeted themselves, creating a "silencing effect".
Reason MP Fiona Patten says she's become a target of gendered abuse. Source: AAP
The Victorian MP returned to social media this week, posting a confronting video of her staff reading some of the comments she has received online.
“She’s right up the a** of that Andrews maggot. She should’ve stayed in the brothel where she clearly belongs,” one comment read.
“Die Nazi scum,” read another.
“You don’t deserve any recognition. Off to oblivion with you.”
Ms Patten said she is managing comments and turning them off if the conversation turns toxic.
She said she’s got pretty “thick skin” and has been around in politics for a long time, but the escalation of the abuse has reached new heights.
"I am concerned, and my family is concerned, about those threats turning into actual violence and actual attacks," she said.
"These are not just individuals in my community not agreeing with me or advocating for a different position.
"These are people who are in concerted organised campaigns being instructed to harass and intimidate myself and my office."
An issue that’s ‘above politics’
The blight of misogynistic abuse that women face in the public eye isn’t limited to one political party, according to Ms Patten.
Ms Patten said she has spoken with between 20 and 30 female politicians in the past week who have thanked her for posting the video in which she called out online abuse.
“Ministers down to backbenchers down to independents, we are all getting this kind of gendered attacks,” she said.
Liberal MP Nicolle Flint made headlines in March when she called for the safety of women to be 'above politics'.
Ms Flint is the only female Liberal MP representing South Australia in the lower house and the first woman to represent Boothby.
She claimed she was stalked and photographed by a man and had her office vandalised with graffiti calling her a “prostitute” during the 2019 election campaign, an incident she described as “the scariest of her life”.
Ms Flint also accused activist group GetUp of aggressive "bird-dogging" campaign tactics, which refers to the act of intercepting candidates and filming them while asking them questions.
In a statement, it conducted a “thorough investigation” that confirmed none of their staff or members was involved in any of the alleged behaviour.
It's not the first time Ms Flint has spoken out about sexism. Last July, she wore a garbage bag in a video posted onto social media to call out "rubbish views" she had received about her appearance, saying it was time for women to be judged on "what they stand for, not what they look like".
The role race and gender plays in online hate
In 2018, Mehreen Faruqi became Australia's first Muslim senator but she said the abuse she has received every day since then was something she was not expecting.
The Greens senator said she has been subjected to horrendous abuse by people who believe that she is not a "real Aussie" and doesn’t "belong" in the country.
"These attacks on women become much more toxic for women of colour because we live our lives at the intersection of racism and sexism," she told SBS News.
"And it is the combination of these two visceral forces that really multiplies the poison of hate many times over."
Senator Mehreen Faruqi says she's been subjected to racist and sexist abuse since she entered politics. Source: Supplied by Mehreen Faruqi
Ms Faruqi said she has employed various strategies over the years to manage the hate directed at her. In 2016, she and her staff began replying to hateful comments in a humorous and sarcastic series they titled: "Love letters to Mehreen".
Ms Faruqi said responding to those comments rather than staying silent was "cathartic" but the abuse worsened after she moved from the NSW Senate into the federal one.
“We're getting these sorts of messages that basically tell you that you have no right to be in politics in Australia,” she said.
"It basically boils down to not just what I say but ... what my cultural background or my religion is.
"So it does have the effect of you feeling that you don't belong in a place which is basically your home."
Ms Faruqi said Greens MP Jenny Leong and Victorian Greens Senator and Gunnai-Gunditjmara woman Lidia Thorpe have also experienced similar racist backlash.
But she said it shouldn't be up to women of colour to speak out against the abuse they receive.
“It's a very different story if you are a straight white man in politics or if you are a brown, migrant Muslim woman. It's chalk and cheese,” she said.
“It's not just us who should be speaking out about it. It is really the responsibility for everyone who thinks that this is unacceptable to speak out about it.”
Ms Faruqi said the government needs to introduce a parliamentary code of conduct and a strong "anti-racism strategy" to tackle this issue at a societal level.
“For me … it's about making life for others like me who might want to take the same journey a little bit easier. It is about opening the door that has been tightly shut to people of colour, who want to be in politics or in decision-making places,” she said.
"So that's what kind of keeps me going and fighting back on these issues."
For Ms Patten, the “bickering” that goes on in parliament is what emboldens some members of the community to treat female politicians with disrespect.
Australian Greens Senator Mehreen Faruqi speaks during Senate business, in Parliament House in Canberra, 2019. Source: AAP
“It doesn’t help when you've got someone calling somebody else a liar or a cheat or good for nothing," Ms Patten said.
“If you look at Denmark, New Zealand, you don't see that type of behaviour in their parliaments or in their media," she said.
"I think that media, politicians, public figures, all need to take some personal responsibility for this and that we need to lead by example and try and act compassionately."
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