Sexism as a normative cue: How target and gender shape reactions to sexist comments in online political discussions

ECC2026, ECREA Political Communication Section

Sabine Reich & Marko Bachl

U Bremen & FU Berlin

2026-09-11

Introduction and hypotheses

Introduction

Gender gap in (visible) online participation
Online hate disproportionately targeting public women and female social media users
Gender gap as result of self-censorship to avoid backlash?

Social norms perspective: Sexist online commenting culture creates communicative norms that alienate and frighten women and differentially decrease their participation.
Norms particularly obtrusive if signaled to socially close or similar persons.

Hypotheses

Outcomes

Perceived injunctive norm (H1): Women not welcome
Expected sanctions (H2): Consequences if participating
Discoursive participation (H3): Like, comment, report

Contrasts

Sexism effect (a): Exposure to sexist comments (vs. neutral comments)
Gendered sexism effect (b): Stronger sexism effect for women than for men
Target interaction for women (c): Among women, stronger sexism effect if target is socially close woman (fellow user) than a more distant woman (politician).
Target interaction comparing women and men (d): Effect of sexism targeting a female social media user (vs. a more distant female politician) stronger for women compared to men.

Methods

Design and sample: Within-subject randomized experiment with n = 604 (n_female = 306) participants (Prolific, German social media users, age 18–59) reacting to m = 8 social media posts (invented, Tagesschau, gender and women’s rights issues) in 2 (comments: sexist v benign) by 2 (target: female politician v female social media user)
- 128 stimuli [8 news posts * (4 sexists comments versions + 4 benign comment versions) * 2 targets]
- Sexist comment sets selected from a pretest of 25 comments, n = 100 participants
- Identification with targets tested for last stimulus; more identification with user than politician, but no gender difference.

Outcomes: One-item measures on 1–7 scales, higher values indicating stronger agreement or higher likelihood
- Perceived injunctive norm (H1): “I have the impression that women are not welcome in this discussion.”
- Expected sanctions (H2): “I fear to be attacked if I would comment on the post.”
- Discoursive participation (H3): How likely is it that you would … … like the post?, comment, … write a comment in this discussion?, … report one of the last three comments as inappropriate?

Results

Predicted values: Norm perceptions (H1–H2)

Predicted values: Participation intentions (H3)

Sexism effect (a)

Gendered sexism effect (b)

Target interaction for women (c)

Target interaction women v men (d)

Discussion

Sexist attacks against female actors set communicative norms, marking these spaces as hostile.
- Decrease participation intentions for both men and women
- Particularly frighten women and deter them from participating.

Target made no (gender-specific) difference.

Should norm violations be considered differently depending on whether their target is a public or private person? From the perspective of deteriorating effects on (female) participation, probably not.

Questions & Comments?

References

Reich, S., & Bachl, M. (2023). Do sexist comments hinder participation in online political discussions? Journal of Media Psychology, 35(6), 355–361. https://doi.org/10/gth3fs

Reich, S., & Bachl, M. (2026). When sexism becomes the norm: The effect of sexism on women’s participation in political online discussions. Communication Research, 53(6), 844–866. https://doi.org/10/g9qbvk