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An image posted on Jenn Chawla\u2019s Instagram account shows the side of one of her roadside campaign signs that was not defaced with a racist slur.<\/p>\n
@jennchawla via Instagram<\/p>\n
For women, pursuing a career in the public spotlight \u2014 as an elected official or, as I can personally attest to, as a journalist \u2014 often amplifies the experience to degrees that are intolerable. Add in layers of religion and race, and the harassment becomes even more frequent, intense and despicable.<\/p>\n
Sacramento is hardly immune to this ugliness. In the past two weeks, Jenn Chawla, a candidate for Sacramento City Council\u2019s District 1, has faced targeted harassment in three separate incidents,<\/a> both online and through texts, and on multiple campaign signs defaced with racist slurs referencing her Indian heritage.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve gotten comments here and there, but I\u2019ve ignored them,\u201d Chawla told me. \u201cI\u2019m taking these more seriously because they\u2019re so vile, and I feel like they need to be addressed.\u201d<\/p>\n Chawla has reported the defaced signs to the Sacramento Police Department, who, she said, responded immediately and assigned a detective to the case. But realistically, she said, with so little evidence, it\u2019s unlikely a suspect will be identified. The texts, on the other hand, are tied to a specific number, and the Facebook commenters are easily identified as well. Chawla said she was grateful that her community stepped in to protest the latter, and the comments online were ultimately removed.<\/p>\n But Chawla, like every other woman who has been harassed, knows the risks of reporting or going public with her story:<\/p>\n \u201cIf you stay quiet then you suffer quietly. And if you bring it out to the public<\/a>, then you open yourself up to accusations,\u201d she said. \u201cWomen have had enough of this. We\u2019re sick.\u201d<\/p>\n Statistically, women in public life \u2014 especially elected officials, activists and journalists \u2014 face higher levels of psychological violence<\/a>, harassment and threats tied to their gender<\/a>, according to the United Nations agency, UN Women.<\/p>\n In 2017, Amnesty International polled 4,000 women across eight democratic<\/a>, high-income countries (including the U.S.) and found that more than 75 percent of those women had experienced some form of abuse on social media platforms.<\/p>\n Personally, I believe that a fomenting public backlash<\/a> to the #MeToo movement and the increasing, blatant harassment of women by our own President, Donald Trump \u2014 a convicted sexual abuser whose name reportedly appears in the Epstein Files more than 1 million times<\/a> \u2014 has led to increased permissibility of what was once deemed intolerable behavior by society.<\/p>\n In short: It\u2019s brought the crazies out of the woodwork.<\/p>\n Nearly every elected woman I spoke to about this topic over the years has had a story to share, or multiple instances of harassment, gender-based violence or stalking.<\/p>\n Chawla\u2019s opponent in the D1 race, incumbent city council member Lisa Kaplan, said in a text that she has also faced harassment while in office and on the campaign trail, including \u201cvile rhetoric, fake AI social media posts, inappropriate pictures and intimidation tactics that seek to diminish my voice solely because of my gender and my Jewish faith.\u201d<\/p>\n
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