In California, stepping into public office increasingly means stepping into the line of fire, and women are catching more of the heat. From violent messages and doxxing to protests on quiet residential streets and suspected explosive devices, abuse has become part of the job description for some local women in office. The fallout is reshaping how they show up in public life, which policies they push and, in some cases, whether they stay in the game at all.
As reported by the East Bay Times, women serving in California city halls and at the Capitol say they face both more frequent and more gendered abuse than their male colleagues. They describe a mix of violent online messages and physical-world tactics such as targeted mailers that reveal home addresses, protests on their doorsteps and threats that extend to family members. The through line, they say, is an effort to scare them out of office.
Those stories line up with national data. A report from the Brennan Center found that women in local offices are more likely to report threats and harassment than men. According to the report, 23% of women local officeholders said they had received threats, compared with 16% of men. The gap is similar for race: 25% of elected officials of color reported threats, compared with 18% of white officeholders. In shorter-window surveys, 12% of women reported threats aimed at their family members, compared with 8% of men.
Local Incidents Put Fear On The Doorstep
In the Bay Area, the danger has not been theoretical. On June 14, 2022, a homemade explosive device was found in the street near San Jose Councilmember Dev Davis’s Willow Glen home. Investigators later characterized it as a functional, homemade, destructive device. Detectives identified a suspect and made an arrest in January 2024, and court records say a search of the suspect’s home turned up materials tied to improvised explosives. “I want people to be civically involved,” Davis told reporters after the incident, according to CBS News…