Warning: the article below shows excerpts of misogynistic content, of sexual offenses and religious intolerance. We decided not to censor them, because we found it important to exemplify how violent the online debate is, how gender based political violence is spread on the internet and how sexist it may be, how we can identify it and what terms were directed at the postulants to the position of first lady in Brazil.

In the most violent elections in Brazil’s recent history, not even the spouses of presidential candidates are able to escape from political attacks. On social media, offenses to them are frequent and reproduce recurrent topics on the electoral run: religion and corruption. In a period of two weeks, Jana da Silva has received at least 799 attacks, and Michelle Bolsonaro, 273, according to data collected by MonitorA, an observatory of online political violence carried out by AzMina Magazine, InternetLab and Núcleo Jornalismo.

In 2022, the women pursuing the title of Brazil’s First Lady are central actors to corroborate their spouses’ campaign discourses and to gather support from women voters. The active participation on the campaigns, however, makes them more exposed to the hostility of the pledge. The attacks to both are quite different: while the majority of the attacks to the current first lady, Michelle Bolsonaro, consist of moral offenses related to corruption, Janja is mainly targeted by religious intolerance, even not having made public her religious affiliation.

The slurs against Rosângela “Janja” da Silva are more frequent on Twitter, where one out of five posts analyzed by the study was considered offensive. On Instagram, Lula da Silva’s spouse received 48 offenses and insults in two weeks, that were present on 15% of the interactions. Michelle Bolsonaro received 273 offenses on her Instagram account, identified on 8% of the analyzed comments (see the survey methodology at the end of this article). She does not have an account on Twitter. 

Throughout the period analyzed by the study, misogyny was the most frequent category to appear on attacks – representing almost a third of the offenses to Janja on Twitter, and 10% of the offenses to Michelle on Instagram. The main narrative is to offend Janja through her husband, with terms such as “thief’s woman”, “criminal’s woman”, “criminal’s wife”, “married the thief” and “elderly caregiver”, among other variants. In addition, she is also called “janta” (“dinner”), “ugly”, “opportunistic”, “hag”, “mistress”, “bitch” and “wako”. In Michelle’s case, misogynistic comments use expressions as “opportunistic”, “ugly”, “elderly caregiver”, and “weaken”.

In other cases, haters go even further and appeal to sexual harassment and sexual offenses, using explicit words and making sexual insinuations in relation to the women or to the couples’ sexual lives. 

On Instagram and Twitter, followers sexually harass postulants to First Lady

Blow it, she likes it

Licking her pussy to suck a bit more of public money

#handrailofbrasilia

Blow it, it’s free

Crazy to give her ass away

Users offend them with sexual insinuations about their husbands

Thief’s lover

She blows the worm

Imagine how disgusting, a woman subjecting herself to go to bed with the thief. God, how disgusting you are. Eek!

How are you getting along with having sex with your old and pretentious geezer? Disgusting!

Disgusting leftist bitch, go suck the filthy mollusk

On Twitter, religious intolerance is predominant

Besides misogyny, the amount of slurs recurring to religious intolerance or of accusations of corruption is noticeable. After the first round of elections, these topics became even more evident. It is worth remembering that religious prejudice and discrimination are considered crimes in Brazil and are liable to punishment with fines and one to three years of reclusion. 

Regarding Janja, who does not declare her religion publicly, the number of attacks has increased after the first round, especially when religious issues were highlighted, both on Lula’s and Bolsonaro’s campaigns. If, before the first round, 12% of the mentions analyzed on Twitter were offensive, in the following week, this number raised to 27%.

Following this movement, the use of offensive words related to religious intolerance also surged. In the first week monitored by the study, 3% of the attacks referred to religion. In the second, this kind of attacks was eight times more frequent, reaching a quarter of the total offensive tweets. On Twitter, 125 posts have offensive words about religion, including “macumbeira”, “Pombagira”, “satanist”, “fake Christian” and “demon”. Michelle, who does not have a Twitter profile, received 11 religious offenses on Instagram throughout the observed period.

The use of expressions relating to Candomblé and Umbanda (two Brazilian religions of African origin) to refer to someone with political visibility may bring a tone of negativity and accusation, according to Jacqueline Moraes Teixeira, anthropologist and professor at the Sociology Department of University of Brasília. She highlights the bias associated to terms such as “macumbeira”: “Many people think about macumba as something practiced to do harm. And, in the case of Pombagira, they interpret it as someone who is hypersexual, relating it to morality, to the excessive sexualization of innocents. In this context we’re living, this leads to judgment and dehumanization of people who practice these religions”.

Profile of attacks to Janja da Silva on Twitter

*Between 09/26 and 10/09/2022

Out of 3025 analyzes tweets, 614 are offensive (20.3%)

71 offensive words in two weeks

Misogyny, religious intolerance and insults are the three main kinds of attacks

16.8% of the offensive words involve religion

Main offensive words

Macumbeira

Ugly

Thief

Dinner

Thief’s wife

Pombagira

Disgusting

Ridiculous

Criminal

Crook

Deadbeat

On Twitter: more offenses to Janja after the first round

Number of offensive tweets

8x more religious intolerance tweets in the first week after the first round

On Twitter: offenses after and before the first round

Misogyny

Religious ideology

Insult

Moral offense

Debasement

Disgust

Other kinds

The category ‘other kinds’ includes ageism, dehumanization, sexual offense/harassment, political ideology, ableism/psychophobia and intellectual discrediting 

In order to analyze the posts, MonitorA’s methodology establishes an objective difference between insults – publications that are harsher than mere criticism, but that cannot be considered political violence – and attacks – which, in our understanding, should be removed from the platforms for attempting against human rights. 

In this sense, particularly on Twitter, Janja is frequently insulted (on 17% of the tweets) by terms as “ridiculous”, “pathetic”, “hypocrite”, “crook”, “liar” and “fake”; and she receives moral offenses (12%) as “thief”, “deadbeat”, “corrupt”, “pothead” and “immoral”. In a smaller number, there are offenses related to debasement, disgust, ageism, dehumanization, sexual offense/harassment, political ideology, ableism/psychophobia and intellectual discrediting.

Among the posts observed on Twitter, all directed to Janja, the topic “corruption” was discussed on almost half the publications (1,460 tweets, or 48%). When this topic is the central narrative, Lula is attacked or offended on 72% of the tweets quoting his wife, while Bolsonaro is attacked or offended on less than 3% of them. “The wives are included on the electoral campaigns to add on to the political and ideological proposals of their husbands and, consequently, end up also becoming targets of criticism and attacks. These attacks assume forms of gender violence in order to somehow undermine their husbands’ “masculine honor”. Attacking the wives also means attacking the candidates themselves, the wives’ profiles are a door to these attacks”, explains the historian Dayanny Deise Leite Rodrigues.

On Instagram, religion and morality

While the number of comments on Janja’s Instagram posts dropped right after the first round, comments on Michelle’s posts almost doubled in number. Although Jana received fewer interactions than Michelle, the proportion of offenses directed to her was larger.

On Instagram, corruption is the main narrative adopted by the public: the topic is mentioned on 593 comments, 518 of which on posts from Michelle Bolsonaro. Almost 80% of them do not attack the current first lady. One out of four comments about corruption on her posts, however, attack or offend Lula, and 17% compliment or support Jair Bolsonaro. Only 5% of the comments about corruption on Michelle’s posts contain attacks and offenses to the current president.

Besides being the main topic debated by users, corruption also leads to the offenses against the current first lady. More than half the attacks targeting her are moral offenses with accusations of corruption. The term “Micheck” appears 143 times, but she is also accused of being a “thief”, “corrupt” and “drug dealer”.

“It is important to say that the attacks to both are related to controversial issues that have occupied the news recently. But, while Michelle is called “Micheck” in reference to a fact about herself – the case of “rachadinhas”, a corruption scheme involving Bolsonaro’s sons and their staff –, the accusations to Janja are, in fact, against her husband. In our analysis, there aren’t any cases referring to Janja’s political life before her wedding”, states Fernanda K. Martins, director at InternetLab and one of the research leaders.

Profile of attacks against Michelle Bolsonaro on Instagram

Between 09/26 and 10/09/2022

Out of 3483 comments, 230 contain offenses (7.8%)

273 offensive words in two weeks

Moral offenses, insults and misogyny are the three main kinds of attacks

56% of the offensive words are related to corruption

Main offensive words

Micheck

Hypocrite

Ridiculous

Go fuck yourself

Cry

Liar

Opportunistic

Hell

Disgusting

You’re a shame

On Instagram: more offenses to Michelle before the first round

Number of offenses dropped by half in the first week after the first round

Moral offense

Insult

Misogyny

Debasement

Religious ideology

Sexual offense/harassment

Other kinds

The category ‘other kinds’ includes ageism, dehumanization, disgust, political ideology, ableism/psychophobia and intellectual discrediting. 

Other frequent forms of hostility to the First Lady are insults (16%), with hostile comments and expressions such as “ridiculous”, “pathetic”, “hypocrite”, “liar” and “go fuck yourself”.

Attacks and insults related to debasement, religious intolerance, sexual harassment or offense, intellectual discrediting, disgust and ableism/psychophobia were less frequent, but were also registered.

 “We knew from the beginning of the campaign that the presence of Janja and Michelle would be fundamental to the development of the elections, but we were surprised to realize that the level of aggressions to Janja increased after the first round, and that, on the social media in which both have accounts (Instagram), the number of attacks to Janja were proportionally larger. Maybe this allows us to assume that, on Instagram, insults and attacks come mainly from Bolsonaro’s supporters”, Martins adds.

Influence of the religious debate

Aside from being one of the main motivations to the attacks to Janja da Silva, the debate about faith and beliefs was central to the elections, and marked both campaigns differently.

On Instagram, almost 500 comments refer to religious narratives (13%), and there is hardly any offense to her. On Twitter, among the 280 comments about this topic directed to Janja, almost half use religion to attack her (132 tweets, or 47%).

According to Rodrigues, the use of religious topics to polarize the political debate is not new: “Religion is one of the aspects in which the private sphere invades the public sphere, and, sometimes, it even overtakes democratic institutions of secular countries in the name of a religious agenda. The wife, likewise, historically belongs in the private sphere. So, the use of faith to attack the wife is common, so that it may ‘spill’ on the man”, the historian explains.

Specifically in these elections, campaigns have manipulated different religious elements to convince catholic and evangelic voters. While Janja has traveled to Belém to attend Círio de Nazaré (a popular religious festivity), Michelle has changed her looks to reinforce and aesthetic associated to evangelic women. “To Michelle, religion is a defense tool, and even her clothes state that – skirt below the knee, high neckline, her hairstyle changed. Bolsonaro is older than her, so, she can’t present an image of joviality. To Janja, however, it’s a matter of attack, precisely because she is a counterpoint to what Michelle has in excess”, Rodrigues explains.

According to Jacqueline Teixeira, the social places occupied by religions in Brazil also contribute to this effect: because of the historical references about “the position of religion on the construction of political profiles with ethical sense to deal with politics, African religions are still marginalized”. That means the religious speeches against Janja are read as something acceptable. On parallel, Michelle Bolsonaro’s repeated stance on being “terribly evangelical” grants her “protection from this ethical violence, since everything about her public image creates a sense of protection and care”.

Centrality of the spouses in the campaign

Gender discussions are central to 2022’s electoral campaign. The feminine electorate is targeted by both candidates on the second round and may be decisive to next Sunday’s results. Exploring the spouses’ images is one of the strategies used by both candidates to reach women voters, granting them protagonism on the electoral run.

Janja has started gaining projection even before the wedding, when she actively participated of the movement Lula Livre, a permanent demonstration of support to the former president that took place in the city of Curitiba, where he was held prisoner. Michelle appears as an important electoral arm for Bolsonaro to communicate with women and evangelic voters, but also as a conflict manager, according to the historian: “The movement is always the same: the president says some nonsense or verbally aggresses a woman, and the first lady appears right after to ease the situation, to say ‘that’s how he is’, and to testify that he is an excellent father and husband”, Rodrigues comments. 

“‘First-ladism’ was defined as a political phenomenon, characterized by a group of practices taken by the wives of governors. It can be understood as a strategy in which the first ladies seek to legitimize the ideology or the political project of their husband, but also as tactics.”

Dayanny Deise Leite Rodrigues, in her PhD thesis

Throughout the history of the Brazilian Republic, other candidates’ spouses have contributed to bring integrity and to testify to the character and religion of the husbands, according to Rodrigues, who developed her doctoral research around the concept of “first-ladism”.

She argues that, although there have been first ladies in the country who merely played a supporting role, for at least half a century now spouses of presidents have found breeches to develop activities beyond the traditional role. Darcy Vargas, Sarah Kubitschek, Rosane Malta, Ruth Cardoso and Marisa da Silva are a few examples of women who have been protagonists, but whose work has been shadowed by their husbands. 

Although Darcy Vargas’ social assistance agenda is widely associated to the role of first lady, for many years now this agenda has been expanded. “They now have the women’s public to communicate with, we are more than 50% of the voters. Who started this movement was Ruth Cardoso, by breaking apart with the model of a charitable first-ladism and setting a new one. Many social inclusion policies since FHC’s government have Mrs. Cardoso as an intellectual mentor: she’s considered the founder of urban anthropology in Brazil, she was a professor at USP, but she didn’t gain visibility because she was a first lady”.

Likewise, Lula’s first spouse, Marisa Letícia, and, more recently, Michelle Bolsonaro, sought to disconnect the image of first lady from the coordination of social assistance initiatives.

Relating to Michelle, her main agenda is of physical and intellectual disabilities, around which there is a lot of controversy and rejection from the fields of persons with disabilities. Rodrigues sees these acts as a movement that is not bound to recede: “It’s no longer possible to leave women off the spotlight. If they weren’t there before, it’s not because they didn’t want to be protagonists, but because society placed them elsewhere”, she concludes.

Methodology

Janja da Silva, married to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT), has 367,8 thousand followers on Twitter. On Instagram, she has 343 thousand followers, while Michelle Bolsonaro, married to Jair Bolsonaro, has 4,4 million followers on the platform.

Between 26/09 and 09/10, MonitorA collected 38.017 tweets mentioning Janja. On Instagram, 30.596 comments on Janja’s account were collected, as well as 239.108 comments on Michelle Bolsonaro’s account. After selecting potentially offensive posts – that is, the ones containing at least one of the terms listed on MonitorA’s lexicon – we were left with 3.025 tweets and 305 comments about Janja, and 3.178 comments about Michelle. These interactions, in a total of 6.498, were analyzed one by one. At the end of the analysis, 1.078 offensive words were found – 799 to Janja and 273 to Michelle.