Short answer
No detectable difference once party and position are taken into account. Pooled, women's pages drew about half the share of angry reactions that men's did, but that reflects which parties they lead.
What the evidence shows
- The study uses 125,056 posts from 74 party leaders and leading politicians, 17 of them women, in 15 European countries between March 2016 and September 2020. Pooled, 2.8% of reactions on women's pages were Angry, against 5.8% on men's.
- The angriest pages belonged to men leading opposition parties of the radical right and left.
- Comparing women and men in the same country and month, with the same party family and the same position in or out of government, there was no detectable difference in the share of Love, Angry, Haha, Sad or Wow reactions, in comments or shares, or in interactions per post.
- There are hints, resting on few pages, that women whose parties were in government drew less Love and more laughter.
Caveats
With 17 women's pages the data cannot rule out gaps of one or two points. Reactions are also not comments: hostility may come in words rather than emoji.