A female Japanese politician has received about 8,000 emails containing death threats after proposing free sanitary pads in public toilets – a wave of online abuse that experts say reflects a deeper pattern of gender-based harassment aiming to silence outspoken women.
Ayaka Yoshida, a 27-year-old member of the Mie prefectural assembly and the Japanese Communist Party, sparked the backlash after posting on social media on March 25: “Like toilet paper, I want sanitary pads to be provided everywhere.”
The message quickly provoked angry responses, with one message sent to the secretariat of the Mie assembly stating, “At her age, she should know to carry emergency sanitary napkins.”
The responses soon became more threatening, however, with the assembly receiving nearly 8,000 emails – about one a minute for nearly four days from 8pm on March 28.
All the emails came from the same address and carried an identical message: “I will kill assembly member Ayaka Yoshida, who does not bring emergency napkins with her while being old enough to know better!” the Mainichi newspaper reported.
Speaking at a press conference on Monday, Yoshida said the threats had “the effect of intimidating me and suppressing my activities as a prefectural assembly member”. She also confirmed that she had filed an official complaint with local police and that an investigation was under way.
