Harassment of female candidates a growing issue in Japanese politics

In 2019, Aiko Usui was 28 years old and running for a seat in a ward assembly election in Tokyo. But instead of being treated as an aspiring politician by some of the voters she was canvassing, she instead felt like a pop idol being targeted for abuse.

During one rally, a man approached her several times to touch her arms while shaking her hands. Another man followed Usui around as she made stump speeches across town and then sent her photos of herself via Instagram with messages such as “I wish I could come closer to you” and “I think a ponytail hairstyle would look really good on you.”

Many others wanted her autograph or bluntly asked: “Do you have a boyfriend? Are you married?”

To top it off, one day when she was canvassing in front of a train station, an older man who appeared to be drunk shouted a sexual slur at her, drawing laughter from the mostly male crowd.

“I know that every candidate, man or woman, gets some boos and jeers during their campaign,” said Usui, now a 31-year-old member of the Kita Ward Assembly in Tokyo. “But when you are a woman, there’s an extra layer of harassment you must endure. I couldn't speak against it back then, as I was so unsure of my chance of winning and was desperate to get every vote I could."

In Sunday’s Upper House election, a record 181 women are running for 125 seats. Female candidates account for 33.2% of the total, meaning that the government target of bringing the percentage of women vying for Diet seats up to 35% by 2025 is within sight.

But the nation has only recently come to grips with election-related harassment, experts say, noting that unless the problem is eradicated, it will be difficult to convince more women to become involved in politics.

It's no secret that Japan lags far behind other developed countries when it comes to female participation in politics. Women currently make up less than 15% of lawmakers at both the local and national level, and in the most recent gender gap index report released by the World Economic Forum in 2021, Japan ranked 120th overall and 147th in political empowerment out of 156 countries surveyed.

According to a 2021 Cabinet Office survey, out of 5,513 local assembly members and 994 people who considered running for office but gave up halfway through, 65.5% of female respondents said they had experienced some form of harassment from voters and other people, compared with 58% of the male respondents. The top three complaints from female respondents were: disrespectful attitudes and remarks toward them because of their gender; online and email harassment, including slander; and slurs based on their age, marital status and other private aspects of their life.

Such harassment has long been considered an unavoidable “cost” that women must bear to enter politics, says Mari Hamada, a researcher at Ochanomizu University who specializes in this issue.

Since 2019, Hamada has interviewed over 60 female lawmakers, most of whom are members of local assemblies. She says that abusive acts are often hidden from public view, because they occur in the form of emails or one-on-one messages on social media.

Hamada says that local politicians tend to be exposed to more abuse than members of the national parliament, who are given more resources for support, such as a tax-funded system that allows them to hire up to three secretaries. In contrast, many local politicians and political candidates are left on their own, often having to rely on unpaid volunteers during campaigns and other activities.

But that doesn't mean harassment stops at the local level.

In 2014, Upper House member Ayaka Shiomura made headlines when she — then a member of the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly — was subjected to sexist heckling during an assembly debate on child-rearing support policy.

As she spoke, some of her male colleagues remarked aloud “Why don’t you get married?” and “Are you unable to have a baby?”

Shiomura, who went on to become an Upper House member, faced another episode of abuse in October 2019, this time while on the street making a speech. “Today, a man who appeared to be in his 60s tried to provoke me,” she tweeted. “As he left, he touched my breasts.” Another politician and her secretary cut in to stop it, but the incident caught her off guard, leaving her with no time to react, she said.

Yet many female politicians and political candidates shy away from going public with even the most egregious acts of abuse. According to Hamada, they avoid addressing it for several reasons. For one, they fear being victimized further or becoming a target for retaliation if they confront constituents and other supporters. They also worry that if they make harassment claims, they might be considered too thin-skinned to be a politician, she says. Furthermore, they are bound by the notion that politicians are public figures and therefore should surrender at least part of their privacy.

And lastly, Hamada says, female politicians feel pressured to grin and bear it and play along with the gender-based expectations that women should stay above the fray.

“Many of them feel they shouldn’t get angry or complain because they are told (by other politicians and supporters) that female politicians should keep smiling.”

Sawako Naito, the 38-year-old mayor of the city of Tokushima, says she has also experienced harassment — sexual and otherwise — since her mayoral race two years ago. Born the daughter of a local iron factory owner and educated at the University of Tokyo, she was new to politics. During the campaign, she recalls being physically touched on her thigh by a male supporter, and she was even advised that to win as many votes as possible, she should hold the hands of male voters and bring them close to her chest.

She adds that much of a smear campaign against her, ostensibly from her older male political opponent, was tinged with sexual overtones.

“When I gained a bit of weight, I was rumored to be pregnant with a child of the Tokushima governor,” she said. “Groundless gossip also went around saying I was having affairs with the governor and his son at the same time.”

To fight against the toxic culture surrounding Japan's politics, it will take a dramatic uptick in the number of female politicians and a track record of women serving in political office over a long period, says Naito, who in 2020 at the age of 36, became the youngest woman ever to head a city in Japan.

She cited the example of the city of Amagasaki, Hyogo Prefecture, where the present mayor is in her third term, having succeeded another female mayor who had served two terms since 2002.

“If women exceed 30% of all politicians, the problem (they face) will become more widely recognized,” she said. “And when children grow up seeing women serving as mayors for 20 years in their city, they may even start to think that being mayor is a woman's job.”

Changes are afoot, albeit slowly. The Cabinet Office’s gender equality bureau in April released a video re-enacting scenes of harassment young politicians encounter while campaigning and after taking office. The video, based on real-life experiences from lawmakers, is intended to correct the attitudes of older incumbent politicians. In June, the Fukuoka Prefectural Assembly passed an ordinance aimed at preventing harassment against not only politicians but also candidates running for assembly elections, their secretaries and staff.

Hamada has recently set up a volunteer group, called Stand by Women, to protect female lawmakers from online harassment. All-women volunteers work in a team of four to assist a lawmaker and offer consultations and technical advice, using online tools such as Block Party. The app allows Twitter users to filter out unwanted or abusive comments and let others they trust view — and take action against — blocked messages.

Hamada says it’s crucial to build a community of support around female lawmakers and aspiring politicians, noting that she wants to help more women participate as campaign volunteers.

“Most of the volunteers at present are male, making it hard for women to take part in politics even as volunteers,” she said. “By nurturing female volunteers, we would like to make the campaign environment safer and more welcoming for female candidates.”