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A man's world: Japan makes tepid push on gender gap in politics as election nears

19 Comments
By Kaori Kaneko, Tim Kelly and Irene Wang

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19 Comments
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Who in their right mind would want to be a politician?

Statistically, more men are invested in politics than women, and thus the rate of women in any position is low too.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

As with most things in Japan change takes time. I think it is better compared to, say, 40 or 50 years ago. Another 400-500 years and Japan will have caught up to Europe and the US.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

There are eleven of them, apparently, you'd think one of them had something to say.

I am happy you are aware of this. I do this pretty often and I am pretty used to this now, Simon. It is a recurring pattern. There doesn't seem to be any courage of convictions but it conforms to the passive-aggressive current of the people in general.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

Give me the old misogynistic men in parliament any day, say the forever voters in Japan.

-3 ( +0 / -3 )

there are no laws prohibiting women from running for office.

when more women run, more will be elected.

3 ( +3 / -0 )

if you're a woman worth voting for you wouldn't be running for the LDP!

0 ( +1 / -1 )

It boggles my mind that either they do not step up or are not allowed to.

One reason might be that they want to keep men out of the house for as long as possible.

-3 ( +0 / -3 )

Many people are not interested in politics. Is it possible that even fewer women than men have political ambitions? Is every discrepancy in representation a result of discrimination? Some 36% of Japanese men have male pattern baldness? Is this equitably reflected in our politicians? Why the discrimination against baldness?!? Perhaps we need bolder action, such as a quota system.

0 ( +2 / -2 )

What astounds me most in this scenario is the incredible capability, competentcy of 'ordinary' Japanese women I have known in Japan. Even without political experience/training, I believe they could easily serve in any administration. It boggles my mind that either they do not step up or are not allowed to.

4 ( +4 / -0 )

So embarrassing for Japan! Get some self respect and start accepting that the ladies are just as good as the men!

or....

So embarrassing for Japan! Get some self respect and start accepting that the ladies are just as bad as the men!

-4 ( +3 / -7 )

So embarrassing for Japan! Get some self respect and start accepting that the ladies are just as good as the men!

-1 ( +5 / -6 )

Why is the west (WEF, international agencies et al especially) hell bent on getting Japan to change? They also want Japan to go full woke and embrace immigration too.

Japan: don't.

-5 ( +1 / -6 )

MoonrakerToday  05:10 pm JST

Has it really though? Let's hear from some of those silent downvoter types who don't think so; perhaps even that the world should keep its nose out of Japanese ways.

There are eleven of them, apparently, you'd think one of them had something to say.

-3 ( +2 / -5 )

Who makes coffee and who carry heavy boxes at your workplace? There you go, the gender issues!

-2 ( +5 / -7 )

Japan's perennial gender gap problem has become a source of international embarrassment.

I’m not surprised about this,Japan is unwilling to make changes in improving women/human/animal rights and this is part of it’s declining.

-10 ( +5 / -15 )

From the article:

While surveys show societal attitudes towards women in Japan are a barrier…

Translation: The majority of society subscribes to traditional gender roles.

some also say the ruling LDP … is not serious about shrinking the gender gap in lawmakers, citing its failure to implement bolder measures.

And why should the LDP “implement bolder measures”? The desired “bolder measures” run counter to the society at large which majorly subscribes to traditional gender roles.

[Japan] ranked 118 out of 146 countries in this year's World Economic Forum gender gap report.

Is the argument of the article then that the LDP should “implement bolder measures” contrary to the sensibilities of the society at large because Japan is ranked low by some globalist organization?

I image so considering how one of its members, Larry Fink ( https://www.weforum.org/agenda/authors/larry-fink/ ), is on record saying with respect to management at his company BlackRock “You have to force behaviors. If you don’t force behaviors, whether it’s gender or race or just any way you want to say the composition of your team, you're going to be impacted… We’re gonna have to force change” ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTDdDgr-xYo ). Perhaps this is the ideal type of global governance which the WEF would like to see more of, but those who care about democracy would rather not see anything close to such measures from the government as it amounts to social engineering of the population to be good globalists.

4 ( +9 / -5 )

Yes, the gender gap in Japan is being commented on by a number of international organizations so I think it's definitely giving Japan some negative attention. Surprisingly, my district has not only a woman incumbent running for the LDP but she's half Uyghur.

6 ( +7 / -1 )

Japan's perennial gender gap problem has become a source of international embarrassment.

Has it really though? Let's hear from some of those silent downvoter types who don't think so; perhaps even that the world should keep its nose out of Japanese ways.

-8 ( +7 / -15 )

The fastest way to implement this is for female voters to not vote LDP and instead vote for the other parties. They'll get the message.

fwiw, I don't think Ishin are big on issues like different surnames for couples, so an anti-LDP vote for them may not be especially "pro-woman".

6 ( +12 / -6 )

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