Japanese women shocked to learn it is still 1950

Feb 08, 2021 | News On Japan

Feb 08, 2021 (Nikkei) - Anyone wondering how, oh how, Japan could trail the United Arab Emirates, Benin and Timor-Leste in gender equality has never met Yoshiro Mori.

The Tokyo Olympic organizing committee that the former prime minister is chairing was already under fire for trying to stage a giant in-person event during a pandemic. Now it faces a fresh backlash after Mori, 83, complained that meetings with women "take so much time" because they talk too much.

It is classic Mori-being-Mori. Though his 2000-2001 premiership was as unpopular as they come, misogyny kept him in the national news stream. In a 2009 contest to keep his parliament seat, for example, Mori said his female opponent "was picked only because she is young and has a nice body." He warned voters not to be entranced by her "sexiness."

The fact Mori won that race -- and myriad others -- still boggles the minds of feminists. That he is now keeping his Olympics gig -- or ever got it at all -- speaks to the durability of the patriarchy. In Tokyo, sadly, sexist barbs by top officials are old hat.

This latest dust-up, though, dramatizes why Japan often seems to move backward. In 2020 alone, Tokyo plummeted 20 rungs to 121st place in World Economic Forum's gender-empowerment index. That puts a Group of Seven power 15 places behind China, 74 behind Zimbabwe and 105 places behind the Philippines.

In top-down, change-averse Japan, the government deserves considerable blame. Mori, after all, is not even Tokyo's most senior or prolific gender-gaffer. If there were a gold medal for offending the female half of Japan's 126 million people it would easily go to Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso.

Over the years, Aso, also a former prime minister, downplayed sexual harassment, chided women for not having kids, suggested lawmakers could learn from the Nazis, gushed about Japan being a single-race nation and so on. And yet, far from being sacked, Aso has been Japan's finance minister since 2012.

If you believe that personnel is policy, then Aso deserves considerable flak for Japan's female-empowerment backsliding. But it takes a village to create a divide holding back what is supposed to be an advanced, outward-facing economy. Yes, I am talking to you, members of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party.

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