Womanhood in Japan (September 2023)

“Womanhood in Japan” series column rounds up Japanese news related to women’s daily experiences of sexism here and considers what we can do to increase the pace of change.

Kishida’s ministerial reshuffle thwarts the future of female leadership

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida reshuffled his cabinet in mid-September, boosting the number of women in it to a record-tying number of five out of a total of 19 ministers, up from just two women in his previous cabinet. While it is an improvement, this 26% ratio for female ministers puts Japan well behind the typical ratio for G7 countries of more than 33%.

The increase was widely perceived as an attempt by Kishida to increase his government’s flagging popularity ahead of an election he needs to call before the current lower house term expires in October 2025. Sadly, consequent developments suggested the change was indeed just such a ploy rather than a sincere endeavor to increase gender equality.

Most shocking of all was the revelation that for the first time since the current system of senior vice ministers and parliamentary vice ministers began in 2001, no women were selected for any of those 54 posts. Dismal photos of the two all-male groups can be seen on the Tokyo Shimbun website.

The newspaper reported that even members of Kishida’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party were critical of the outcome. Not only does it fly in the face of the government’s own purported goal of having women in at least 30% of leadership positions “as early as possible during the 2020s,” not nurturing women’s abilities by keeping them out of key roles thwarts the potential for future appointments of women to top jobs.

This lack of diversity also questions the sincerity behind justifications of comments made by Kishida about newly appointed female ministers that were widely criticized on social media. In a press conference after the reshuffle, when asked what he expects from the five female ministers, Kishida said he hoped they would “make the most of their female sensibilities.”

Renho Saito, an upper house member of the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, posted that “the prime minister would not ask male ministers to utilize their unique male sense, and that there is a persisting idea that ‘women form a special category,’” the newspaper reported.

Kishida’s comments about the newly appointed Reconstruction Minister, Shinako Tsuchiya, were also criticized. He said of her, “I expect her to make the most of her unique female perspective and to exercise her skills in reconstruction measures that take into account the feelings of the disaster-stricken areas.”

In response, Tsuchiya said, “As a member of the Diet myself, who has competed in a single-seat constituency, I do not feel any special sense of gender. I want to work hard as the minister of reconstruction.”

What to do? Well, use your vote in politics, and in daily life use your voice, as Minister Tsuchiya did, to calmly call it out when gender or another factor (race, age, religion, etc.) is used to define—and confine—a person and their potential. Remember that these definitions limit both sides of a delineation, both men and women.

Could gender imbalance at Japan’s top university ever be “nothing to worry about?”

Speaking of nurturing women into future key political roles, the University of Tokyo, which is considered to be Japan’s top educational institution, is the leading source of graduates who go on to become elite bureaucrats and enact the politics of Japan.

Much ado is made of a Tokyo University education.

For a decade, the university has been working to raise the ratio of female undergraduate students above 20%, which was seen as an initial breakthrough point. It achieved that last year, with 20.1%. The ratio of female professors was 9.2% and associate professors was 15.5% for 2022. The university is planning to hire 300 more women in these roles by fiscal 2027 and is still aiming to increase female student numbers.

Why? To achieve equality and to “create an inclusive campus where every member can perform to their full potential,” and because diversity among teaching staff is essential to maintaining a global top-level of research, the university says.

Despite the considerable effort and concern Tokyo University is expending over this issue, the Nikkei Asia ran an opinion article this month titled, “Sex imbalance at Japan’s top university is nothing to worry about.” It’s an interesting exercise in using the social characteristics that have molded Japan and its education system to claim that the status quo is perfectly fine.

As suggested by the subtitle, “Paucity of women at University of Tokyo is result of student preference,” the article suggests that because women have found a path that works best for them within the current system, that justifies not fully opening the path of greatest “success” and social influence (a.k.a., a Tokyo University education) to them. The writer says that because female students have chosen to attend other universities to avoid the heavily male aura of Tokyo University, all is fine. Because it is their “choice.”

What’s most interesting about looking at the factors that in effect remove Tokyo University as an option for young women is how closely they may align with factors behind gender inequality in the broader Japanese society.

On the university’s website, Executive Vice President, Kaori Hayashi, references the low numbers of female staff and students saying, “I attribute this to multiple causes, including the scarcity of female role models, stereotyped perception of gender roles, and the failure to encourage leadership among women. There are other factors such as social perception and images people have about this university.”

Both the opinion piece and Tokyo University make it clear that the academic ability of women is not an issue. The success rate of applications to the university are about the same for men and for women. The problem is that few women apply to Tokyo University.

Originally, education beyond elementary school was only for men. The University of Tokyo was originally male only, and most of the elite high schools known for providing many of the university’s students are still boys only.

Tokyo University opened its doors to women in 1946.

In the old days, when women had little opportunity to apply their educations and were instead relegated to the home, educating girls was seen as unnecessary. There are still grandparents today who say sending a girl to university would “waste” that education. This idea was central to the discovery a few years ago that a number of medical universities here were systematically tampering with the scores of entrance exams to disadvantage female applicants.

Feminist and former Tokyo University professor Chizuko Ueno cites this kind of discouragement of girls toward going to higher education as a factor dissuading women from the university. She also cites the commonly voiced myth that female graduates from Tokyo University will have trouble finding a husband. She connects that to a society in which men want to keep women subservient and maintain a culture in which men play the lead and women the supporting roles to them. Some men, she says, can’t handle being with a female graduate from Tokyo University, unless they are too, because it immediately brands her as superior to him.

A more modern expression of this idea that a Tokyo University education is a burden to a woman is that, as current female students explain, while a man entering the university is admired for that achievement, a woman doing the same thing experiences othering. This builds on an image of the university, which television shows particularly foment, of it being an elevated place only for the truly intellectually gifted, and usually for men.

A woman’s path through a Tokyo University education can be a lonely and isolating one. That is why, the opinion writer says, women choose different universities. But he is wrong in characterizing that as a voluntary choice. He is also wrong in his presumption that the division by gender commonly seen when groups socialize in Japan is “perfectly normal.”

Women separate themselves from men so that they are not pushed into the subservient role of waiting on men. They are protecting themselves from a hostile and degrading environment. Female universities students are doing that too, but rather than sacrificing the future not only of women, but of Japan, instead, let’s change that environment. That is what the University of Tokyo is doing. And slowly, very slowly, it seems to be working. Now, if the Japanese government could do similarly, and create quotas for positions within it, the nation may yet have a future that maintains its current global level.

Let’s not fit ourselves into the world as it is, but change the world into the one that we want to live in.

Women become rickshaw drivers

Reuters this month shared a beautiful photo-essay about women who have newly joined the ranks of rickshaw pullers in Tokyo. The women occasionally face sexual harassment or have their knowledge challenged by male customers, but they are generally being welcomed, the article says.

The president of the rickshaw company says he wants “to create a place where women feel comfortable to work and play an active role.”

Womanhood in Japan series