Women Resignation In Japan Sets Back Gender Equality In Power

Just last fall, it seemed that Japan was starting to shake off its legacy as a country with a poor record of putting women in political power. In the space of less than two months, three women had assumed high-ranking posts, poking a few more holes in the glass ceiling.
But in the space of two days last week, two of those women resigned their positions, inevitably raising questions about the challenges to female leadership in a country where Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has repeatedly talked of creating a society in which “women can shine.”

On Thursday, Renho Murata, the first woman to lead the opposition Democratic Party, stepped down in the wake of a crushing defeat in local Tokyo elections this month. And on Friday, Tomomi Inada, the embattled defense minister, resigned to take responsibility for a controversy about the dangers faced by Japanese soldiers in a United Nations peacekeeping mission in South Sudan.

Both women stepped down for reasons that had little to do with gender. Yet in a country that scores abysmally in global measures of gender equality and has experienced false hopes of change in the past, these women’s departures are seen as a setback.

“There are just not that many of them,” said Sheila A. Smith, a Japan expert at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, referring to high-ranking women in politics. “So when a couple of them go conspicuously and simultaneously, it’s just a reminder that there is not a lot of female talent in Japan.”

Most analysts agreed that it was time for Ms. Inada to resign. She had been ensnared in other scandals involving the prime minister and committed numerous gaffes as defense minister.

Mr. Abe, who had been grooming her as a possible successor, had protected her on several occasions, answering questions that she fumbled in Parliament and as recently as last week standing behind her denial of any involvement in a cover-up of records about South Sudan. But with Mr. Abe’s own popularity tumbling in opinion polls, the Japanese news media had widely reported that he would replace Ms. Inada in a cabinet reshuffle, expected next week.

Still, sexism could have played a part, in that women in leadership positions face such high expectations. “Men get nurtured and put in experiences where they can gain ability,” Ms. Smith said. “They don’t get plopped in the spotlight where they are expected to succeed, and now it’s ‘ah, ha, ha, she’s a woman’” who has failed.
There was more overt sexism as well. In the press and on social media, critics commented on Ms. Inada’s fashion sense, criticizing her fishnet stockings, her glasses and her nails.

Ms. Murata was also subjected to attacks about her heritage. Born of a Japanese mother and Taiwanese father, she had kept dual citizenship — inadvertently, she said — until last year. But critics insisted she prove that she had renounced Taiwanese citizenship. Last week she released parts of her family registry showing her sole Japanese citizenship.

source:http://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/28/world/asia/japan-women-politics-inada-murata.html