Global headlines announced a tsunami that would devastate the musty patriarchal system: Japan I finally had a prime minister. It took Sanae Takaichi a few days to deny them. He elected two women to the 19 positions in his Cabinet despite having announced a “Nordic” proportion during the primaries. He had already warned feminism that Takaichi has broken the glass ceiling but it is not necessarily good news for the Japanese. If her colleagues from the Liberal Democratic Party (PLD) elected her, the hegemonic formation almost without pause since the Second World War, it was not to dynamit the structures, but to shore them up in the midst of the economic and geopolitical storm.
A look at the ranks of her party relieves her of guilt: there was not much to choose from either. Only 16% of the members of the Lower House are women. Also his predecessor, Shigeru Ishibanamed two. But the previous one, Fumio Kishidadealing with the same shortage, managed to make room for five. When Takaichi was asked about his broken promise, he claimed that he had prioritized “the equal opportunities” and “assigned the right people to the right positions.”
In Giorgia Melonithe Italian Prime Minister, nor Margaret Thatcherthe conservative icon Takaichi idolizes, will be remembered for their feminist contributions. The Japanese prime minister follows that path and it is revealing that she receives more support in polls from men than from women. His biography suggests a certain rebellion. As a young man he toured the country with a large displacement motorcycletouched the battery in a group heavy and even today, at 64 years old, he punishes the dishes to reduce tension. In his public life, however, he has not left the conservative rails of his party. He opposes gay marriage and defends the Salic law despite the disturbing shortage of males in the imperial family. Nor did he support the reform of a 19th century law that forces married couples to share the last name and that, in practice, means that 90% of wives give up theirs. In the elections, perhaps to water down the criticism, he proposed tax incentives to companies with childcare facilities and spoke of exemptions for families who spend on it to favor working women. It barely had an impact on them in a program dominated by the economy and national security.
Alignment with conservative interests
The political context conspires against Takaichi’s plans. His militarism, historical relativism about the atrocities of Japanese imperialism and hostility to immigrants They became indigestible to the Komeito party, its traditional centrist and Buddhist coalition partner. Needing votes for the investiture, Takaichi found them in Ishin, a conservative party in Osaka, which does not have social assistance or gender equality among its priorities.
“I am not optimistic about the impact of her policies on advancing women’s equality despite the impressive achievement of climbing the LDP’s hierarchical ladder as a woman. She did it aligning with the most conservative interests of the party, who are not socially progressive with women or minorities in Japan,” says Linda Hasunuma, a sociologist at Temple University (United States). The leading feminist in Japan, Chizuko Ueno, had already clarified on her social networks that Takaichi’s election did not make her “happy” and that she did not expect the Japanese political ecosystem to be “kinder” for women in the future. The British, she recalled, did not improve their presence in leadership positions after Thatcher either.
Takaichi is the political goddaughter of Shinzo Abethe assassinated prime minister and still the ideological compass of the PLD today. In the primaries he received the support of Taro Aso, a dinosaur who has made and broken the conservative party for decades. These are not signs that point to a revolution. Women earn 70% of men’s salaries for the same job and 60% abandon it after giving birth. Abe’s campaigns to push them into the labor market did not work, motivated less by egalitarian convictions than by the productive urgencies of an economy in crisis and with a dwindling workforce due to rapid aging. Japanese women are among the better educated y more qualified of the world but traditionalist impulses push them towards family roles.
Reconciliation policies
The West and logic suggest that economic development and gender equality go together. Japan, and also South Koreathey deny it in Asia. The world’s fourth-largest economy ranks 118th out of 148 in the World Economic Forum’s gender equality ranking and its presence in politics is the lowest among the G7 countries. Nor their reproductive rights They are admirable. Only last month did Japan approve the sale in pharmacies of the morning after contraceptive pillan emergency formula already in force in almost a hundred countries.
“I hope that her own path to power and her concerns about the lack of labor and low birth rates will push her to try to pass legislation that helps women care for their children. My hopes for progress are tempered by her hard line. She has not been a politician who has defended women,” Hasunuma adds. Takaichi has already announced that, as far as she is concerned, she will disregard any conciliation between family and work as prime minister. “I will work, I will work, I will work, I will work and I will work.”
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