politics

Japan ruling party urges for more women at meetings- unless they speak

Japan- As soon as Sexism sparked by Tokyo Olympics chief’s mentioned that women talks excessively at meetings. Japan’s ruling party is eager to have women at key meetings only if they don’t speak.

Even the ruling Liberal Democratic Party has proposed that a new plan permits the five female lawmakers to join the party’s key meetings as an observer.

On Tuesday, the party’s 82-year-old secretary general, Toshihiro Nikai has mentioned that he heard criticism that the party’s board is male-dominated. He added that the board members are elected. He also mentioned that it is important for the party’s female members to “look” at the party’s decision-making process.

Late on Tuesday, Nikai exclaimed in a news conference, “It is important to fully understand what kind of discussions are happening. Take a look, is what it is about.”

Nikkie even mentioned that those female observers can’t talk in the meeting, but they can submit opinions separately to the secretariat office.

The head of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic organizing committee, Yoshiro Mori has resigned in the last week after derogatory comments about women speaking excess in meetings. Well, the 83-year old former prime minister’s remarks are the biggest examples of how deep-rooted sexism is in Japanese society.

Out of 153 countries on the World Economic Forum’s 2020 Global Gender Gap Index, Japan ranked 121st. It is one of the worst ranking gaps seen among the advanced countries.  It is scoring poorly on women’s economic participation and political empowerment.

This week, even a group of female lawmakers at the Liberal Democratic Party has asked Nikai for enhancing the ratio of women in key posts at the party. But requires female observers at the meeting to remain quiet which has dragged the criticism that the party is out of touch.

The opposition lawmaker has mocked it as a field trip. On the other hand, the Twitter user mentioned that the party’s male-centric view has not changed from the Mori controversy.

Belinda Wheaton, a cultural sociologist at the University of Waikato in New Zealand, told Reuters, “People will just put women on them as a kind of PR exercise.” Also added, “I think it’s probably time to be asking questions as to why it is that we feel that men in their 70s or 80s can fulfill these roles better versus a man in their 40s or 50s, or a woman.”

By making the rounds on social media were comments by Kengo Sakurada, head of a powerful Japanese business lobby, who said Japan’s glass ceiling was “partly women’s fault.”

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