It is not known whether the leaders of the Japanese Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) are familiar with the fundamentals of the Christian religion that is alien to them – and, in particular, with the Bible, which contains a very controversial phrase in the First Epistle to the Corinthians: “Let your wives be silent in the churches, for they are not allowed to speak. ” But the rules for holding meetings of the governing body of this ruling party seem to be based to a certain extent on the postulate mentioned above.
LDP General Secretary Toshihiro Nikai recently announced that women members of parliament will be allowed to attend meetings of the party’s majority-male steering committee, but they should express their views on the issues discussed at these meetings only in writing and only after the meeting.
The LDP has been the ruling party for 60 of the 66 years of independent Japan’s postwar history. The 12-member steering committee of the party has only two women, while the general council has only three women out of 25. There are only 10% of women in the House of Representatives of the Japanese Parliament.
The statement of the LDP secretary general drew criticism from the liberal media, which called him “discriminatory” and “suffering from social deafness.” The writer Mieko Kawakami noted that Nikai’s remarks show the inability of the party leadership to grasp the concept of gender equality. “In their view, men will take care of women as long as women do not threaten their careers and leave their ranks,” said Kawakami. “In Japan, women will always be considered second-class citizens.”
The chairman of the Tokyo Organizing Olympic Committee, Yoshiro Mori, a former prime minister of the country, recently resigned. The reason for the scandal was a statement by Mori, in which he allowed an increase in the number of women on the board of directors of the committee on the condition that “the time allotted for their speeches will be limited in a certain way.”
Newspaper headline:
Patriarchy in Japanese