Ayaka Shiomura: subjected to sexist jeers.
AFP/Tokyo
The Japanese government has called on Tokyo city council to “clean itself up” after sexist jeers hurled at an assemblywoman undermined its push to bring more women into the workforce.
Criticism from across the political spectrum was heaped upon still-unidentified city politicians from Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party, who unleashed the abuse during a city debate on child-rearing this week.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, the government’s top spokesman, cautioned that the incident in Tokyo’s metropolitan assembly had nothing to do with national politics.
But “if there were comments of a sexist nature, I would like the assembly to clean itself up”, he told a regular press briefing in Tokyo.
Health Minister Norihisa Tamura, whose portfolio includes the welfare of working women, said the comments were “not only deeply disrespectful to women, it was a major human rights issue”.
The comments came as opposition member Ayaka Shiomura, 35, called on her tormenters to make themselves known rather than waiting for them to be outed.
“That is simpler and might heal my heart a little,” she told reporters.
Shiomura, from the centre-right Your Party, was questioning senior figures in the city administration on plans to help current and future mothers when she faced shouts of “Why don’t you get married?” and “Are you not able to have a baby?”
Shiomura was calling for more support for women who are considering fertility treatment.
She and her allies told local media that the widely-reported heckling came from an area occupied by local members of Abe’s ruling LDP.
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal yesterday, Shiomura said her “head went blank” when the abuse started.
“It was such an old-fashioned, blatant offence that even an elementary school child knows is wrong,” she told the paper.
The politician added that she supported Abe’s women-friendly policies, but added that female voices needed to be heard.
“Overall, I support his policies,” she said. “However, in relation to this incident, I think policymakers need to listen to and understand the voices of the actual women that the policies target.”
Social media was also abuzz with criticism, while Tokyo’s city office was inundated with telephone complaints.
“In order to show the public that these sexist comments cannot be tolerated, they should identify the people who made the remarks and let them take the heat,” tweeted lawyer Ryo Sasaki, who added that the comments would mean a sacking in the private sector.
The Tokyo Metropolitan Government administers an area that is home to around 13.35mn people, about one-tenth of Japan’s population, and has an annual budget of some ¥220bn ($2.2bn).
The city assembly has 127 members, of whom 25 are women. In national politics, women occupy just 78 of the 722 seats in the two legislative chambers of parliament.
