Opinion | Japan’s quiet #MeToo moment is an economic indicator

It’s the BBC documentary Prime Minister Shinzo Abe doesn’t want you to see. Ostensibly, “Japan’s Secret Shame” tells the story of journalist Shiori Ito’s rape allegations against a prominent male media personality. But it also hints at a bigger story: why Abenomics is stumbling.

Japan’s notoriously docile media is reluctant even to mention the name of Ito’s alleged attacker. Tokyo Broadcasting System’s Noriyuki Yamaguchi is known to have close ties with Abe. To many, the lack of charges against him smack of a political coverup. Local media largely looked the other way when BBC dropped its documentary on June 28.

The contrast with the #MeToo reckoning in the West couldn’t be starker. The same goes for the gender-related headwinds holding back Asia’s second-biggest economy.

Empowering women – making them “shine”, as Abe put it – was a key pillar of Tokyo’s five-plus-year-old reflation scheme. Abe claimed to be inspired by the “womenomics” research of Goldman Sachs strategist Kathy Matsui. By Matsui’s calculations, Japan’s gross domestic product would get a 15 per cent boost if female labour participation rates matched those of men, or about 80 per cent.

Yet Abe’s supposed feminist turn is heavy on spin, light on policy. He’s talked about prodding companies to hire and promote women, but demurred on mandates or quotas. Abe opted against incentivising companies to better utilise Japan’s female labour pool through tax breaks or preferential access to government contracts. His 20-member cabinet features just two women, neither of whom play a key role. Were Abe to lead by example he’d entrust a vital portfolio to a woman – finance, foreign affairs or chief cabinet secretary.

When Tokyo does experience a whiff of #MeToo controversy, the greybeards of Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party circle the wagons. Allegations in May that a top finance bureaucrat sexually harassed a female reporter had Abe’s vice-premier, Taro Aso, blaming the victim.