Guilty or not, scandals stick like glue to Japan’s women politicians ... so why do the men get away with it?
Recent resignations of Democratic Party leader Renho and Minister of Defence Tomomi Inada may or may not be warranted, but men in high posts seem to have more political cover to weather similar storms
Like a handful of women before them, two more female politicians learnt in late July that Japanese society arguably holds them to higher standards than their male counterparts.
On July 27, Renho stepped down as head of the Democratic Party to take responsibility for the nation’s largest opposition party faring poorly in the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly election earlier in the month.
Elected to lead the struggling party only in September last year, the 49-year-old politician had also failed to shake off tabloid accusations that she tried to conceal dual nationality, which is illegal under Japanese law – her father is Taiwanese.
The following day, Defence Minister Tomomi Inada resigned over allegations that ministry officials falsified entries in logs for members of the Self-Defence Forces (SDF) taking part in a controversial peacekeeping mission in South Sudan earlier this year, wrongly stating that they were stationed in an area that was free from conflict.
A former lawyer with the potential to become Japan’s first female prime minister, the 58-year-old Inada was also linked to a scandal involving government subsidies for an ultra-nationalist school, and later called on members of the SDF to vote for the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in the Tokyo election.