Japan must appoint at least 5 women ministers in future cabinets to lock in ‘progress’, advocates say

Former PM Junichiro Koizumi 20 years ago targeted a Cabinet with 30% women but the current administration still falls short

There remains a deeply held belief in Japan’s conservative heartlands that women should be home with the children and supporting their husbands

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Japan’s Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa during the day of the cabinet reshuffle in Tokyo on September 13. Photo: Reuters

Published: 9:30am, 15 Sep 2023Updated: 11:07pm, 15 Sep 2023

Japanese media have trumpeted the record-equalling five women that Prime Minister Fumio Kishida named to his new 20-strong cabinet on Wednesday, although critics have pointed out that the record high still leaves Japan last in the G7 for female ministers.

Critics also said that it remains well short of the 30 per cent of women in the cabinet that former prime minister Junichiro Koizumi set as a target two decades ago, which the present administration continues to adopt.

“It is true that in Japan’s political world, the percentage of women is still very low,” said Tsumie Yamaguchi, an executive of the Tokyo-based advocacy group Women in a New World Network.

“Koizumi had five women in one of his cabinets and he was the first to promote more female ministers, but even now we have still not broken through the 25 per cent level in a cabinet,” she said.

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida (first row, middle) and members of his reshuffled Cabinet at the prime minister’s office in Tokyo. Photo: Kyodo

There are other statistics that lay bare just how male-centric Japanese politics remains. With just 10.4 per cent of female politicians, Japan ranked 166 of the 187 nations on the Inter-Parliamentary Union’s list of women in government, behind Syria, Libya and the Central African Republic.