{"id":215514,"date":"2025-10-21T13:15:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-21T13:15:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/215514\/"},"modified":"2025-10-21T13:15:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-21T13:15:10","slug":"japans-first-female-leader-a-historic-moment-with-caveats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/215514\/","title":{"rendered":"Japan’s first female leader: A historic moment with caveats"},"content":{"rendered":"

Japanese women are among the best educated and highest qualified in the world and yet they struggle with the expectations of a conservative society that still pushes them in traditional roles.<\/p>\n

According to the 2025 gender gap index by the World Economic Forum, Japan ranked 118th among 148 countries, with female representation in the field of politics notably low.<\/p>\n

Leadership positions have traditionally been dominated by men and Japan has struggled to increase the number of female lawmakers and business leaders.<\/p>\n

The world’s fourth largest economy ranks last among the G7 countries when it comes to the share of women in its national parliament. Specifically, women make up about 15.7% of lawmakers in Japan, the lowest figure among the G7.<\/p>\n

It is even slow when it comes to women’s reproductive health: only this week was it announced that the “morning after” pill – a form of emergency contraception available without prescription in more than 90 countries – had finally been approved for over the counter use in Japan<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Even so, some see Takaichi’s rise to power as a pivotal moment that could change how women view their prospects.<\/p>\n

“There is great significance in Ms Takaichi becoming prime minister, with a broader impact on society,” Naomi Koshi – who became the country’s youngest female mayor in 2012 – told Japan’s Kyodo news agency.<\/p>\n

Koshi argued Japan having a female prime minister will “lower psychological barriers” for women and girls, helping them feel it is normal to “stand out” as leaders in companies and society, even as gender-based stereotypes and expectations still remain.<\/p>\n

But Audrey Hill-Uekawa, 20, points out that, while it is remarkable Japan has its first female leader, one must remember it took her more than 30 years to get to that position.<\/p>\n

“She’s also not really going against the grain. She’s saying the same thing as the men.” <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Japanese women are among the best educated and highest qualified in the world and yet they struggle with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":215515,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[84,1294,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-215514","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-economy","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215514","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=215514"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215514\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/215515"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=215514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=215514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=215514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}