{"id":14217,"date":"2023-09-18T13:07:12","date_gmt":"2023-09-18T13:07:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mysourcefunding.com\/leadership\/so-many-women-so-little-time-for-japans-economic-patriarchy\/"},"modified":"2023-09-18T13:07:13","modified_gmt":"2023-09-18T13:07:13","slug":"so-many-women-so-little-time-for-japans-economic-patriarchy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mysourcefunding.com\/?p=14217","title":{"rendered":"So Many Women, So Little Time For Japan\u2019s Economic Patriarchy"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

The biggest surprise of Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida\u2019s latest cabinet reshuffle is his sudden embrace of \u201cwomenomics.\u201d<\/p>\n

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For 20-plus years now, Japanese leaders have flirted with the idea of empowering the female half of the nation\u2019s 126 million people. Economists everywhere, after all, agree that countries and companies that best utilize female talent are more productive, innovative and prosperous.<\/p>\n

On the surface, this seemed to be Kishida\u2019s strategy in naming five women to his cabinet last week, matching previous records. It was a clear U-turn. In his nearly 24 months in power, Kishida barely even mentioned gender equality.<\/p>\n

Better late than never? Perhaps, until you consider what Kishida said about why he named five women to his latest cabinet. Kishida says he hopes his female draft picks will “make the most of their female sensibilities.\u201d<\/p>\n

Can you say \u201ccringe?\u201d For years now, Tokyo has been fending off accusations of tokenism. It\u2019s a valid charge. Twenty-plus years ago, then-Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi\u2019s move to name a record five female cabinet members was more media stunt than substance.<\/p>\n

Years later, his prot\u00e9g\u00e9 Shinzo Abe would do the same in 2014. But just as with Koizumi\u2019s government, Abe\u2019s pledge to make women \u201cshine\u201d ended up being a perfunctory and symbolic effort to appear enlightened.<\/p>\n

The numbers tell a very different story. A decade ago, Tokyo ranked 101st on the World Economic Forum\u2019s gender parity tables. In 2023 it’s 125th, 20 places behind South Korea and 18 behind China, where gender parity in power is even less of a thing (the U.S. ranks 43rd<\/sup>).<\/p>\n

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You\u2019d think all this backsliding would get Tokyo\u2019s attention. Not quite, when you consider Kishida\u2019s \u201cfemale sensibilities\u201d worldview. It suggests that for Kishida and his inner circle, empowering women is a public relations stunt.<\/p>\n

In 2001, Koizumi was the first modern Japanese leader to talk about gender disparities in economic terms. That was fully 33 years after the 1986 passage of the Japanese Equal Employment Opportunity Law, which prohibited discrimination. Yet Koizumi, prime minister until 2006, gave his \u201cassassins,\u201d a group of telegenic women\u2014including a former beauty queen\u2014zero clout to influence policy in Tokyo.<\/p>\n

A decade later, Abe played a similar game. His talk of championing women was part of his \u201cAbenomics\u201d plan to raise Japan\u2019s innovative game. By prioritizing photo ops over concrete steps to increase the ratio of female managers, board members and Cabinet officials, Japan on Abe\u2019s watch lost ground on global gender tables. Significant ground, too.<\/p>\n

Abe\u2019s replacement, Yoshihide Suga, barely mentioned womenomics in his year in the premiership. Nor had Kishida since taking over in October 2021.<\/p>\n

This belated embrace of the idea that Japan must harness female talent is welcome, of course. But the message, if it really is a sincere one, has gotten lost in the intrigue surrounding Kishida\u2019s latest reshuffling.<\/p>\n

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For Kishida\u2019s Liberal Democratic Party, shaking up cabinets is a tried-and-true way to revive flatlining approval ratings. Kishida\u2019s support is in the low 40s, at best. Yet Kishida dumped his best minister and retained the worst-performing ones. Surprisingly, Kishida fired Yoshimasa Hayashi, who was widely seen as his most talented minister.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s nice that Kishida named Yoko Kamikawa foreign minister. Only time will tell if a three-time justice minister with little foreign policy experience will survive longer than the two previous female holders of the job in the early 2020s. But the way Kishida discarded Hayashi for a diplomatic novice suggests he views foreign policy as his domain. Odds are, Kamikawa will have little latitude to think and act for herself.<\/p>\n

Bizarrely, Kishida stuck with his woefully uninspiring economic team. How could any global investor be happy about Shunichi Suzuki staying on as finance minister, Yasutoshi Nishimura as industry minister or Sanae Takaichi as economic security minister?<\/p>\n

In 714 days, this gang put zero notable reforms on the scoreboard. Nor has it telegraphed a plan to reduce bureaucracy, modernize labor markets, increase innovation, prod companies to share steady profits with workers or attract overseas talent.<\/p>\n

Odd, too, that Kishida thinks investors driving the Nikkei Stock Average to 30-year highs are glad to see Taro Aso, who turns 82 on Wednesday, stay on as LDP vice president. This is not about age. Aso had two earlier opportunities\u2014as prime minister from 2008 to 2009 and finance minister from 2012 to 2021\u2014to build a more vibrant economy.<\/p>\n

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Aso failed at every turn. But thanks to Tokyo\u2019s factional politics, he gets to stick around and stymie progress. These dynamics explain why long-serving party Secretary General Toshimitsu Motegi also gets another chance to grow his political fiefdom as economies around Asia grow their private sectors.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t get me wrong: I\u2019m happy to see Kishida appear to realize that Japan has a gender inequality problem. I\u2019d be far more impressed, though, if he named a female finance minister, a female chief cabinet secretary and named women to at least half of 19 cabinet positions. Even better, if Kishida enacted incentives\u2014or tax penalties\u2014 or companies championing the patriarchy over greater innovation and productivity.<\/p>\n

If the WEF rankings plunge isn\u2019t depressing enough, consider how Japan stands up versus other nations in terms of women in political power: behind Cambodia, Syria and even Saudi Arabia, according to the Geneva-based Inter-Parliamentary Union.<\/p>\n

Bottom line, women are still being taken for granted in Japan. So is, by extension, the need for big economic disruption. In top-down Japan, if the government won\u2019t change, corporate chieftains won\u2019t either.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Read the full article here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The biggest surprise of Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida\u2019s latest cabinet reshuffle is his sudden embrace of \u201cwomenomics.\u201d For 20-plus years now, Japanese leaders have flirted with the idea of empowering the female half of the nation\u2019s 126 million people. Economists everywhere, after all, agree that countries and companies that best utilize female talent are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14218,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-14217","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-leadership"},"yoast_head":"\nSo Many Women, So Little Time For Japan\u2019s Economic Patriarchy | Brandiary<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The biggest surprise of Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida\u2019s latest cabinet reshuffle is his sudden embrace of \u201cwomenomics.\u201d For 20-plus years now,\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/mysourcefunding.com\/?p=14217\" 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