Japanese Women in the Politics of the Seventies

ACCORDING TO STATISTICS provided by the Prime Minister's Office in December 1972, eligible Japanese voters numbered 35,880,621 men and 38,268,546 women; of these, 71.01% of the men and 72.46% of the women voted.' Since Japanese women obtained the political franchise in 1946, politicians have had to address themselves to the vote. What they think of this necessity and what focus they give problems per se may be separate considerations, but the voting power cannot be ignored. Of 491 lower house Diet seats, seven were held by women as of 1972, and of 252 in the upper house, 18 were held by women as of 1974. The total of 25 women members of the National Diet is high for the non-socialist world. Allowing for differences in the electoral system, women in Eastern Europe average 30%. The percentage of women in Japan's Diet is double the 1.5% of women in all upper federal posts in the U.S. and treble the 1% in Great Britain and Canada in all upper level national posts. Japanese women serving in all upper level national posts exceed the 5% mark. But in daily newspapers and weekly magazines in which only occasional political protests have been heard, there have been myriad items expressing male chagrin over the vicissitudes of women voters and women politicians. Women voters are intuitive, non-rational, incapable of independent thought, too idealistic, hyper-moral, lacking in socialization and political finesse, enchanted by personalities. These are not random epithets. In 1000 newspaper and magazine articles or items perused from 1970 to 1974, each has appeared 100 times. The theme of these items asserts women have the vote and politicians must dissipate their energies wooing that vote. As phrased in a title of a recent nationally circulated article, women's political franchise is leading the country to ruin

Political science · Politics · Sociology · Chinese history and philosophy · Gender Studies · Japanese History and Culture · Law

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