The sixth Press and Human Rights Committee Conference, held at the end of January by the Asahi Shimbun, focused on the problem of gender discrimination in the media. In a full-page feature promoting the event in the Feb. 10 issue of the newspaper, three participants started out by blasting Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's recent aside that "Tears are a woman's greatest weapon," saying it is the kind of irresponsible remark that journalists must watch out for.
Many supposedly progressive-minded people have branded Koizumi's comment as blatantly sexist, while others (like me) just found it ridiculously corny. It was made after then Foreign Minister Makiko Tanaka choked up during a talk with reporters about her dust-up with ministry officials regarding the exclusion of some NGOs from the Afghanistan reconstruction conference. A few days later, the prime minister fired her.
Taken at face value, the comment is pure Koizumi: simplistic, naive, made to put people at ease rather than to make a point. Koizumi's mini-press conferences are pocket theatricals. Occasionally, he'll walk up to the waiting reporters humming a pop tune. And he always seems to have an epigram ready for the evening news. What an accommodating guy.
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