Lawmakers who were vying to lead the ruling Liberal Democratic Party including Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, who won the overwhelming support of the party’s members, have vowed to continue outgoing Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s push to empower women and raise their share of leadership roles.
But the 2020 election for Abe’s successor has shown the top position is not for women and the glass ceiling for female politicians remains stronger than it looks. And without a female leader making it to the top of the male-dominated LDP, Japan may never see its first female prime minister.
Two prominent female lawmakers ー Seiko Noda and Tomomi Inada ー both have prime ministerial ambitions. Both have ideas on how to address the nation’s challenge of a shrinking and aging population and have pledged to champion diversity. Neither of them, however, decided to throw their hat into the ring, discouraged from running due to factional politics and old-fashioned approaches based on a deep-rooted notion that men are leaders and women are not.
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