Japanese Parliament to Women: Breed, don't lead

[ismnotwasm]

Japan is up in arms about insensitive and sexist remarks made by male members of The Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly (the equivalent of a U.S. State Government Assembly) toward a female representative during her presentation earlier this week. She was speaking on issues of raising children in Japan.


Ayaka Shiomura, a 36-year-old member of the opposition Your Party, called for the Tokyo metropolitan government to support women who need assistance while pregnant or raising children during a June 18 assembly session. She also suggested that the government should help Japanese women who have fertility issues to conceive children.

Japan is wrestling with a declining birth rate and growing elderly population. It has one of the lowest fertility rates in the world.

While she was speaking, men in the section for the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) began jeering at her with lines like: “Hey you, should hurry up and get married!” and “Can’t you have babies?”

Shiomura continued to speak even though she had to choke back tears at one point. After the session, Minoru Morozumi, the secretary-general of Your Party’s assembly members, lodged a protest with his LDP counterpart, Osamu Yoshiwara.

Osamu Yoshiwara told the press that he wasn’t in a position to confirm whether or not it was a member of his party who yelled out the comments, but he asked assembly members to behave in a “in a dignified manner.”

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/06/22/japanese-parliament-to-women-breed-don-t-lead.html