She supports same-sex marriage and acceptance of sexual diversity. Noda had her first and only child, who is disabled, at age 50 after fertility treatments. Noda graduated from Sophia University in Tokyo and worked at the prestigious Imperial Hotel in Tokyo before she entered politics, succeeding her grandfather, who was a parliamentarian in central Japan's Gifu prefecture. But during the candidate selection process, “men can just be men, and I guess, for them, just being male can be considered their ability.” “That made me think that there are men who lack the ability” to be candidates, she said. Male lawmakers have criticized her proposal, saying women should be judged by their abilities. The lack of female representation is often referred to as “democracy without women.”Ī quota system could help increase the number of female candidates for political office, Noda said. The more powerful lower house of Japan's two-chamber parliament is more than 90% “people who do not menstruate, do not get pregnant and cannot breastfeed,” Noda said. But we are not there yet, and the further advancement of women still has to wait.” “I just want women to be on equal footing with men. “In Japan, women are underestimated in many ways,” said Noda, who is one of only two women in the 20-member Cabinet.
Noda criticized a law requiring married couples to choose one family name - 90% of the time it is the women who change their surnames - saying it's the only such legislation in the world. She has served in parliament since 1993 and expressed her ambition to be Japan’s first female prime minister. "Past governments have neglected the problem.”īecause of outdated social and legal systems surrounding family issues, younger Japanese are increasingly reluctant to get married and have children, contributing to the low birthrate and shrinking population, said Noda. “Japan has fallen behind because other countries have been changing faster," said Chizuko Ueno, a University of Tokyo professor of feminist studies, referring to Japan's gender gap. It ranked 116th in a 146-nation survey by the World Economic Forum for 2022, which measured progress toward equality based on economic and political participation, as well as education, health and other opportunities for women. The gap between men and women in Japan is one of the world’s worst.
There are deep concerns, both within Japan and abroad, about how the country will reverse what critics call a deep-seated history of male chauvinism that has contributed to the low birthrate. ally, but the government has struggled to make society more inclusive for children, women and minorities. Japan is the world’s third biggest economy, a powerful democracy and a major U.S. She said there are a variety of reasons for the low birthrate, persistent gender bias and population decline in Japan, "but being in the parliament, I especially feel that there is indifference and ignorance.”
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