Japan

Political activists in Japan rally for introducing more women into the nation's political arena in the wake of the quadrennial nationwide local elections.
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Japanese women have less clout in companies and politics than women in other advanced countries, the government said in a report that highlighted the need for steps to help women balance jobs and their personal lives.
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Experts on women's issues say outright prejudice is only part of Japan's problem. An even bigger barrier to the advancement of women is the nation's notoriously demanding corporate culture, particularly its expectation of morning-to-midnight work hours.
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Yuriko Koike emerged Wednesday as a possible contender to be Japan's first female prime minister, with heavyweights in the ailing ruling party urging her to challenge conservative favourite Taro Aso.
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When it comes to female participation in politics, Japan lags far behind other nations.If Japan is going to catch up with the countries that boast a high percentage of female politicians, women must create a nationwide movement, according to panelists at a symposium advocating more women in politics."It's something that has to be fought for and refashioned by each generation," Kari Hirth, an official at the Norwegian Embassy in Tokyo, said at a symposium held Saturday in the capital sponsored by the Tokyo-based Alliance of Feminist Representatives.

The Democratic Party of Japan has promoted women and younger candidates who have not risen through traditional routes to power.The display of hyperactivity was deliberate, and not just because Ms. Kushibuchi is anxious to win every last vote she can. Her party, the opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), is "projecting a new image compared to the old politics," she says, "an image of energy."
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Japan's parliament will look radically different when it formally elects Hatoyama as prime minister at a special session in the middle of next month. The lower house will contain 158 first-time MPs, just over 90% of them from the DPJ, and a record 54 women, 40 of them from Hatoyama's party. The chamber's 480 MPs have an average age of 52, with the youngest aged 27.

There was only one problem. Her Democratic Party had never been in power. In fact, only one party has really been in charge of Japan since the end of World War II. The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) helped build the world's No. 2 economy, but it has also imposed a stifling consensus that discouraged public debate and suppressed civil society initiatives.

Japan, according to the Geneva-based Inter-Parliamentary Union, citing a November 2009 survey, ranks 106th among 189 countries in terms of the proportion of female parliamentarians in the House of Representatives.
Japan just has 45 women parliamentarians in the powerful lower chamber, occupying just 9.4 percent of the total 480 seats. The corresponding proportion in the 242-member Upper House is 18.2 percent.