Source: Universal Magazine
On September 22, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party of Japan issued an announcement announcing that it will hold a party chairman vote on October 4. Currently, several members of the party have officially announced their candidacy and have basically determined the competition pattern for five.
Several recent polls in Japan show that the former Minister for Economic Security in charge of High Market Morning Shima and the Minister for Agriculture and Forestry Aquaculture, Xiao Xuan In-Sui, are popular candidates for the new Chairman of the People's Party.
On September 27, 2024, the candidate for the chairman of the self-government party, Cao市早苗 (right) voted in the self-government party chairman elections held at the headquarters of the self-government party in Tokyo, Japan.
In fact, as early as July, when Japan held the 27th Senate election, there was a heated discussion in Japan about the possibility of the birth of the first female prime minister. No matter whether takaichi sanae can be finally elected or not, more women represented by her will appear in Japanese politics, which will affect Japan's future political trend.
The “Identity Politics” Prelude
In the Japanese Senate elections held in July, the worst election failure of Mr. Shapro, who had been prime minister for less than a year, with the ruling coalition losing a majority in both houses of Congress making the self-government party in great trouble for the first time since its founding in 1955.
However, in the eyes of analysts, this is not the same as political progress under gender equality. Instead, it makes people smell the meaning of "identity politics" similar to the political development process in Europe and America.
In fact, Japanese media has intentionally highlighted the progress made by women in political participation. In the election, female candidates represented only 29.1 percent of the total number of candidates, below the 35 percent goal set by the government; although the percentage of voters was 33.6 percent, they still did not reach the ideal state of gender equality (i.e. each 50 percent).
According to the 2025 Global Gender Gap Report, Iceland’s proportion of women in parliament is up to 64 percent, the highest in the world; followed by Latin America’s Nicaragua and Cuba, where the proportion of women in parliament is 56 percent and 53 percent, respectively, while Japan ranks 102nd out of 148 countries and regions with 25.5 percent.
Identity politics, usually refers to political strategies that support voters by emphasizing the identity of specific groups (such as gender, race, religion, etc.). It uses voters' identity or attention to certain groups to promote relevant issues and candidates. The historical failure of the governing coalition marks the end of the Japanese political self-government party's "strong era". Accordingly, in the rise of opposition forces, the influence of emerging political parties is expanding. In the opposition total seats reached 126, over the governing coalition's 122 seats, the party is even higher, from 1 seat to 14 seats, under the new political pattern, then focus on the strength of the support of women's candidates from various political parties, from which you can see the special role of women's identity in
The Democratic Party nominated 17 female candidates, ranked 4th among all elected political parties (at least 11 major political parties), with an election rate of only 17.8%, showing a lack of traditional conservative parties in promoting and implementing gender equality, while the Democratic Party nominated 24 and 21 female candidates, respectively, with a 50% and 54.5%, showing stronger gender representation.
The party’s gender nomination strategy is evident. By nominating a large number of female candidates (such as the well-known singer SAYA and former Olympic minister Bridge Ben-Saxon), the party attracted a large number of female voters and also struggled to gain male voters with some “colour control”. In addition, in the face of the long-term low proportion of female candidates in Japan, the party also tried to shape its more modern, multi-dimensional political party image through female tactics, thinning out the external “extreme right-wing” assessment of it.
Therefore, the party’s female candidate strategy reflects that women are still largely placed in a secondary position or play a symbolic role, and the actual decision-making is still dominated by men, ensuring that the party’s core issues such as “Japanese priority” are not challenged, rather than represent gender equality.
The “Abbé Girl” and the “Invisible Wall”
The election failure of the ruling coalition weakened the political control of the Liberal Democratic Party, which also triggered the power adjustment within the Liberal Democratic Party. Takaichi sanae expressed his willingness to run for the party president in August, saying that "he has made up his mind to reshape the backbone of the Liberal Democratic Party".
In 1993, she took her foot in politics and had an excellent political history, but among the many political capitals, the most remarkable was her political label "Abbé Girl". This phrase broke her policy characteristics, namely that High City and Japan's late former prime minister, Shinzo Abe, had a high degree of consistency in political ideas, including adhering to conservative political ideas, taking a tough attitude towards China, continuing "Abbé Economics" etc. Abe repeatedly praised her as a "star of conservatives", showing his recognition.
Ho Chi Minh City’s political capacity is at the heart of its acquisition of Abe’s favour, but her female status has helped her to move to the political center. The “woman active” policy has been implemented during Abe’s rule. This is an important part of Abe’s economics, intended to address labor shortages by increasing women’s participation in the political and economic spheres and promote economic growth. While the policy has boosted Japanese women’s employment rate to a certain extent and improved the working environment, it has failed to fundamentally narrow the gender gap, women are only seen as an economic tool.
Thanks to the introduction of Abe’s women’s policy, the media and the public have increased their attention to women’s political empowerment, creating a positive atmosphere for women’s growth. Abe has said that the political beliefs and female identity of Cao Cao are valuable to be promoted. This has made Cao Cao the first woman in the self-government party to serve as chairman of the regulations and secretary of general affairs. These “first” accelerate the symbolization of women in Japanese politics.
However, change is not an easy task. Traditional ideas deeply rooted in Japanese history have long shaped the society's cognition of gender roles, and continue to influence the modern Japanese social structure. In Japan, most women are imprisoned in the "home" system. When receiving education, we should face the gender solidification in professional choice; In labor, we have to face workplace discrimination and significant pay gap; After marriage, we should play the role of "good wife and mother" and "professional housewife", and bear disproportionate responsibilities for housework and childcare. More importantly, the Japanese government's policies often stay on slogans and non-mandatory goals. So far, there is no comprehensive law prohibiting all forms of gender discrimination, and there is no independent national institution to handle related complaints, which leaves a huge loophole in the bottom line of legal protection. All kinds of problems are repeatedly entangled with each other, forming the opposition phenomenon of "misogyny" and "misogyny" in Japanese society.
In recent years, academic discussions have referred to this phenomenon as the “preference-expectance” gap. This refers to the potential gap between voters’ preferences (such as supporting women) and their expectations of a candidate to be elected. On the one hand, voters believe that women and men are equally important and even more attractive candidates, but also worry that women are less likely to be elected, and therefore tend to support those who win with a high probability rather than their own “preferences” in order not to waste their “votes.”
This "invisible wall" is not unique to Japan. In the United States, Republican voters tend to support men, while Democratic voters support women more. In European multi-party regimes, gender bias also varies from party to party. For example, the left-wing green parties in the Netherlands are more women-friendly, while the populist right-wing parties tend to be men.
Given this, high-market femininity was both her innate strength and a challenge she had to face.
Complex gender issues
A more thoughtful question is, if the high market broke the gender ceiling, if she wanted to become the first female prime minister of Japan, how much obvious changes would she bring to the vast majority of Japanese women?
Although High City has achieved some achievements in Japanese politics as a female politician, she herself has also set out to be a "Japanese iron maid" following the example of former British Prime Minister Mrs. Thatcher, but she shows a distinct conservative tendency in the field of gender equality, and strongly contradicts her female identity.
First, High City adheres to the traditional gender role division of labor. She firmly opposes the legislation on the system of selectively separating surnames. This policy allows married couples to retain their surnames after marriage, and has gained higher identity in Japanese society, especially among the younger generation. High City believes that this will undermine traditional family structures and social order.
Second, high markets only support women’s rights to a limited extent. High markets support childcare subsidies for professional women to help women balance work and family. This is considered to be one of the few high market advancements on gender issues. However, this stance is more due to economic practicality considerations. On wider gender issues, high markets often remain silent. She rarely actively mentions gender equality in public, and lacks initiative to push for related reforms. Japanese scholar Guga Balan noted that high market performance is the foundation for consolidating its conservative support within the party.
It can be seen that Japanese women’s political empowerment will still have a long process. In the meantime, the gender-dominated, European-American political atmosphere strong “identity-political” characteristics have been first revealed. The bigger problem is that once gender differences are overemphasized, it is possible to trigger gender opposition and cause deep social division. In the course of the current high-market competition party chairman, gender identity has also become a double-edged sword, the long-running chain of various inherent prejudices is still to be broken, and more good, healthy, inclusive, harmonious gender relationships and the realisation of real social equality are far away.