BREAKING JAPAN’S GLASS CEILING BUT LEAVING FEMINISTS DIVIDED
The first female governor of Tokyo has a conservative background, making her a complicated figure in the push for women’s empowerment
She has been called a “migratory bird,” a “flower,” “Madame Conveyor Belt Sushi” and — by a politician two decades her senior — “a woman past her prime in thick make-up.” Little of it seems to faze Yuriko Koike, the first female governor of Tokyo, who brushes off most of the inevitable sexism she has faced during her 24 years in politics in Japan.
“Being a woman is a potential power for me,” Ms Koike, 64, said with a serene smile during an interview at the offices of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government.
In her campaign and less than two months in office, Ms Koike, a former television news anchor and defence minister who is fluent in Arabic, has shown a gritty resolve in standing up to the old boys’ network that overwhelmingly dominates Japanese politics.
When the Tokyo branch of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party refused to support her in her run for governor, Ms Koike decided to stand on her own. She won in a landslide, defeating the candidate backed by the Liberal Democrats, as well as several others.
Overseeing a sprawling metropolis of nearly 14 million people and a budget close to Sweden’s, Ms Koike has already made her debut on the international stage, appearing at the closing ceremonies of the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, representing the city that will host the next Summer Games, in 2020.
She is one of three women who have recently ascended to top political posts in Japan in the last three months. Like Renho Murata, the new leader of the Democratic Party, which is the largest opposition party in Parliament, and Tomomi Inada, the new defence minister, Ms Koike will be watched closely to see if she can advance the cause of gender equality in a country where women struggle to achieve parity in politics, business and in the home.
Ms Koike can be a confusing figure for feminists, given her backing by ultraconservative groups that believe women belong in the home and that call for the whitewashing of Japanese World War II atrocities, including the enforced use of Korean “comfort women” as prostitutes. She is a political hawk, supporting the revision of the country’s pacifist constitution as well as a stronger role for the country’s self-defence forces, as Japan’s military is known.
But in a country where female leaders are so rare, simply voting for them can be a revolutionary act, independent of their individual political views.
“People weren’t voting for her as an ideological statement,” said Daniel C Sneider, associate director for research at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Centre at Stanford University. Rather, he said, voters chose Ms Koike mainly because she campaigned as an antidote to predecessors who had been embroiled in financial scandals. “For voters, somehow, empowering a woman is kind of a reform statement,” he said.
Even those who are discomfited by some of her political views acknowledge the powerful symbolism of a woman in such a prominent position. “Seeing her in a kimono waving a flag in Rio, I thought it was significant,” said Ryoko Akamatsu, president of Women in New World, International Network, a women’s advocacy group. Although Ms Akamatsu opposes Ms Koike’s conservatism, she said, “it’s meaningful to let the world know there is such a woman in Japan.”
Ms Koike, the daughter of an oil trading executive who travelled frequently to the Middle East as a child, studied Arabic and sociology at Cairo University in Egypt.
She displayed an early maverick streak. In an episode described in her memoir of Cairo, Furisode, Climbing the Pyramid, Ms Koike decided to hike up a pyramid, a prohibited act. When the police threatened to fine her, she bargained with them to reduce the fine and carried on to the peak, where she donned a kimono and made a pot of green tea under the hot sun.
Upon her return to Japan, she worked as an interpreter before moving into television news, where she interviewed Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.
While conducting a television interview in 1992, Ms Koike caught the attention of Morihiro Hosokawa, then the founder of a new political party in Japan, as a prospective parliamentary candidate. “She was the only one who asked interesting questions,” Mr Hosokawa recalled. “She has a good political mind.”
Mr Hosokawa, who went on to a brief term as prime minister beginning in 1993, quipped that Ms Koike was a “jiji goroshi” — literally, “old-man killer.”
“She knows where to compromise,” he said. “She doesn’t leave things messed up. I think she will deal with things well.”
Mr Hosokawa’s party dissolved shortly after he resigned amid allegations of financial improprieties after only eight months in office. Ms Koike subsequently floated through a few parties, leading to her characterisation as a “migratory bird,” or “Madame Conveyor Belt Sushi.”
She landed with the Liberal Democrats in 2002, and under Junichiro Koizumi, then the prime minister, she served as environment minister, coining the term “Cool Biz” for an initiative urging workers to wear casual clothes during the summer months so office buildings could save on electricity.
As defence minister during Mr Abe’s first term as prime minister, Ms Koike called for a more robust role for the country’s military in international affairs. She also orchestrated the resignation of the administrative vice minister of defence.
Mr Abe stepped down as prime minister in 2007, and Ms Koike ran for the leadership of the Liberal Democrats the next year, telling reporters she was trying to break Japan’s “iron plate” against women. She lost to a man, Taro Aso.
When she ran for Tokyo governor this year, Ms Koike vowed to bring financial rectitude to city government. She pledged to examine cost overruns in the 2020 Olympics budget. And she promised to reduce long waiting lists for day care to help more women enter the workforce.
In a campaign characterised by mudslinging, the most sexist comment came from the former Tokyo Gov Shintaro Ishihara, 84, who insulted Ms Koike with remarks about her “thick make-up.”
Ms Koike defeated her nearest competitor by more than one million votes.