Apparently in Japan the manners aren’t always as good as you might expect.
[Tokyo] City assembly member Ayaka Shiomura, 35, was talking about measures to support child raising and boost fertility during a session on Thursday when male lawmakers interrupted her with cries of “Go and get married” and “Can’t you give birth?”
She later said most of the calls came from the direction of seats where majority assembly members, including those from Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party, were sitting.
What’s the thinking here? That if you talk about measures to increase something it then becomes your responsibility to increase it yourself, right then and there, or face heckling? Or is it just crude “Hur hur why are you talking woman go squeeze out a baby hur hur”?
The heckling prompted a flood of complaints to the government of Japan’s capital, which will host the Summer Olympic Games in 2020.
Abe has long vowed to take steps to mobilize the working power of women to revitalize the economy and offset a big, looming labor shortage.
His economic reform plan, due out next week, calls for raising the proportion of women corporate managers to 30 percent by 2020 from last year’s 7.5 percent as well as creating 400,000 new day care places to enable women to raise children and work.
But women in Japan are often encouraged to leave their jobs after having children. Many working women face menial demands such as serving tea to male colleagues.
Or making them some sushi?