The First Step to Changing Japan!
Increasing Female Membership of the Japanese Diet
A50 Notre Dame Seishin Gakuen Seishin Girls’ High School

Ayumi Namba,

Moe Kurozumi

Abstract
Currently, the number of Japanese women parliamentarians is low. This issue is discussed all over the world. In order to increase
the percentage of Japanese women parliamentarians, we must first know why their numbers are so low. In order to do this wemust consider the issue as a matter of politics and public awareness. We made two hypotheses and conducted an interview
survey to test them.

Hypotheses
1. “It is difficult for women to
become Diet members as a resultof the political system”

2. “People have strong assumptions that women should not
become Diet members, and this is preventing women fromstriving to become members of the Diet."

MethodCurrent Law = Ineffective- Interviewing 17 year-old students over the Internet

Basic Law on Gender Equality Society in the Political Field“The number of male and female candidates
shall be carried out with the aim of being as
equal as possible.” (May 2018)

Quota = Immediately effective
RankCountry

Percentage of female
parliamentarians

1Rwanda

55.7%

2

Cuba

53.2%

3

Bolivia

51.8%

4Mexico48.4%

5

Sweden47.3%

Responses

Analysis“Gender discrimination is gonenow.”“Young people are genderequals.”

Gender discrimination
was a thing of the past.

“(Female parliamentarians are)overly-serious.”“I don’t know very well (aboutfemale parliamentarians).”“When a woman is married, it is
she who is in charge of raising
the children.”Respondents have noaffinity for politics.
Becoming a member ofparliament is difficult
for women because ofgender expectations.

Results1. Respondents think that gender discrimination is a thing of the past.
2. Respondents are not familiar with politics.
3. Gender expectations prevent women from becoming diet members.

Conclusion
From our results we can say that the preconception thatwomen should not become members of the Diet is preventing
capable women from trying to so.
The reason why female membership does not increase isthat there are not enough effective measures to overcome
the preconceptions regarding gender role division, which has
not fundamentally changed.

Contradiction

Work shop: Raising interest in politics and political issuesFuture perspective

Introducing country with a large number of female Diet members

We would like to conduct an interview survey of American students withthe same questions as in Japan at the age of 17 to know the differencein thinking between Japanese and American students.

Example.isRwanda(No.1) between
There
a relationshipthehighinterestin politics andVoter turnout: 98. 8% (No. 2)
the large number of female Dietmembers.

Workshop
Date: October 25th, 2019
Attendant: Female high school
students (17~18 years old)

Example. Rwanda (No.1)
Voter turnout: 98. 8% (No. 2)

References
Hideko, Takeyasu. “Explanations of Women's Under—representation in Japanese Local Politics”
Contemporary Society, vol.3, 2002, pp.5-20.
Ryota, Maeda, and Keniki, Shiozawa. “Tendency of Turnout and political Awareness of Younger Voters
before and after the Lowering of the Voting Age” Regional Studies, Vol. 15, No.2, 2019, pp.63-83.
Global Note. "Women in parliaments by country around the world" Global Note,https://www.globalnote.jp/post-3877.html. Accessed 4 November, 2019.
Solijonov, Abdurashid. “Voter Turnout Trends around the World” International IDEA,
https://www.idea.int/sites/default/files/publications/voter-turnout-trends-around-the-world.pdf
Accessed 4 November 2019.