NEW YORK ¨C On June 23, a middle-aged male Japanese politician, dressed in the traditional dark suit and ¡®80s-retro haircut, walked in front of a waiting line of news cameras, to where a younger female politician waited. As the cameras flashed, he apologized to the woman, and bowed deeply; she looked on gravely.
To a naive Western observer, this scene might look like just another day in the byzantine, hidebound world of Japanese politics. But I¡¯ve been watching Japanese politics and civil society for more than a decade now, and when I saw Akihiro Suzuki bow to Ayaka Shiomura, I caught my breath. I knew what I was seeing was big. Epochal, even.
The background: On June 18, Assemblywoman Shiomura, who belongs to a small minority party, was speaking to the Tokyo city assembly about the need for programs to support working women ¡ª a point that has been a main theme of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe¡¯s administration. While she was speaking, someone from Abe¡¯s dominant Liberal Democratic Party yelled: ¡°You should get married!¡± and ¡°Can¡¯t you even bear a child?¡±
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