A woman has made history by becoming a Japanese city’s first ever female councillor.
Misuzu Ikeda, 45, shared her joy with supporters after she was named the first woman to be elected to Tarumizu’s assembly since the southern city was established 61 years ago.
“With my views as a woman who has never been represented here, I will make my best efforts to create a society where residents can feel cared about and have a sense of warmth,” Ms Ikeda told crowds of well-wishers on Sunday night.
The former tax office employee finished third out of 17 candidates for the 14-seat assembly in Tarumizu, which was officially recognised as a city in 1958, despite a population of just 15,000.
Ms Ikeda’s victory marked the first time in 20 years a woman had run for the Tarumizu assembly, and the first time two female candidates competed for a seat.
The other candidate, Rieko Takahashi, 53, was unsuccessful.
During her campaign, the 53-year-old, who serves on the board of the city’s chamber of commerce and industry, stressed the importance of honouring the city’s underrepresented majority.
“Although the female population of our city is 1,000 more than that of the men, the voices of women have not reached the assembly,” she announced on the streets, according to the Asahi Shimbun newspaper.
Before Sunday’s local elections, which were held nationwide, four out of every five local assembly members in Japan were men, while almost 20 per cent of assemblies had no female councillors at all.
“What’s behind all this is that Japan is still very much a male-dominated society and has not got used to women who are trying to take leadership roles and speak their minds,” Masae Ido, a former MP, told the Asahi.
Despite vowing to establish a society in which “women can shine”, Prime Minister Shinzō Abe, appointed just one woman – the regional revitalisation minister Satsuki Katayama – to his cabinet in a reshuffle last October.
Japan ranks 165th out of 193 countries for female parliamentary representation, according to a survey by the Inter-Parliamentary Union.
Women make up only 10% of MPs in Japan’s lower house, compared with 23.7 per cent in the US Congress and 32 per cent in Britain’s House of Commons.
Many women who run for office encounter resistance from male-dominated party organisations, while a quarter of first-term assemblywomen say they have been sexually harassed by fellow assembly members and constituents, according to The Guardian.
