Trying to Be Attractive

In spite of his eagerness to be attractive to women, what was loomed from Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was his consistent figure of conservative with old value. Taking advantage of attending the annual debate at United Nations General Assembly, Abe made unusual effort to sell his new political agenda, “womanomics.” However, the world was not interested in his performance so much.

Before heading to New York earlier this week, the Cabinet Office spread Abe’s plan to discuss Hillary Clinton, who was still popular to a number of Japanese believing her as an attractive American woman. But the meeting with her was actually a minor disaster for him.

The meeting set by Clinton Global Initiative was done in a manner that Clinton interviewed to Abe. When Abe explained a tendency of Japanese businessmen who believed long working to the midnight was good, Clinton replied that diligence did not compensate with responsibility of men for kids or old parents. After all, Abe was one of the guests for Clinton’s three-day campaign event for Presidential election two years later, paralleled with Chilean President Michelle Bachelet or King Abdullah II of Jordan.

Before encouraging women in still low-profiled jobs in Japanese business, Abe needs to fix fundamental problem of conservative movement as the leader of Liberal Democratic Party. Former minister with the party once boasted that woman was machine of birth. A local assembly man with LDP in Tokyo Metropolitan Congress chanted to a female member with other party in her speech that “Can’t you give birth?” LDP mostly represents obsolete concept of man in business and woman in family.

While Abe was struggling woman agenda in New York, his wife Akie joined an event of a thinktank in Washington, D.C. She straightly revealed frustration of Japanese women in a man-donimating society. “Men in Japan have been ignoring frustration of women for a long time. Japanese men need to consider it beyond frustration of themselves.” Akie is known as making case different from her husband. She advocates elimination of nuclear power reactors against Prime Minister’s policy, for example. Washington Post introduced Akie as “secret weapon” of Shinzo Abe.

In terms of attractiveness, Akie overwhelms Shinzo. In their visit to Washington in 2006, President George Bush acknowledged Akie as interesting first lady, mentioning nothing about her husband. While demanding business leaders positive promotion of women, Abe does not show his intention to promote his wife to a responsible situation in his job. It has to be confirmed whether Abe understands what women really feel.