Fighting for Equality in Japan.

• Author: LEARNER, NEAL

Fukuoka, Japan

Women's rights activists are pushing the Japanese government to pass a new law to ensure sexual equality.

A report by Japan's Council for Gender Equality concludes that Japan lags behind internationally accepted standards in equal participation between the sexes. It urges the government to rectify the problem. This spring, the Japanese parliament plans to vote on legislation that could help do that.

"The basic idea of this law is to produce an equal society where women can succeed in political, economic, social, and cultural activities," says Ikuko Noguchi, who has been explaining and promoting the proposed sexual-equality law throughout Fukuoka, the eighth largest city in Japan. "We want to review the social system and customs based on the participation of women in society." But change in Japan comes slowly. "What we need is affirmative action," says Noguchi, who is director of the Fukuoka Women's Center.

According to government statistics, Japanese women hold only about 1.4 percent of the nation's top managerial positions. They earn only 60 percent of what their male colleagues earn. There are only a few women mayors out of Japan's 3,232 cities, towns, and villages, and no woman has ever been elected governor in any of the country's forty-seven prefectures.

On the national level, women hold only 4.8 percent of the seats in the House of Representatives, ranking Japan 124th for female representation among 131 nations.

At home, married men contribute less than ten minutes a day to domestic chores, compared to more than three-and-a-half hours of chores performed daily by working women, according to a survey by Japan's Statistics Bureau.

Another superficial, yet...