Yoko Komiyama is the first woman to ever occupy the post of Japan's minister of health, welfare and labor. As a mother, she may have more insight than her male colleagues into issues her ministry addresses, and from the start of her appointment in August she has stirred up controversy, mainly with her comment that the cigarette tax should be raised. But tax matters are the concern of the finance ministry.
Another controversial comment had to do with something Komiyama does oversee: social security. At her first press conference as minister, she said she wanted to revise the designation for homemakers that allows them a pension share if their husbands are enrolled in the program through their employers. She called this designation "very strange," since it "privileges" 10 million full-time housewives over 33 million other women, married or single, who work either part-time or full-time and have to make pension payments themselves.
This designation, which went into effect in 1986, is considered a pillar of Japan's "family system," since it rewards women who stay at home and raise children while their husbands work. The weekly magazine Shincho led the charge against Komiyama, saying that in addition to being a "pioneer in the gender-free movement," she advocates for the option of separate names for married couples. Shincho claims that Komiyama's attack on the designation has angered housewives, who believe the minister "hates them" and wants to destroy the Japanese family.