International Women's Day, commemorated March 8, was a chance to celebrate women's achievements. But it also highlighted the fact that discrimination continues to be a major problem for women around the globe -- and Japanese women, unfortunately, are no exception. In fact, the world's second-largest economy ranked 43rd in the United Nations Development Program's Gender Empowerment Measure in 2005, the lowest of all the developed nations and most second-tier countries, too.
According to this index -- which incorporates the male-to-female ratio in parliaments and among professionals, technicians and managers, as well as income disparities by gender -- Norway rates as the world's most women-friendly nation, followed by the other Scandinavian nations of Denmark, Sweden and Iceland. Japan ranked below the 12th-placed United States and 18th-placed United Kingdom -- and was also outperformed by Latvia, the Czech Republic, Namibia, Panama and Tanzania.
And while Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party brought in a swath of high-profile women to run for it -- many successfully -- in the Sept. 11, 2005 general election, it is questionable how serious the party or its leader, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, are about the advancement of women overall.