The live media coverage earlier this month of the parliamentary voting process to decide the new prime minister was tedious at best.
The day following the Nov. 11 runoff vote in the Lower House that saw Shigeru Ishiba reelected, Kyodo News published an article titled „Drastic efforts needed to open the door to Japan’s 1st female PM.“
What’s unusual is that the media has rarely, if ever, supported any Liberal Democratic Party woman in achieving this goal. The story felt like window dressing. But it got me thinking: How many women in Japan’s postwar history have come close to becoming prime minister or reached a point in their careers where they were considered potential leaders of the nation?