At a meeting of the Games’ executive board, Hashimoto said she “would have a great responsibility as president of the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics” and was “totally determined” to host a successful event, scheduled to take place between July 23 and August 8 .
Hashimoto, 56, told reporters on Thursday that he surrendered his resignation as Minister for the Olympics to Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga.
“It was a big decision for me to step down as minister,” said Hashimoto.
Hashimoto competed in four Winter Olympics as a speed skater and three Summer Olympics as a cyclist. She won bronze – her only medal – in 1,500-meter speed skating at the 1992 Winter Olympics.
Mori said at a meeting of the Olympic board of directors that “meetings with many women take longer” because “women are competitive – if one member raises his hand to speak, others may think they also need to speak,” according to reports from the Japanese media.
“If you want to increase the number of women, you will be in trouble unless you set time limits,” he said.
Mori, a former prime minister, later resigned and offered his “deepest apologies” for his comments, adding, “my inappropriate statement caused a lot of chaos”.
New storm of sexism
A week after Mori resigned, another octogenarian leader in Japan drew ire by making misogynistic comments.
Toshihiro Nikai, secretary general of the country’s leading Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), proposed on Tuesday that lawmakers should be able to observe the party’s main meetings – but not speak about them.
Two of the 12 members of the party council are women, while only three of the 25 members of the general council are women.
Nikai said it is important for women to “fully understand what kind of political discussions are taking place” at the board of directors and the general council. “It’s about letting them take a look,” he added, at a news conference on Tuesday.
Online, his proposals have become a trending topic, attracting thousands of posts, with Twitter users criticizing comments as deaf and sexist.
“How desperate … but I bet (Nikai) still thinks he’s doing something good here. Thinking, but look, we’re letting (lawmakers) attend. But no, you can’t go as far as leaving them has a word to say. say, “tweeted Hiroki Mizoguchi, a prominent author on immigration issues in Japan.” It’s like he’s saying it’s better to have women at the meeting than not to be there … It’s really awful, “he added.
Japanese writer Mieko Kawakami, best known for her feminist novel Breasts and Eggs, Furthermore criticized Nikai’s comments on Twitter as “unacceptable” and “misogynistic”, writing that members of the ruling party will never understand the issue of gender equality.
“According to their opinion, men will take care of women, as long as women do not threaten them and stay on their way. Women are treated as second-class citizens forever here in Japan, ”added Kawakami.
CNN contacted the LDP General Council office, which said that “nothing has been officially decided” about women attending important meetings as observers.
Over the past decade, demographic challenges and the growing number of women in higher education have slowly started to change Japan’s male-dominated management structures.
Selina Wang and Junko Ogura, from Reuters and CNN, contributed to this Tokyo report.