Mori on Friday expressed his “deepest apologies” and said he would hand over his resignation at the end of the day, acknowledging that his “inappropriate statement has caused a lot of chaos.”
“The important thing is that the Olympics are held in July,” Mori said. “If I’m going to be a distraction to organize the Games by being in my position, I think it’s a situation we should avoid.”
Mori, a former Japanese prime minister, has been on fire since last week, when he said “board meetings with many women take longer” because “women are competitive: if one member raises his hand to speak, others could to think that we also need to talk, “according to reports in the Japanese press.
At a press conference last week, the 83-year-old confirmed that he made the statements behind closed doors and said he felt he had done so. Initially, she said she did not plan to leave office, but was forced to change course due to continued public outrage in Japan, where women regularly face gender discrimination in the workplace and when they seek places of power.
Japan’s gender gap is “by far the largest of all advanced economies,” according to the World Economic Forum’s Gap Gender Gap 2020 report. The report ranked Japan 121 out of 153 countries, in part because of the findings that women represent only 5.3% of listed business council members and only 10% of parliamentarians, one of the levels of representation lowest female politics in the world.
Mori said Friday that “I didn’t want my comments to neglect women, but I guess it was conveyed that way.”
“In fact, I worked hard to allow women to express their voices,” said Mori, who is the head of the Games organizing committee. “I appointed the women to give them the opportunity to express what they wanted to state,” she said. “I have no intention of leaving women out.”
Mori, however, said he offended people who called him “rougai,” a Japanese term that can be used to imply that older people are useless and, in fact, an obstacle to the society.
The term has become more popular in fast-growing Japan, where more than 20% of the population is over 65 years old. Birth rates have been declining for years, leaving society with fewer young people and people of working age to support a growing population in need of health care and pensions.
“I don’t like the word,” he said. “The elderly have worked hard to support this society and it’s pretty frustrating when the elderly are neglected.”
The race to the Games
The Olympic Organizing Committee must now find a new leader as it races to open the Games on July 23 in a country struggling to cope with the rising number of coronavirus cases. The Summer Olympics and Paralympics were delayed last year due to the Covid-19 and experts have said it may not be possible to postpone the event again.
Japanese leaders have promised that the Games will be held, despite increasing public opposition and rising costs. A survey conducted last month by national broadcaster NHK found that 77% of people in Japan think the Games should be canceled or postponed, largely due to logistical hurdles that prevent hosting such an event. massive in the midst of public health. crisis.
The country’s medical system has been overwhelmed, although it has the number of hospital beds per capita in the developed world. Cases have doubled in the past two months to over 406,000, which has extended the limit of the Japanese medical system.
As of Feb. 4, more than 8,700 people who tested positive for Covid-19 were expecting a hospital bed or space in an isolation center in 10 prefectures. The previous week, more than 18,000 people from 11 prefectures were waiting, according to prefecture health ministries.
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