Dear People of the World (formerly Dear Americans)

This month Japan’s parliament elected a female prime minister first time in modern nation-state history. TAKAICHI Sanae, president of Japan’s ruling party LDP was elected as a prime minister of Japan’s national assembly, or Diet or Parliament.

However, it is not as good news as it sounds. There are three major reasons.

1.

The party she belongs to is not a good party. It has been amid scandals of bribery and inappropriate relationship with the cult organization recently so in last two elections the party lost seats and fell into the minority ruling party but thanks to the right-wing minor party’s help, she could have been elected as PM. She’s not fully backed by majority of the parliament. In fact, her policies and attitudes as a politician are considered too extreme and crude to align with some other right-wing politicians and their supporters.

2.

Female leaders of nations have become common recently. It is no longer a unique thing. Like Thatcher in UK, Merkel in Germany, the current PM of Italy, Meloni, already we have seen several cases up until now. Even within Asia, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand had such top political leaders of nations. Japan was in fact behind the trend of the world. But surprisingly as a consequence, Japan went ahead of the US whose current president is one of the most racist and sexist men on earth.

3.

Some feminists must celebrate the inauguration of female political leader of a big nation like Japan as a significant progress of gender equality movement. But these days in the world there appears a backward movement so called “trad wives”. Some women want to play a traditional role such as dedicated housewife, totally dependent on their husbands and focus on homemaking and childcare. Rather than working hard to become a career woman, being a good housewife is considered to be a good life for women. It is very hard to be successful in business and become rich for anybody regardless of gender. If you are an attractive lady, marrying a rich guy is easier than trying to be a successful career woman. Women have choices as to whether to be a career woman or a housewife. You do not have to choose undesired one. The era of feminism is over.

The important thing is that gender or other attributes should not be a factor for the position. Meritocracy should be the sole factor. Therefore, I, myself think as far as I know, she is not a qualified for the prime minister of Japan.

I just saw the film at a small theatre in Tokyo. 

It was a biopic about the French politician who lived through holocaust and after the war became a lawyer and the minister of French government and became the first female president of European Union assembly. 

She helped promote women's rights by legalisation of abortion in France, 1970's. She contributed to improvement of prisoners' condition. Why was she so enthusiastic about human rights issues? 

The film started with her childhood in Nice with her family living in a happy condition before the second world war. Her family were Jews and believed France would never betray them. 

But later her family were arrested by German Gestapo. She, 16-year-old, her sister and mother were deported to Auschwitz. Her brother and father were thought to be executed. The three survived in Auschwitz but they were deported again, and then her mother died in other concentration camp.  

After the war, Simone married a man and gave birth to three children studying at a law school in Paris. But she had been traumatized by her experience in the holocaust and couldn't sleep on a bed. Even after the war, she could not tell others about her horrible experience during the war. 

But such experiences motivated her to help others in the world. In her old age, she came back to Auschwitz on 60th anniversary of liberation of Auschwitz. She spoke and wrote all about her experience. She insisted that Europe should get united so no more war happens. Surprisingly she had lived in Germany after the war. 

The film taught us it is the responsibility of living people to make the world better place and right the wrongs. Indeed, we are living in a better world, at least much better than what she experienced. 

I, myself have visited Auschwitz in Poland, and learnt what happened there. 

Such history should never be repeated. I felt it is MY responsibility not to let such horrible events happen again.  

Sadly, it is happening and very hard to stop that. 

Last month US Supreme Court made a historic decision, overturning Roe vs. Wade ruling 1973. The court's ruling leaves abortion rights to be determined at the state level. Several GOP-led states have already moved to enact statewide bans. 

Next target may be gay marriage, sodomy law and voting rights for people of colour. 

American society is moving counter-clockwise recently. 

Kind of "Back to White America" movement in which Conservative White American traditions should be considered norm. 

Surely many liberal Americans oppose such movement especially among people of colour. 

So they try to move things back to their norms. But conservative White Americans have already determined their own norms and would never listen to other opinions. 

Even almost half a century passed since Roe vs. Wade ruling, this conservative Christian fundamentalist value still persists in American society. After all this is the core value of American society. 

Rather than creating further division within the society, why not establish a new nation within the continent like Native American tribe territory. Establish "White America"! 

Maybe somewhere in between deep South States such as Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi. That would be a new state where only conservative White Christian Americans can be residents and live happily everafter without bumping progressive ideas such as feminism, religious freedom, racial equality, LGBTQ rights and etc. 

It doesn't matter what is right or wrong. What matters is whether you feel comfortable or not. Life is short. You can't deal with so many fusses. 

"White America" may be the realistic and practical solution for America sadly. 

It’s been thought women are not good at mathematics and not suitable for engineering jobs. But that kind of notions were proved to be nonsense a long time ago. The film “Hidden Figures” described three Afro-American women working for NASA rocket engineering department as mathematicians, in Jim-Crow era, 1950’s to 1960’s.

I learnt about the film by Voice of America article on NASA’s International Space Station program. NASA named the supply ship to the ISS Katherine Johnson after one of mathematicians in the biopic film.

They were not only being woman but Black women, who had to sit down on back seats in public bus and could not share the same bathroom with their white co-workers. But they did contribute to the very difficult space programs by calculating the orbit and designing rockets.

If they were white male, this story cannot be a film.

Breaking stereotype is the most important factor to counter racism or other type of discrimination such as gender, and sexual orientation. Stereotype is the origin of discrimination. Prejudice is biased view on others using stereotype images. Then people discriminate others based on prejudice.

Stereotype is baseless information about others. Like all Japanese can do Karate, which I don’t. You cannot generalize others based on such stereotype. The sad thing is people judge others by these stereotypes and then sometimes treat them badly.

In the film, NASA officials found the women very useful to the organization’s projects so they accepted them equally. If they hadn’t accepted them as legitimate staff, NASA would have lost such great assets and wouldn’t have succeeded in historic space missions in those days.

Stereotype, prejudice, and discrimination undermine progress of our society.

Let’s get rid of such things from our world.