| From The Newspaper (35) Gender (11) |
May 18th, 2023
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| Recently he watched an interesting TV program. The program's title was "Dear Japan : We want to make ties with silent voices ~ Local elections supported by young people". It was a 25 minute program. With a scene of a meeting with seven young women, a female announcer voice sounded, "There were the Unified Local Elections last month. There were young people who were supporting candidates who had never experienced running in an election, who didn't have any backgrounds in the area. Every week the members gather at a share-house." A young woman, maybe a representative of the group, said, "Everybody has a feeling of being hard to live. There should be something to change it from here." The program explained that those members were college students and adults. A 25 year old representative, who is a graduate student, started this activity one year ago. Now they were supporting 30 candidates who were going to run in the upcoming local elections in each city. Later he checked on the internet. In April, this year there were local elections to choose local municipalities' (cities, town, and villages) assembly members in 41 out of 47 prefectures. The group's name was 'Fifties Project'. Several years before, they appealed to people using their website: "Are there any people who think, "Now, is it the only solution to become a politician  myself?"? Hello! I'm a representative of the Fifties Project, Momo. The Fifties Project aims to get rid of gender inequality in politics. We are working for the Unified Local Elections in April, 2023, in order to increase female assembly members in their 20s and 30s. We are feeling that there are more and more people who want to leave an equal society to the next generation. Through this project, it's our very pleasure to unite with you."Answering the website, 30 people gathered saying that they might run as a candidate in their own municipality. The 7 members and 30 future candidates started to work together. The Fifties Project held zoom meetings many times, lecturers taught the candidates about the election's basic things, what is OK but what is illegal, how much money it will take, how to make residents' lists, etc. The candidates also exchanged their concerns with each other. The Fifties Project gathered money by cloud funding, they called for volunteers to help the 30 candidates listed on the web. About 50 volunteers gathered and got lectures and were assigned to each candidate after the election period started. The program interviewed some candidates. A candidate said, "I was told by a lot of my acquaintances that it's not a good idea to run in the election. An old woman said to me that why you do this irregular thing, you should be common, common is the most important." Another candidate said that in her city there was only one female assembly member and the other 28 were men, so she thought, "In this situation, who can represent our opinion?" She also pointed out that elderly people's voting rate is high so their opinions tend to reflect the current policies. The show asked the representative why she started her project. She said when she was a third grade college student, she studied in Denmark for a year. When her classmates gathered, sometimes they were watching discussions of politicians on TV, which is very rare in Japan. It looked natural for them to be interested in policies, and they actually started thinking that they can change the political situation and the society by themselves. It shocked her very much. After all, 24 candidates from the 30 won their elections. The voice said that 1,003 new female members were born at this time. Later, he checked on the internet. In this election 11,553 assembly members of the municipalities were chosen including 2,390 female members. 24 might be a small number, but the Fifties Project's goal is to make the female members rate in local municipalities to 50%, before the election, 15%, now 20%. The representative said that this is just the starting point. (To be continued) |
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No. 522
*graduate student 大学院生
*get rid of :取り除く、抜け出す
*represent :代表する