AsiaFile

For those of you who missed it…Japan’s Health Minister, Hakuo Yanagisawa is in hot water for describing Japanese women as “baby making machines.”

In a speech on Saturday in Shimane Prefecture, Yanagisawa, 71, explained Japan’s declining birth rate this way. He said: “The number of women aged between 15 and 50 is fixed. Because the number of child-bearing machines and devices is fixed, all we can ask for is for them to do their best per head.”

Nothing like a tender, warm-hearted word from an aging legislator to get those love juices flowing among Japanese women…

Naturally, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has distanced himself from Yanagisawa’s comments…and said the remarks were “inappropriate.” He called child rearing a “noble occupation” and went so far in his pander to praise the “magnificence” of housework and childrearing. Sure. When was the last time Abe-san carried a mop or washed a dish?
What is fascinating about this exchange is not the public posturing…but for the honne or honesty it reveals about the men who populate Japan’s power elite. Is it any wonder that so many young Japanese women are saying “No” to marriage and child-rearing??