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financial help to parents with children. Moreover, mothers should be given
one-year childcare leave. And we want fathers to have one year too. And
everyone should get paid over 50%, maybe about 55%, of their salary
[while on maternity or paternity leave]. It might be a bit tight, but with
both of them paid over 50% it should be manageable for a year, or two
years. It means that parents will in e
ect have two years to take care of
children. And with this the wish to have children will increase, I think. At
the moment, we are having opposition from the business lobby saying
'
we
can
, etc., but com-
panies also have to realise that a declining birth rate will have a negative
e
'
t do that
'
,or
'
you can
'
t have someone leave for a year
'
ect on business. And some have started to understand this which opens
up the possibility that such legislation could be implemented. But it is a
di
cult subject.
While Sawa
ected that he was trying to
make such changes attractive to the business lobby (keidanren), he also saw
the core of the matter as parents having insu
'
s way of explaining the matter re
cient time to take care of their
children. His
agenda (equal paternity leave) certainly contrasted
with the conservative views of many LDP politicians who blamed the
uprooting of the traditional family structure for the falling birth rate. In
contrast, Sawa blamed the traditional patriarchal structuring of society. The
better life
'
feminist
'
-
'
s slogan for the Upper
House election in 2007. How to raise awareness and, more importantly, how
to change the general mindset of the keidanren about having fathers partici-
pate in their children
work balance issue also became Komeito
s
recent drive for getting companies to establish their own nurseries indicated
that they were convincing some of the business lobby of the practical way to
maintain female employees, as well as convincing companies of the
'
s upbringing will be a challenging process. Komeito
'
financial
bene
t that lies in continuing to employ and promote women to a managerial
position. Changing the work ethic of long working hours to still care for a
family for both men and women has so far proved di
cult.
9
Previously, I had inquired about such issues with the Komeito Women
s
Bureau, where I spoke to a woman in her forties, herself unmarried and
working full time for Komeito. This department within Komeito was estab-
lished in the 1970s with the speci
'
c objective of improving gender disparity.
While she explained their various ideals and activities to improve gender
inequality, I asked whether they engaged in awareness-raising campaigns
about such issues among Komeito
s closest ally, the Soka Gakkai supporters.
To me, there seemed to be a discrepancy between the lived experience of men
and women in Soka Gakkai and Komeito
'
'
s objectives for gender equality. The
women said that it was di
cult for Komeito politicians to venture out among
Soka Gakkai members in order to preach how they should think or behave.
As a political party, what Komeito could do was publish their policy propo-
sals, articles in their news organs, speeches in town halls, election campaigns,
etc., to state their objectives. It was up to the supporters to agree or not, or
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