Quote:Japan is to freeze voluntary funding for a United Nations’ women’s rights panel over its recommendation that Japan’s male-only imperial succession rule should be revised from gender-equality perspectives. 

 TOKYO -- Japan on Wednesday said it will freeze voluntary funding for a United Nations’ women’s rights panel that called for an end to the country's male-only imperial succession rule.

The unusual step comes in response to a report published in October by the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, or CEDAW, urging Japan to revise the male-only succession rule under the Imperial House Law to allow a female emperor. The 1947 law, which largely preserves conservative pre-war family values, only allows a male to succeed to the throne and forces female royal members who marry commoners to lose their royal status.

Japan on Monday informed the CEDAW that it will be excluded from a list of recipients of the country’s annual voluntary contributions, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Toshihiro Kitamura said.

The government sought the U.N.'s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, which manages CEDAW, not to use Japanese contributions for it activities. Japan will also suspend a visit to Japan by committee members planned by the end of March, Kitamura said.

Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi in October called the report “regrettable” and “inappropriate,” and said Japan had requested the removal of the reference from the report.

On Wednesday, Kitamura reiterated Japan’s position that the qualifications for the imperial succession is not part of basic rights and that the male-only succession under the Imperial House Law does not violate the basic rights of women and that it is not subject to discrimination against women.
Japan’s rapidly dwindling imperial family currently has only 16 members, including four men. The youngest male member of the imperial family, Prince Hisahito, is currently the last heir apparent, raising a concern for the system.

Still, the conservative government is looking for a way to keep the succession stable without relying on women, such as allowing the family to adopt new male members from former noble families that lost their status after World War II.

(Feb 7 2025, 5:11 PM)Puffin https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/japan-halt-funding-womens-rights-panel-call-end-118223913

Quote:Still, the conservative government is looking for a way to keep the succession stable without relying on women, such as allowing the family to adopt new male members from former noble families that lost their status after World War II.

ShameMustChangeSides Oh please, ANYTHING but crediting women while still relying on their compliance and their wombs to carry on this ridiculous penis tradition! They already rely on women for this so it's so insulting to say they want to carry on the succession without "relying on women."

komorebi Urgggh, there's a long history behind all of this. Masako, a former diplomat who studied at Harvard, Tokyo U, and Oxford, married the former Crown Prince and she's now empress of Japan. They had a daughter in 2001, which sparked a whole debate about succession. Because of that, for a couple of years, some politicians were interested in making it so that women could succeed the throne. However, the crown prince's brother and his wife had a son in 2006, and after that the debate stalled

Furthermore, the pressure on Masako to have a male heir and her treatment in the media gave the poor woman a fucking nervous breakdown. I'm so livid that this brilliant and accomplished woman married into some stupid royal family and got abused until she developed a mental disorder. 🤬

(Note: this is just my basic understanding of the sitch; let me know if I've gotten anything wrong!)