One critic called it a call for violence against women.
Koreaboo
A politician’s extreme ideas to combat Japan’s plummeting birth rate are facing backlash from public opinion, both domestically and internationally. Some netizens even compared his plan to the plot of a dystopian science fiction novel.
In 2023, Japan’s birth rate hit an all-time low, with the average number of children born to a Japanese woman falling to 1.20. The birth rate in Tokyo fell to 0.99 for the first time. According to many young people in Japan, the low birth rate, which has a strong impact on Japan’s aging population, is largely due to finances, job insecurity and a work culture that results in poor work balance and private life.
In a recent video, the leader of the Japanese Conservative Party, Naoki Hyakutaproposed that women be banned from marrying after age 25 and that women who have not had children by age 30 have their uteruses removed. She also suggested that women should be barred from going to university at age 18 so they can focus on childbearing instead.
Following intense backlash, he claimed that his ideas were not intended for real politics, but rather for “science fiction plot”. As an author, Naoki rose to fame in 2006 after publication The eternal zeroa novel that glorified the kamikaze pilots of the Second World War. He has been criticized in the past for his controversial views on Japanese history.
It is not surprising that the leader of the Conservative Party has received strong criticism from both public figures and the public. A critic-Sumie Kawakamian author on gender issues, dubbed Naoki’s proposal a “call for violence against women”. The news, which originally made headlines in Japan, has now circulated on social media sites such as Reddit.
Some Redditors have compared Naoki’s ideas to dystopian works, such as TV series Black mirroralso expressing shock and doubt that those ideas were “purely hypothetical.”
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Other Reddit users pointed out flaws in Naoki’s logic and politicians’ reluctance to address the financial difficulties that have contributed to Japan’s shrinking population.
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Some Redditors also gave their own suggestions on how to solve the population problem, such as:
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Japan isn’t the only country struggling to increase its birth rate. Read about South Korea’s birth rate problems (and questionable solutions) here:
The South Korean government’s absurd plan to “increase the birth rate” is mocked by everyone
