One of the most interesting parts of this story is how the city where this woman is mayor and cities where other women are mayors in Japan have higher birth rates than the rest of the country which has one of the lowest birthrates in the industrialized world. The reason is, these women ran on women focused campaigns and once in office implemented things like mandatory paternal and maternal leave.
It reminded me of this story from last week about medical schools lowering women’s test scores so they wouldn’t get into the school for fear of them dropping out of the work force after having babies. The thing is with paid family leave, both women and men are MORE likely to stay in the workforce after having children and they are more likely to have children in the first place.
the patriarchy is bananas! {read}