Japanese politics is not a pretty sight. Lots of wrinkly men from powerful dynasties arguing over their factions and minor policies while ignoring the bigger issues. At night they take off to the expensive hostess clubs of Ginza and spend time with their younger mistresses.
But there are a few lights in this world of darkness.
One of them is the rather attractive Ayaka Shiomura, a 35-year-old politician for Setagaya in the Tokyo Assembly, one of the members of the left-leaning Your Party.
Yesterday she was giving a speech to the Tokyo Assembly on improving government support for women with fertility issues trying to have children or those who are raising them.
While you might expect such a speech to go down well on all sides of the political spectrum — after all, what better way to deal with Japan’s demographic issues than by helping people to have more kids? — she found her words disrupted towards the end by at least two older peers from the ruling LDP.
“You are the one who must get married as soon as possible,” one assembly member shouted.
Another said: “Can’t you even bear a child?”
Governor Masuzoe apparently sniggered when the jeers were heard. Masuzoe is the man so sexist that a campaign group demanded a sex strike when he was running for governor.
Shiomura smiled nervously and tried to continue, though she was clearly upset by the abuse.
Why was Shiomura targeted? Well, she is 35 and unmarried; she is an overripe egg, as the older men would say. She is also attractive and no doubt this challenges the older men in the assembly, who no doubt fancy their own chances at impregnating her.
She is also a former TV broadcaster and even back when she was much younger, a Gravure model. Here is Ayaka Shiomura at 19.
She is not the only prominent female politician with a colorful past. Renho, the popular DPJ politico, is not only of part Taiwanese descent but is a former Gravure idol too.
Here is Renho in action, politically speaking. She almost always seems to be dressed in white jackets.
And how she used to make her living.
We think you’ll agree that both are pretty formidable.
