Japanese women MPs want more seats, the porcelain kind

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Women lawmakers in Japan, including Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, have called for more toilets in the Parliament building.

PHOTO: BLOOMBERG

TOKYO – Nearly 60 women lawmakers in Japan, including Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, have submitted a petition calling for more toilets in the parliament building to match their improved representation.

Although the number of women politicians rose at the last election – and despite Ms Takaichi

becoming the first female prime minister in October

This is reflected by there being only one lavatory containing two cubicles for the lower house’s 73 women to use near the Diet’s main plenary session hall in central Tokyo.

“Before plenary sessions start, truly so many women lawmakers have to form long queues in front of the restroom,” said Ms Yasuko Komiyama from the opposition Constitutional Democratic Party.

She was speaking after submitting the cross-party petition signed by 58 women to Mr Yasukazu Hamada, the chair of the lower house committee on rules and administration, earlier in December.

The Diet building was finished in 1936, nearly a decade before women got the vote in December 1945 following Japan’s defeat in World War II.

The entire lower house building has 12 men’s toilets with 67 stalls and nine women’s facilities with a total of 22 cubicles, according to the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper.

Gender-rigid Japan ranked 118 out of 148 in 2025 in the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report. Women are also grossly under-represented in business and the media.

In elections, women candidates say that they often have to deal with sexist