Takako Doi
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Takako Doi (土井 たか子 Doi Takako, born November 30, 1928) is a Japanese politician.
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[edit] Early career
Doi was born in Hyogo prefecture and graduated from Doshisha University where she studied law.
[edit] Political career
She was elected to the Diet as a member of the Japan Socialist Party (JSP) in 1969 from the 2nd district of Hyogo. She spent her first decade on the sidelines but came to national attention in 1980 when she was highly critical of Japan's unequal treatment of women, specifically about women-only home economics degrees and the father-dominated family registration law. She pressured the Diet to sign the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) in 1985.
She became Vice Minister of the JSP in 1984 and the first female leader of a political party division in Japanese history in 1986, as chair of the JSP Central Policy Division. She resigned in 1991, in the wake of the Gulf War, but returned to lead the Party after its disastrous electoral defeat in 1996, stepping down again in 2003.
The JSP took a record high number of seats in 1990 when they took 136 seats in the Diet, much of it due to Doi's popularity boom. In 1994, no party held a majority and the JSP formed a coalition government. JSP party president Tomiichi Murayama became prime minister. However, the coalition collapsed in 1996 and Doi took over the party.
[edit] Party Leader
Doi was a popular opposition politician, but as a party leader she saw the socialist opposition collapse.
Her chief act as party leader was to rename the JSP as the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in 1996. Moderating the characters "Socialism" by adding "Democratic" to the party name, Doi said she wanted to form a more moderate party and bring more women into politics. Doi was responsible for recruiting young women with grass-roots activist background such as Kiyomi Tsujimoto into the party.
In 1998, former JSP and LDP members formed the Democratic Party of Japan, and the SDP became a third-tier opposition party, watching its party numbers steadily collapse.
The SDP was a minor party by the time the reality of the Japanese abductees taken by North Korea came to light in 2003. Doi's status plumetted as her former quotes telling abductee families to "get over it" were shown on television, as was Doi's comment in Pyongyang in 1987 at the birthday party of Kim Il Sung: "We JSP members respect the glorious success of DPRK under the great leader Kim Il Sung."
She lost her seat in her election district in the 2003 election but kept a position in the Diet through the proportional representation system. She lost this seat in the 11 September 2005 elections.
