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This news article announced a breakthrough for the Japanese females as the first ever-female divisional head was selected in the all-male citadel of the Justice Ministry’s bureaucracy. Kazumi Okamura, a 45- year old lawyer had been named the director of the International Affairs Division. Previously she worked as a lawyer in the Japanese’s subsidiary in Morgan Stanley, a prosecutor, and a senior planning officer in the International Affairs Division before obtaining the seat of the head of this division. She is considered the first woman to break into the upper echelons of the ministry’s bureaucracy. Through the Japanese media, we have heard women’s voices and public discourses from Japan and the reason why the media always focused much attention on women is because in the twentieth century, women are experiencing rapid changes as they are exposed to opportunities, limitations and risks. In the past, the traditional image of Japanese women was the ‘ryosai kenbo’, good wife, intelligent mother, but nowadays, women no longer desire to play that traditional role and are stepping out to the society to work. From this news article, we can analyse 2 trends that is happening in Japan: the advancing status of Japanese women in the workplace especially into the previously male-dominated professions and the increasing participation of women in Japanese politics. These 2 trends displayed the fact that Japanese women have crossed certain boundaries in the societal norms. Thus this paper seeks to examine the changing reality of Japanese women from the traditional image and to what extent is this change significant. Nowadays more Japanese women are delaying their marriage age and extending their working life and a wide spectrum of indicators revealed that in 2003, there is a gradual increase of women breaking into the previously male-dominated professions. Today’s pioneering women are building the foundations from which a gender equal Japan will emerge. These women will act as role models, inspiring the future generation of women and probably able to accelerate the change.
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