> In its 2025 white paper on gender equality, approved at a Cabinet meeting the same day, the government stressed the need to eliminate the "fixed sense of gender roles" in rural communities and create environments in which women can play active roles.
Rather than trying to force changes on aging rural communities, might it be better if the government offered a variety of roadmaps to them? Towns choosing to emulating Nagi, Okayama ( https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14730746 ) would receive bureaucratic labels amounting to "this place has a future, plan & provide for long-term growth". Vs. places "fully committed to traditional roles" would get labels closer to "phase out and erase, as the final survivors die off".
[Article seems to be paywalled after the 3rd paragraph, I didn't bother trying to circumvent that.]
> In its 2025 white paper on gender equality, approved at a Cabinet meeting the same day, the government stressed the need to eliminate the "fixed sense of gender roles" in rural communities and create environments in which women can play active roles.
Rather than trying to force changes on aging rural communities, might it be better if the government offered a variety of roadmaps to them? Towns choosing to emulating Nagi, Okayama ( https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14730746 ) would receive bureaucratic labels amounting to "this place has a future, plan & provide for long-term growth". Vs. places "fully committed to traditional roles" would get labels closer to "phase out and erase, as the final survivors die off".
[Article seems to be paywalled after the 3rd paragraph, I didn't bother trying to circumvent that.]