A newly appointed female judge on Japan\u2019s Supreme Court has said she will use her maiden name when handing down rulings, a legal first in a country criticised for its attitudes to gender equality.<\/p>\n
Married couples in Japan are required to have a common surname under a law that was upheld in 2015, sparking criticism from activists who complain it is sexist and outdated.<\/p>\n
Social conservatives defend the law as crucial to maintaining Japan\u2019s traditional family structure but critics say it reflects a society that is still male-dominated and lags behind other advanced nations in terms of equality.<\/p>\n
Yuko Miyazaki, 66, the country\u2019s sixth-ever female member of Japan\u2019s top court, confirmed to AFP through a spokesperson that she \u201cwill use her maiden name\u201d for judgements.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is natural for me to keep using the name I used as an attorney,\u201d she told local media, adding it was important to have the \u201coption\u201d of keeping a pre-marriage name as traditional values change.<\/p>\n
The Supreme Court allows its officials to use pre-marriage names but Miyazaki is the first top court judge to choose to do so.<\/p>\n
Japan ranked bottom of the G7 countries in the World Economic Forum\u2019s latest \u201cGlobal Gender Gap Report\u201d, coming 114th worldwide.<\/p>\n
It scored poorly on women\u2019s participation in the economy and political involvement, as only around 10% of the lower house of parliament is made up of female MPs.<\/p>\n
Miyazaki said she was inspired to go into the law — at a time when it was difficult for women to find a job — by her father, who told her there was \u201cno difference between men and women in court\u201d.<\/p>\n
After graduating from the University of Tokyo\u2019s faculty of law in 1976 and Harvard Law School in 1984, she registered as an attorney before marriage with her maiden name Miyazaki.<\/p>\n
She has won global recognition in legal circles as a corporate and tax lawyer.<\/p>\n
But she was reportedly once turned away from a hotel in a foreign country because her professional name was different from her legal name.<\/p>\n
The surname law, which dates to 1898, is a throwback to the country\u2019s feudal family system, in which all women and children came under the control of the head of the household — overwhelmingly men.<\/p>\n
That system was abolished in 1948 in broad reforms following the post-World War II US occupation, but Japan\u2019s civil code maintained the surname rule.<\/p>\n
A December 2015 Supreme Court ruling said the law \u201cdoes not violate the constitution\u201d, noting that changing one\u2019s name after marriage did not harm \u201cindividual dignity and equality between men and women\u201d, as maiden names can still be used informally.<\/p>\n
Even though men can in theory take their wife\u2019s surname, in reality about 96% of married women in Japan take their husband\u2019s family name.<\/p>\n
Men in Japan occasionally take their wife\u2019s surname to maintain that name if her family has no male heir.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A newly appointed female judge on Japan\u2019s Supreme Court has said she will use her maiden name when handing down rulings, a legal first in a country criticised for its attitudes to gender equality. Married couples in Japan are required to have a common surname under a law that was upheld in 2015, sparking criticism […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18345,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18344"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18344\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18346,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18344\/revisions\/18346"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}