If words were all you had to go on, you might quickly conclude that Mio Sugita is an old-fashioned male chauvinist. Over the years, as a well-known member of Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), the MP has insulted women old and young and stood resolutely against measures to promote gender equality.
Increasing the number of nurseries for working mothers is undesirable because women should bring up their own children. Support centres for rape victims are a bad thing because “women lie as much as they want”, and the idea of equality between men and women is “nonsense”.
But Sugita is not a crusty old buffer or a splenetic Japanese gammon — she is a glamorous woman of 57 with a huge following on social
