TOKYO – Already facing rising costs and significant public opposition to this summer’s Games, the organizers of the Tokyo Olympics faced new furor on Wednesday after the chairman of the Tokyo organizing committee suggested that women talking in meetings.
The president, Yoshiro Mori, sparked a backlash on social media after news reports surfaced about his comments humiliating women at an executive meeting of Japan’s Olympic Committee held online.
“On board with many women, board meetings take so much time,” said 83-year-old Mr. Mori laughing, according to a report in the Asahi Shimbun, one of the country’s largest daily newspapers. “Women have a strong sense of competition. If a person raises their hand, others are probably thinking, I should say something too. That’s why everyone speaks. “
Mr Mori, a former prime minister, responded to a question asking him to comment on the Olympic Committee’s plan to increase the number of women board members to more than 40 percent of the total.
“You have to arrange speaking time to some extent,” said Mr. Mori. “Otherwise we can never finish it.”
The reports came just as Olympic organizers were publishing guidelines to reassure citizens and visitors that they could ensure the safety of athletes and others during the rescheduled Games this summer.
On Twitter, users soon started calling Mori resign. Others suggested that Mori’s age and his outdated attitude were the real problem.
Mr. Mori, who was often the public face of the Tokyo’s organizing committee for insisting that the Games should go ahead in the midst of a global pandemic, seemed to be making an exception for the women who are currently members of the Tokyo organizing committee. Tokyo. . Those women, he stated, are able to speak at length that meets his standards for brevity.
These women “have experienced international arenas,” he said. “That’s why their way of talking is sophisticated, to the point and they are very useful.”
With just over five months to go before the Games kick off on July 23, Tokyo is still in a state of emergency and public vaccination has yet to begin. Mori and the committee face many challenges in convincing an audience that has shown in repeated polls that it is strongly against Japan hosting the Games this summer. In a poll last month, 77 percent of the country preferred to cancel or postpone the Games.
Masa Takaya, a spokesman for the Tokyo organizing committee, said he had no comment on Mori’s comments about women.
On social media, in the midst of calls for Mr Mori’s resignation, others expressed dismay not only at his comments, but also that no one in the meeting had objected at the time.
“This is nothing but discrimination against women” wrote a Twitter user. ‘He has to quit immediately. But the problem is, nobody stopped him. The biggest news is that he said this at the official site of the JOC meeting, where reporters were present, and that no one stopped the discrimination. “