The following is from Masayuki Takayama's column in the latter part of the Shukan Shincho, released today.
This article also proves that he is the one and only journalist in the postwar world.
It is a must-read not only for the Japanese people but for people worldwide.
A Country Where Women Are Great
Vietnam beat France and the U.S., got rid of the Pol Pot faction, and severely hurt China, which was bulky with Sinocentrism.
Vietnam is a great country that has won victories over many significant powers, and I have learned from my travels there that it is all thanks to women.
One person who is emblematic of this is Ms. Nguyen Thi Thi, the female manager of Saigon Satake.
She is also the deputy mayor of Saigon Special City, but she is better known by another name: "Generalwoman Viet Cong."
The Vietcong is the South Vietnamese National Front for Liberation, which was created in response to North Vietnam.
She traversed the 1,770 km battlefield from Saigon to Hanoi to shake hands firmly with Ho Chi Minh to demonstrate cooperation with the North.
Her military deeds are too numerous to count.
In the U.S. movie "Full Metal Gearket," a female sniper who terrorized the U.S. military is featured.
That's a true story," Thi Thi said.
Women won every war.
Women are vital in this country.
In the war against the Han, the sisters commanded the army.
The name "daughter and child army" was born here.
The anti-French movement was also led by a 13-year-old girl, Bo Thi Thao, who was shot dead in the end.
Vietnamese men also recognize this.
It is the only place in the world with a "Women's Museum" to tell the history of the women who saved the country.
But when the fighting was over, Thi Thi took the lead in rebuilding the economy, saying, "Politics produces nothing."
Foolish men had her set up communist-style collective farming, but in Saigon, free agriculture was implemented under her leadership, which was a great success.
The model for economic restructuring was Japan.
She is in charge of 80 companies, including Saigon Satake, which is based on the pillars of quality and integrity.
All of the company executives are women.
"Men are no good. Let them get involved in politics."
The World Economic Forum (WEF) has released a country-by-country ranking of the gender gap, or the degree of disdain for women, in countries worldwide.
The criterion is the degree to which women have entered politics.
Japan was ranked 118th out of 146 countries because there are few female politicians.
The Asahi Shimbun, which is happy to hear that Japan is not doing well, devoted a large part of its paper page to the story that Japan is the worst among the G7 countries.
However, it did not mention which countries are ranked higher or whether the ranking has any credibility.
Take, for example, Eswatini, ranked 47th.
It is the old Swaziland, where the king has a dictatorship.
No political parties or demonstrations are allowed, and anyone who crosses him will be shot.
The king also decides whether women can enter politics and allocates four of the 70 seats in the House of Representatives to women.
In Japan, women hold 10% of the seats in the House of Representatives, but they are ranked far below women.
Korea is also higher than Japan, but until the Japanese rule, women in that country did not have names.
They were given names like Yoshiko or Yoshie in the Japanese style.
The status of women in the family is also low, and even today, women are forced to eat in the kitchen.
In the U.S., too, women were treated as quasi-prohibited persons, with the husband holding the purse and the wife free to do as she pleased up to $20.
The wife's gift for Valentine's Day was a $16 pair of heart-shaped pants and chocolates.
Vietnam, which could not compile a history without women, was not ranked first but 72nd.
The WEF's ranking is based on the number of women in politics, a "man's profession.
It is a narrow-minded male prejudice, which neither the WEF nor Asahi have noticed.
While I was sipping pho at Hanoi's famous morning market, a man's bicycle with his wife on the back of it on her way home from shopping collided with another couple's bicycle right in front of me.
The bicycles collided with another couple's bicycles. The bicycles fell over with a loud crash, the wives were thrown to the ground, and the shopping items were scattered about.
The men got up and started beating each other without saying a word.
The wives were picking up the goods and sorting them, saying, "This is yours," and so on.
When the work was done, the wives called out to their husbands.
With as much abruptness as they had started it, the men stopped beating each other, got up their bicycles, picked up their wives, and left in different directions.
The wives smiled and bailed as they parted.
I was suddenly reminded of Titi's words, "Men are no good, so I'll let them play politics.
2024/8/24 in Kojima
