BEVERLY HILLS, February 03, (THEWILL) – The Organising Committee of the Tokyo Olympics has been rocked by accusations of sexism after comments made by the head of the Committee, Yoshiro Mori, were made public and sparked negative reactions from domestic and international commentators.
The 83-year-old was forced to retract his “inappropriate” remarks after calls for his resignation gained currency. Although, he apologised, the Games chief made no moves to stand down or resign his appointment.
The whole furore began when Mori was quoted as saying women talk too much and that meetings with many female board directors would “take a lot of time” to arrive at decisions. He said this at Wednesday’s meeting of the Committee.
Membership of the committee comes from various domestic organisations including the Japanese Olympic and Paralympic Committees, the Tokyo metropolitan government, and Japan’s national government. The 83-year-old Mori acts in a supervisory capacity as the head of the committee.
The committee’s responsibility includes selecting Olympians to represent Japan at the games and currently has a Board of 24 members, five of whom are women. It set a target, two years ago, to increase its female representation to 40% for Board Directors.
But, a local newspaper Asahi Shimbun, quoted Mori to have said: “If we increase the number of female board members, we have to make sure their speaking time is restricted somewhat, they have difficulty finishing, which is annoying.
“We have about seven women at the organising committee but everyone understands their place.”
Mori, who was a short-lived Japanese Prime Minister from 2000-2001, has a penchant for embarrassing gaffes and undiplomatic statements even while he was PM. However, his latest sexist comments triggered anger on social media, with the hashtag #Moriresign trending on Twitter after the publication. Some critics went as far as urging athletes to boycott the Games if Mori remained as chief.
The former Prime Minister himself admitted to Japan’s Mainichi newspaper that he was also censured by members of his own family: “Last night, my wife gave me a thorough scolding. She said: ‘You’ve said something bad again, haven’t you? I’m going to have to suffer again because you’ve antagonised women.’
“This morning, my daughter and granddaughter scolded me as well,” he told the newspaper.
On Thursday, at a press conference, when asked why he said women board members were too long-winded, his answer did not help his case as much as he may have thought it was going to:
“I don’t talk to women that much lately, so I don’t know.”
The major responsibility of the 36-member Tokyo Olympics organising committee is “ensuring the successful delivery of the Olympic and Paralympic Games”.
These Games have already been setback by a year and at great cost, about $2.8bn, because of the coronavirus outbreak and there are increasing fears that a new wave of COVID-19 spikes in the host city could threaten the new dates.
Jude Obafemi is a versatile senior Correspondent at THEWILL Newspapers, excelling in sourcing, researching, and delivering sports news stories for both print and digital publications.
