Reni Juwitasari
Japan Program Analyst, Asian Research Center for International Development (ARCID),
School of Social Innovation, Mae Fah Luang University
Source of Image: www.nippon.com/en/japan-topics/e00178/an-olympic-life-hashimoto-seiko-on-gender-equality-in-japan-and-realizing-the-tokyo-games.html
The mega-event sport of the Tokyo Olympic 2020 ended last August after being postponed a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The event was held from 23 July to 8 August 2021, resulting in the United States winning the most gold medals, followed by China and Japan, respectively (BBC, 2021). This event was symbolic of encompassing sport for peace, solidarity, and gratitude to overcome the hardships and uncertainty caused by the pandemic (Slodkowski, 2021). For Japan, this event does not merely keep substantial contractual obligations but also shows the nation’s pride (Alt, 2021). Firstly, the country remains showing as a global force amid its maturing economy eclipsed by China (Gale, Inada & Bachman, 2021). Additionally, it is a historical host in-making as an important symbol of the most rehabilitated and resilient country in the world, hosting Olympics twice; in 1964 after World War Two and this time after a decade of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake (Illmer, 2021). Moreover, the Tokyo Olympic Games established three main significant themes: “Celebrating Diversity,” “United in Partnership and Equality,” and “Sustainability,” all of which are connected to the achievement of SDGs 5 on gender equality and SDG 13 on climate action (AR, 2021).
Behind the successful 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, however, were found several controversies, mainly related to Japanese domestic affairs. As a host of the event, Japan had taken an enormous COVID-19 risk to its local population. Tokyo took a dangerous gambling decision making with the health and lives of the people of Tokyo and Japan and the tens of thousands who traveled to the Games (Takahashi, 2021). Fifty-five percent of Japanese opposed holding the Olympics, while 33 percent supported it (the Guardian, 2021).
In addition, the Tokyo 2020 Games was involved in sexist problems when President Tokyo Olympic Organizing Committee and the Japanese ex-Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori stated at a Japanese Olympic Committee meeting in February 2021 that women talked too much (Washingtonpost, 2021). Moreover, games’ creative director Hiroshi Sasaki insulted the female body of a Japanese Comedian by calling her “Olympig” in the opening ceremony appearance (Ray, 2021). Due to those incidents, more than 1,000 citizen volunteers have withdrawn (Chiu, 2021). Yoshiro Mori was forced to resign within a month and appointed a new President, Seiko Hashimoto (Wade & Kageyama, 2021).
The new female president of the Tokyo Olympic Organizing Committee, Seiko Hashimoto, is the 1992 Albertville Winter Games bronze medal winner and competed in seven summers and winter Olympic Games as a track cyclist and speed skater (Summerolympicgame, 2021). She also served as a member of the House of Councilors from the Liberal Democratic Party and the Olympic minister in Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga’s administration (Wade, 2021). This alteration of the president’s position became an eye-opener for Japanese society toward gender issues and progressively raised the awareness of gender equality. As a result, the issue became international attention in Japan’s vital moment of gender equality. Besides gender issues, the Tokyo Olympics has also aligned with other SDGs including SDG 13 Climate Action on environmentally sustainable practices (Maurasse, 2021). On 3 June, the president of Tokyo Olympic 2020 introduced the recycled plastic podium project to the public, showing her commitment to SDG 13 Climate Action achievement (Khun, 2021). Therefore, under the leadership of Tokyo on the Olympic, this article explores how the women leadership of Tokyo Olympic 2020 influences two salient SDGs: SDG 5 Gender Equality and SDG 13 Climate Action as a remarkable advancement legacy from the Tokyo Olympic 2020.
Olympics, Sexism and Sustainable Development Goals
The Olympics, once a four-year competition, has long been a highly anticipated event across the globe. The modern Olympics began in 1896, when Baron Pierre de Coubertin, president of the Union of French Athletic Sports Associations, disparaged ancient Greece from 776 BC through 393 AD; it took 1503 years for the Olympics to return (Lausanne, 1962; Penn Museum, n.d.). Prior to the modern era’s 1896 Olympics, the Olympics from 1894 to 1896, was open only to “free men” of Greek citizenship, which only men from Greece were allowed to attend, excluded men from other nations, women, included married women were not allowed to attend the Games and slave (The Olympic Museum, 2013; 2019) because people have believed that sport is masculinity, which opposes femininity and homosexuality (Brake, 2011). The 1896 Olympics has made a tremendous alteration, as a modern games period which it has always been open to athletes around the world before only focused on Greek citizenship and started to recognize several nationalities such as France and Great Britain and also established the four-yearly meeting for the world’s athletes (The Olympic Museum, 2019). Continuously, the 1912 Sweden Olympics were a universal competition for the first to boast the presence of national delegations from the five continents, including Japan’s presence at the first Olympic participation (The Olympic Museum, 2013; MOFA, n.d.).
Women’s involvement as an Olympic element took almost a century of the modern Olympic Games’ history. Furthermore, women’s participation in the sport could lose their femininity, over-develop their muscles or become sterile (The Olympic Museum, 2013). As a result, Women made their Olympic début in tennis and golf in the 1900 Games in Paris (France). Subsequently, over a century, they gained access to an increasing number of sports (e.g., swimming in 1912, athletics in 1928, volleyball in 1964, rowing in 1976, cycling in 1984, and football in 1996), but it was not until the 2012 London Olympics, with the introduction of women’s boxing, that women could compete in all of the Games’ sports. Since the 2004 Athens Games, women have accounted for more than 40% of athletes, until 45% of women competitors in the 2016 Rio Games (The Olympic Museum, 2013; 2019). In addition, before the 2021’s host, in 19, Japan was significantly making history of the successful women’s participation in the sport, particularly volleyball team, raising pride of the country as the medal gold winner (Low, 2009).
While the stipulation sexism has consistently been recognized in the Olympic Games history until today, the Olympics, as a sports event, has been aimed for development and peace since 2001 (APA, 2012). Sport can play a critical role in enabling sustainable development. Since then, the Olympic Games have been designed to contribute to the development and peace via its promotion of tolerance and respect, contribute to the empowerment of women and youth, people and communities, and advance health, education, and social inclusion objectives under the support from The U.N. Office on Sport for Development and Peace (UNOSDP) (UNSODP, n.d.). Therefore, Olympics Games has aligned with Millennium Development Goals and continued to help to achieve eleven out of the 17 SDGs through sport, namely SDG 3 good health and well-being, SDG 4 quality education, SDG 5 Gender equality, SDG 8 decent work, and economic growth, SDG 11 sustainable cities and communities, SDG 12 responsible consumption and production, SDG 13 climate action, SDG 14 life underwater, SDG 15 life on land, SDG 16 peace, justice, and strong institutions and SDG 17 partnership for goals (IOC, 2010; 2017).
A Case of Tokyo Olympics 2020, SDG5 and Women Leadership
As aforementioned above, the Tokyo Olympics caused sexism controversy. The new president of the Tokyo Organizing Committee, Seiko Hashimoto, an Olympic medalist in speedskating represented gender shift for the committee and Minister for Gender Equality and Women Empowerment under PM Suga Yoshihide administration (Nippon, 2020). After being appointed as the president in the male-dominated organization, Hashimoto’s first mission was to remark the Tokyo 2020 Olympics of equality practice (Wade, 2021) after prioritizing measures to protect against COVID-19 implementation (Rich, 2021). Consequently, a significant advance movement was created under her leadership related to Sustainable Development Goals 5, gender equality.
Firstly, the Tokyo organizing committee upholds ‘Unity in Diversity’ as an essential concept of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, working together with relevant agencies of IOC, the Government of Japan, and the Tokyo Metropolitan Government (IOC, 2021). Secondly, they amended its policy to let breastfeeding female athletes bring the children, including their nursing (Deliso, 2021). In addition, under Hashimoto’s leadership, Japan’s government was urged to ensure women, LGBTQ athletes, officials, employees, and spectators against discrimination, and appointed the Pride House Tokyo, a center arrangement to support the LGBTQ community during the Olympics (HRW, 2021; Rich & Hida, 2021). Furthermore, the Tokyo 2020 Organizing Committee expanded the size of its Executive Board after the selection of its new President, Hashimoto Seiko, increasing the proportion of women on the board to 42%. Additionally, it established a Gender Equality Promotion Team, led by Sports Director Kotani Mikako, another Olympic medalist in swimming, to promote gender and inclusion efforts throughout the Games (IOC, 2021).
As a result, Japan marked a “turning point” for the elite international sporting competition as the most gender-equal Olympics in the games’ history, with women accounting for nearly 49% of the 11,090 athletes (Deliso, 2021). Moreover, significant changes toward gender equality were made under Tokyo Olympics Games, such as 1) the 18 additional events to the Tokyo Games to increase gender equity, 2) each sport is expected to have an equal number of men and women, especially on the sports of baseball, softball, karate, skateboarding, sports climbing, and surfing, which have differing roster sizes; 3) More than quadruple the amount of mixed-gender events in comparison to 2018, including track and swimming, a triathlon relay, mixed doubles table tennis, mixed judo, archery, and shooting; 4) each nation is invited to select one man and one woman to carry the country’s flag during the opening ceremony; 5) men and women will compete on seven weightlifting teams, eliminating a men’s team to equalize the event; 6) swimming introduced a new 1,500-meter freestyle event for women, and the mixed-gender relay will make its Olympic debut (Rodriguez, 2021).
Besides gender equality, the Tokyo Olympics proved its effort for environmental climate action of SDG 13. First, the Olympics pushed towards zero carbon emissions by utilizing renewable energy; second, it cared resources and used entirely of sustainable materials: athletes slept on recyclable cardboard mattresses, podiums were made of recycled plastic, and the medals were made of metals recovered from discarded phones and other electronic equipment, aiming as little waste as possible with the aim of recycling 65% of waste from the Games (Sustainability Times, 2021; AR, 2021). Lastly, concerning the Natural Environment and Biodiversity, they pushed the idea of the “City within Nature/ Nature within the City,” where nature is assimilated into the design of our urban spaces (AR, 2021). Nevertheless, environmental issues after Tokyo Olympics had remained to be improved, including the incident that the organizing committee mismanaged meals pre-order, causing 4000 out of 10,000 pre-ordered bento boxes to be wasted (Kyodo News, 2021).
Japan is one of the countries which lags far behind other G7 nations in terms of female participation in society, ranking a dismal 121st out of 153 countries in the 2019 Global Gender Gap Report announced by the World Economic Forum (Nippon, 2020). The appointment of women leaders in the Tokyo Olympic Organization and the urge of equality act establishment reflect Japanese society’s progression, for instance, the joint effort with various organizations to inaugurate the Tokyo Olympic 2021 to be the first Olympics with gender equality.
Essentially, women leaders tended to adopt a more participatory approach, and women possess six leadership skills aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals, including long-term thinking, innovation, collaboration, transparency, environmental management, and social inclusion (Gross, 2020). Analyzing Seiko Hashimoto’s movement, her efforts for the Tokyo Olympic 2020 have shown her commitment to the SDGs’ implementation. On the other side, societal inclusion is accomplished via two bold actions: amending the policy for introducing nursing mothers to female breastfeeding athletes and pushing the Japanese national government to adopt anti-discrimination legislation. Additionally, the successful environmental movement during the Tokyo Olympics exemplifies the leadership style of women. Since a result, women’s leadership must be empowered and normalized, as it has a significant effect on achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.
Conclusion
After the postponement due to COVID-19, the Tokyo Olympic 2020 was held successfully, highlighting two crucial SDGs attainment of SDGs 5 gender equality and SDG 13 climate change. The Tokyo Olympics 2020 was surrounded by the controversial issues of the Japanese on COVID-19 spread and sexism. Last February, the twist of sexism led to a forced resignation of President Tokyo Olympic Organizing Committee, Yoshiro Mori, appointing a new president of Seiko Hashimoto, a female. She emphasized social inclusion of LGBTQ community recognition in the Olympics and other women issues of parenthood. As a result, her leadership style has created a history of the most gender-equal Olympics for the first time. Moreover, the environmental issue is pointed as one of the significant endeavors to reduce and recycle waste. Therefore, women leaders must be normalized to achieve SDGs and enact modernity amidst stereotypical male-dominated world leadership.
Thanks to Dr. Yuki Miyake, the Head of Japan Program, Asian Research Center for International Development, School of Social Innovation, Mae Fah Luang University for supervising this article.
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