Women in Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Abstract

This is the first ever account of women in Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The first section traces women’s entry into the diplomatic training institute, highlighting the work of the pioneers in the first and second cohorts of women to train at the institute. The second section aims to understand the contemporary situation of women diplomats by chronicling the numbers of women to take and pass the exam for career diplomats—those who are eligible for leadership positions—and maps the assignments of women ambassadors and consuls general of Japan with the goal of gaining a preliminary understanding of women’s status in the ministry. The third section analyses the discrepancy between the large numbers of women in Japan’s UN delegation and MOFA diplomats overall.