The country recently pulled out of the UN’s gender equality committee over its refusal to change the male-only royal succession.
Articles on Chrysanthemum Throne
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There have been eight women who ruled as empress, but Japanese culture has always prioritised maleness.
History tells us there were eight women who ruled as empresses of Japan, but since reforms of the constitution in 1947, only a man can inherit the throne.
Japan’s 86-year-old Emperor Akihito abdicates on April 30 — an exceedingly rare event for this ancient monarchy. Can his son, Prince Naruhito, give Japan’s royal family a modern makeover?
The country has reached back more than a thousand years into its early literary heritage for an auspicious name for a new era under a new emperor.
