Culture & Religion — June 24, 2011

Japan Ponders Gender Quotas for Women MPs

Amid a dearth of female role models in leadership positions in Japan comes one positive move, the government is debating mandatory quotas to get more women into public office.

bigthinkeditor

What’s the Latest Development?

The Japanese government’s recommendation that the nation consider mandatory quotas to get more women into public office highlights its poor progress in putting women in leadership positions. While the idea of gender-based quotas is controversial, such systems are credited with boosting the proportion of women in politics in Sweden, Norway and Germany.

What’s the Big Idea?

The issue touches the much broader one of female participation in the Japanese economy. Goldman Sachs estimates that ramping up the number of women in the work force could boost Japan’s G.D.P.growth by up to 15%. The lack of female leader role models is cited as one reason young women in Japan often quit working after their first child, alongside the paucity of day-care centers in the country.

a computer generated image of a human brain.

Thinking

The great free will debate featuring Michio Kaku and Steven Pinker

Who — or what — really controls your mind?

Building destroyed by the Halifax Explosion. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.

The Past

The largest accidental explosion of all time

More than a century ago, Halifax suffered an accidental blast one-fifth the size of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

a collage of photos of a man with a hat and a book.

High Culture

6 great books with wildly unreliable narrators

Dive into the twisted truths and concealed realities told by literature’s most unreliable narrators.

a group of five matches on a pink background.

The Well

Signs you’re burned out — and how to bounce back

If you don’t feel better after the weekend, the “burnout paradox” could explain why.

▸

7 min

—

with

Laurie Santos

Starts With A Bang

The trick to instantly identifying JWST images

If you can identify a foreground star, the spike patterns are a dead giveaway as to whether it’s a JWST image or any other observatory.

Up Next

Politics & Current Affairs

Conservative Accounting Profitable, Not Just Prudent

As they adjust to the world’s ongoing global financial difficulties, some business chiefs are moving towards ‘conditional conservatism’ in accounting. Research shows it makes sense.