Imagine that the political leaders of Japan, a traditional culture, want to encourage more girls in their culture to become business leaders and scientists. In order to achieve their goal, Japanese politicians should encourage Japanese

Japanese politicians should encourage more opportunities for women in the workforce and demonstrate leadership by prioritizing women candidates for seats in Japan's parliament.

Japan actually has been trying to aim in the direction of greater opportunity and equality for women. After becoming prime minister in 2012, Shinzo Abe announced plans for economic reforms and stimuli. One part of his program was dubbed "womenomics," which included the stated goal of having 30% of leadership positions in business and government filled by women by 2020. That goal was overly optimistic, and in 2016 Abe's government revised the goal to 7% of senior government jobs and 15% of business leadership positions being filled by women by 2020.

Though progress has been slow - - and in fact the numbers have gone backward at times - - persistence is the only way to change long-standing traditions. One way Japanese politicians could show greater leadership in this regard would be to prioritize women for seats in parliament. 3/5 of the representatives elected to that body are chosen directly by voters in their districts voting for individual candidates. The other 2/5 of representatives are chosen according to regional bloc voting, in which voters only are voting for the political party they favor, and the parties designate their top candidates for filling those legislative seats. The political parties could show leadership by prioritizing women as candidates for those bloc voting seats, giving more women a role of leadership within their own political parties.