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- WORLD, Page 26Takako Doi: An Unmarried Woman
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- To her countrymen, Takako Doi is clearly different, even at
- first sight. At 5 ft. 6 in., she is tall for a Japanese woman. When
- she speaks, people hear a great deep rumble with just a hint of
- grit. In a land where unmarried women are considered somehow
- incomplete, Doi remains steadfastly single. But the leader of the
- Japan Socialist Party has used her difference to advantage. Says
- Shinobu Tabata, her mentor at Doshisha law school in Kyoto: "She
- was big, loud and pushy to start with. I knew from the first day
- she came into my office that she would make a fine politician."
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- It was 20 years ago that she abruptly decided to stand up to
- her country's male-dominated political culture. In 1969 Doi, then
- a lecturer at Doshisha, approached the deputy mayor of her hometown
- of Kobe to apologize for an inaccurate newspaper report that she
- had accepted a J.S.P. draft for the lower house of parliament. The
- official was condescending and blunt: "Wouldn't it be really stupid
- to run in an election you know you have no chance of winning?"
- Affronted, Doi snapped back, "I've decided right here, at this very
- moment, that I will run for this election." She went on to win, and
- has not lost a single contest since.
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- Born in 1928 into a doctor's family, Doi belongs to the
- country's minuscule but politically active Protestant minority.
- "Originally, I wanted to be a doctor too," says Doi. "My parents
- were in favor of the idea that girls should study and try to be
- independent like men." Eventually, after studying English at a
- women's college, Doi chose instead to take law at Doshisha
- University, where she saw a movie about the young Abraham Lincoln.
- "I will have to be like Lincoln," she recalls thinking to herself.
- "A supporter of the weak."
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- Drafted into the J.S.P. in 1969 to boost its sagging fortunes,
- the constitutional lawyer has proved to be an able attention
- getter. Her academic background and her ruthlessly logical
- arguments, boomed out in her loud voice during the Diet's question
- hour, have instilled fear in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party.
- Seeking a gimmick to rebound from a disastrous election in 1986,
- the J.S.P. asked Doi to take on the party's leadership. Fearing she
- had been chosen as a "paper tiger" with no influence over policy,
- Doi, according to some reports, conducted tough negotiations with
- back-room power brokers to win the clout she felt she needed.
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- Perhaps Doi's most persistent problem is her unmarried state.
- Not only do rival politicians taunt her about her lack of a spouse,
- but the press continually asks her why. Doi, a confirmed feminist,
- says she simply has not found the right man. She has managed to
- convey a common touch through her love for pachinko, an extremely
- popular pinball-machine game, and her fondness for karaoke bars,
- where she sings along to Frank Sinatra's My Way.
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- Foreign analysts continue to doubt that Doi and her Socialists
- will soon rule Japan. Says Richard Holbrooke, former U.S. Assistant
- Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs: "The chances
- of Doi's becoming Prime Minister are just tiny." The Japanese,
- however, know better than to tell Takako Doi what she can and
- cannot do. They remember the deputy mayor of Kobe.