Takako Doi

was a Japanese politician who served as leader of the Japan Socialist Party (JSP) from 1986 to 1991 and later its successor the Social Democratic Party (SDP) from 1996 to 2003. As leader of the JSP, she became the first female leader of a major Japanese political party, and the country's first female opposition leader. Doi's leadership and the result of the 1989 Upper House elections are considered watershed moments for female political participation in Japan.

She led the party to great success in the 1989 and 1990 elections. After the 1993 election, she was elected as the first woman to serve as speaker of the House of Representatives, serving in that office from 1993 to 1996. She then led the diminished SDP from 1996 until her resignation after the 2003 election.

Early life Doi was born in Kobe, Hyōgo Prefecture, to a middle-class, Protestant Christian family; her father was a physician from Hiroshima Prefecture and her mother from Kyoto Prefecture. She belonged to Japan's small but politically active Protestant minority. She experienced the Kobe air raid on 17 March 1945, which left her family homeless.

She attended Sumiyoshi Elementary School (now Kobe Municipal Nishi-Suma Elementary) via cross-district enrollment, commuting by train while boarding with a family friend. In 1941, she entered Hyōgo Prefectural Third Kobe Girls' High School (now Hyōgo Prefectural Miki High School), graduating in 1945. She then enrolled in the Chinese language department of the former Kyoto Women's Specialized School (predecessor to Kyoto Women's University), graduating in 1949. Originally she wanted to become a doctor like her father; her parents supported the idea that girls should study and try to be independent like men. She graduated in 1951 and completed a master's course in the Graduate School of Law in 1956. From 1949 to 1954 she lectured at Kyoto Women's University (formerly the specialized school), and later at Dōshisha University (1958–1970), Kwansei Gakuin University (1963–1969), and Seiwa Women's University (1967–1969), specializing in constitutional law. Tabata later recalled of her: "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."

Political career Early political career (1969–1986) In 1969, the Socialist Party were attempting to broaden their representation beyond trade unionists and offered Doi a candidacy for that year's House of Representatives election. Nonetheless, by the time of her election as party leader, she was largely unknown on the national stage. Doi emphasised her "ordinary" background and appearance, balancing her position as an unmarried career woman, which remained unusual for Japanese women in the 1980s. She also pushed for a greater number of female candidates, which the media dubbed the "Madonna strategy".

By 1989, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party was embroiled in controversy and facing unprecedentedly low approval ratings due to a combination of the lingering Recruit scandal, an unpopular 3% consumption tax, the lifting of economic protection for food producers, and new Prime Minister Sōsuke Uno's sex scandal.

Doi led her party into the House of Councillors election in July of that year with a popular image. Her speeches attracted unprecedented attendance and the party sold telephone cards bearing Doi's photograph. The JSP recruited a record number of female candidates, attracting a great deal of media attention and voter interest.

Following the LDP's defeat in the 1993 House of Representatives election, Doi was elected Speaker of the House, becoming the first woman to hold the position. She quickly set out to reform procedure: where previous Speakers had addressed members using the honorific -kun, Doi used the more polite and egalitarian -san, though successors did not follow her example.

The SDP collapsed in the 2003 election, losing almost half of its votes and winning only six seats. Doi was defeated in her constituency and entered the House on the PR list. She subsequently resigned as leader and returned to the backbenches. She ran for re-election as a paper candidate in 2005 and was defeated, but continued to speak publicly on pacifism and the Constitution. Haruaki Hara's brother (abducted in Miyazaki by Shin Kwang-su and others) recalled that despite Shin's 1985 confession, Doi and the JSP described North Korea as a "gentlemanly country," contributing to his sense of powerlessness toward politicians.

After Doi's death, novelist Naoki Hyakuta posted on Twitter that she had "asserted that there were no abductions" and was suspected of leaking information from victims' families to North Korea, calling her "nothing less than a traitor." When criticized for attacking the deceased, he responded: "Do politicians become immune to criticism once they die?" This sparked controversy.

Regarding the 2003 SDP secretary salary misuse scandal, then-DPJ leader Yukio Hatoyama criticized Doi's claim that it was "the secretaries' doing," arguing that her secretary Gotō Masako (a central figure arrested) had instructed new lawmakers like Tsujimoto on such fraud and held power comparable to Doi's (widely known outside the party). He called Doi irresponsible for not resigning.

Former Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone respected Doi, describing her as "very straightforward, principled, and someone who advanced single-mindedly, a fine Socialist Party leader."

According to former diplomat Yū Satō, Doi actively supported the emperor system and was a "royalist" who stated "I am not a republican."

Death Doi died aged 85 of pneumonia at a hospital in Hyōgo Prefecture on 20 September 2014.