In an executive board meeting of the Games, Hashimoto said she would “bear a great responsibility as chairperson of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games in Tokyo.
Hashimoto, 56, told reporters earlier on Thursday that she had submitted her resignation as Olympics minister to Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga.
“It was a big decision for me to resign as minister,” Hashimoto said.
Hashimoto competed in four Winter Olympics as a speed skater and three Summer Olympics as a cyclist. She won bronze – her only medal – in the 1500 meter figure skating during the 1992 Winter Olympics.
Mori told an Olympic Board of Trustees that ‘meetings with many women take longer’ because ‘women are competitive – if one member raises his hand to speak, others think they should speak too’, according to Japanese media reports.
“It is alleged that you will be in trouble if you want to set a time limit,” he said.
Mori, a former prime minister, later resigned, offering his “deepest apology” for his comments, saying “my inappropriate statement has caused a great deal of chaos.”
New sexism storm
A week after Mori resigned, another male octogenarian leader in Japan was furious by misogynistic remarks.
Toshihiro Nikai, secretary general of the country’s leading Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), on Tuesday suggested that women lawmakers should be able to observe the party’s key meetings but not speak into them.
Two of the party’s 12-member council are women, while only three of the 25-member general council are female.
Nikai said it was important for the women during the directors’ meeting and the general council to “fully understand what kind of political discussions are taking place”. “It’s about making them look,” he added at a news conference on Tuesday.
Online, his proposals have become a popular topic attracting thousands of posts, with Twitter users making the comments sound deaf and sexist.
“How hopeless … but I bet (Nikai) still thinks he’s doing something good here. Think, but look, we let them (the female legislators) attend. But no, it can’t go so far as to says Hiroki Mizoguchi, a prominent author on immigration issues in Japan, tweeted. horrible, ‘he added.
Japanese author Mieko Kawakami, best known for her feminist novel Breasts and Eggs, also described Nikai’s comments on Twitter as ‘unacceptable’ and ‘misogynistic’, writing that male ruling party members would never understand the issue of gender equality.
“According to their views, men will take care of women as long as women do not threaten them and stay on their job. Women are treated as second-class citizens here in Japan forever,” Kawakami added.
CNN reached out to the office of the LDP General Council, which said that “nothing has been officially decided” about women joining important meetings as observers.
Over the past decade, demographic challenges and the growing number of women in higher education have slowly begun to change. Japan’s male – dominated governance structures.
Reuters and CNN’s Selina Wang and Junko Ogura contributed to this Tokyo report.