In Japan, far-right ‘jokes’ about women’s reproductive autonomy are reshaping policy.
Japan’s Conservative Party leader Naoki Hyakuta sparked outrage on a Nov. 11 YouTube broadcast with “solutions” to Japan’s declining birthrate that sound more like a dystopian nightmare than public policy. His proposals—banning women from university after the age of 18, legally preventing women over 25 who are single from ever marrying, and, most chillingly, surgically removing the wombs of women once they turn 30—were framed as “science fiction by a novelist” intended to “spark debate.” But in a country still grappling with gender equality, many Japanese citizens see through the thin veneer of satire.
Hyakuta’s comments come on the heels of a modest win for the Conservative Party in Japan’s House of Representatives election on Oct. 27, where they secured three seats with just 2 percent of the proportional vote across 11 blocks—enough to qualify as a national party under the Public Offices Election Act. Formed in protest of Japan’s 2023 LGBT Understanding Promotion Act, Hyakuta and his Conservative Party are far from a fringe group; their message resonates with a growing base frustrated by modern social policies and nostalgic for a return to “traditional” Japan. (Sound familiar?) Their victory signals that this brand of chauvinistic, authoritarian rhetoric now has a disturbingly visible platform in Japanese politics.
Japan faces a real demographic crisis, with its population projected to drop from 125 million to 87 million by 2070, with 40 percent over age 65. But Hyakuta’s “solutions” sidestep the complex economic, social and structural causes behind the low birthrate in favor of a quick, authoritarian “fix”: Control women.
Japanese science fiction author Issui Ogawa condemned Hyakuta’s remarks, specifically his attempt to dismiss them as “fiction.”
“I’m a science fiction writer, and I’m not amused that the grotesque idea of removing a woman’s uterus was described as science fiction,” Ogawa wrote on X.
Gender studies lecturer Sumie Kawakami noted that Hyakuta’s apology, which followed backlash, reveals a deeper strategy. “He [Hyakuta] has said something and now there has been a strong reaction. He has withdrawn it and apologized, but if there had not been a response, then he would not have felt the need to claim he was only speaking hypothetically and to apologize,” she told This Week in Asia.
Kawakami linked this calculated testing of boundaries to a broader decline in political discourse, paralleling the rise of toxic rhetoric in the United States under Donald Trump.
Their voices reveal a deeper truth: Hyakuta’s rhetoric isn’t just about provoking debate—it’s about advancing a worldview that sees women’s bodies as expendable tools in service to national goals.
The Global Context: Trump and the Authoritarian Playbook
Donald Trump’s recent reelection in the United States underscores a similar tactic: using inflammatory rhetoric to push boundaries and test societal tolerance. Trump has built his political identity on “telling it like it is” and using brash humor to provoke and polarize.
In 2015, he dismissed fellow Republican Carly Fiorina with, “Look at that face! Would anybody vote for that?” and equated women’s political power to their sexual appeal, saying of Hillary Clinton, “If Hillary Clinton can’t satisfy her husband, what makes her think she can satisfy America?”
Even graver are his remarks on systemic issues like sexual assault in the military: “What did these geniuses expect when they put men and women together?”
What ties Hyakuta, Trump and other authoritarian leaders together is a cynical understanding that women’s rights are easily sacrificed.
Trump’s violent sexism has long permeated his rhetoric. In a 1992 New York magazine profile, he said, “Women: You have to treat ’em like shit,” and later told biographer Timothy L. O’Brien that his favorite scene in Pulp Fiction was the one “when Sam has his gun out in the diner and he tells the guy to tell his girlfriend to shut up. Tell that bitch to be cool. Say: ‘Bitch, be cool.’ I love those lines.”
These comments, often dismissed as locker-room talk or humor, trivialize violence against women and reflect a worldview that treats women’s autonomy as expendable.
Media studies scholar Viveca Greene argued that this strategy of “weaponizing irony to attract and radicalize potential supporters” allows today’s right-wing leaders to radicalize supporters while normalizing regressive ideas. Trump’s comments foster a “toxic counterpublic,” where attacks on women’s autonomy are dismissed as jokes, subtly reshaping societal norms and laying the groundwork for policies that erode women’s rights.
In the global political landscape, this type of rhetoric is gaining traction as authoritarian-leaning leaders weaponize culture wars to consolidate power and suppress dissent. In Hungary, Viktor Orbán banned gender studies and “LGBTQ propaganda” in schools, while in Brazil, former President Bolsonaro attacked the press, undermined voting systems, clashed with the judiciary and oversaw a wave of antiabortion legislation, as Laleh Ispahani and Jennifer Weiss-Wolf highlighted in Ms.
Women’s rights are often the first on the chopping block because they are symbolic battlegrounds where leaders can signal their commitment to preserving an imagined moral order. This is, as Zoe Marks and Erica Chenoweth described, the patriarchal authoritarian playbook in action: promoting state control over women’s bodies, relegating women to domestic roles and criminalizing anyone who challenges hypermasculine ideals or “traditional family” structures.
In the U.S., Trump’s approach has rippled through the political landscape, inspiring a wave of right-wing legislators who now openly advocate for policies that erode women’s rights under the guise of preserving the nation’s moral fabric. Figures like Ron DeSantis, who has passed highly restrictive abortion laws in Florida, and lawmakers pushing “Don’t Say Gay” bills across the U.S. tap into the same narrative: that to “save” the nation, it’s necessary to strip away certain freedoms, starting with those of women and minorities.
The Stakes for Japan—and Beyond
What ties Hyakuta, Trump and other authoritarian leaders together is a cynical understanding that women’s rights are easily sacrificed. The playbook they’re using is dangerously effective: First, float an extreme proposal framed as satire; next, gauge the public’s reaction; finally, inch closer to turning that rhetoric into policy. In other words, by cloaking extreme views in humor or hypotheticals, they test what the public is willing to accept and stretch the boundaries of discourse. This manipulation shifts the Overton window until ideas once seen as fringe—like restricting reproductive rights or enforcing rigid gender roles—become legitimate policy debates.
As Americans grapple with the shadow of Trump’s second term, they’d do well to watch what’s happening in Japan, Hungary, Brazil and beyond. When satire is weaponized as a tool for authoritarianism, it’s not just rhetoric—it’s strategy. Left unchecked, it paves a chilling path to futures where women’s bodies are governed by policies born from “just hypothetical” provocations. The line between satire and reality, it turns out, is perilously thin.
