Yoshiro Mori has resigned as president of the organizing committee for next summer’s Olympic Games in Tokyo. The 83-year-old Japanese, former prime minister of his country, came in the past week under challenging shoes after several misogynistic statements. The pressure on him became so great that he submitted his resignation.
The Tokyo 2020 Executive Board members are currently sitting together to “express their views on Mr. Mori’s comments” and discuss “future initiatives” of the organizing committee on gender equality.
At that meeting, Mori announced his resignation. “My inappropriate statements have caused quite a stir. I want to step down from the president today,” he noted.
What did Yoshiro Mori say?
On Wednesday last week, Mori suggested that women talk too much during board meetings during an online meeting of the Japan Olympic Committee. “Such meetings with many women take longer because they find it difficult to complete. Women are competitive. When someone raises their hand to talk, others feel obligated to do the same. And so everyone talks ”, the 83-year-old ex-Prime Minister of Japan had said. It earned him fierce criticism.
A day later, he apologized. Mori emphasized at the time that he did not think about being fired.
However, the pressure on Mori and Tokyo 2020 has increased since then. Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike said she would not attend the meeting with all parties involved in the Games scheduled for later this month following Mori’s statements.
Japanese car giant Toyota, one of the Games’ main sponsors, and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) also condemned the misogynistic statements.
