In April 2003, Hokkaido voters elected their first female governor, Harumi Takahashi, during the 15th General Local Election. She became the fourth female governor in Japan, following those governors elected in Osaka, Kumamoto, and Chiba. The election of a female governor is quite a recent phenomenon in Japan, and there are both similarities and differences in the political conditions that supported this development in each prefecture. Recent efforts to devolve power from the national government have increased the power and responsibility of the prefectural governments in general, and of governors specifically. Both constituencies and political scientists are concerned with whether women will make a difference as governors during this critical period. This paper examines Harumi Takahashi's election as Hokkaido governor, focusing on the political party's recruiting process as well as the campaign strategies used by her followers. This campaign, like many others, raised the question of whether a candidate's gender should be emphasized to appeal to voters.

Nine people, two of them women, campaigned for the office of governor of Hokkaido. In the beginning of the campaign, Takahashi and her followers were reluctant to emphasize her gender. The other female candidate, Takako Itoh, was a former Diet member and third-time challenger in the governor's race who chose to target the general public and not take up feminist issues. When several opinion polls showed voters were dissatisfied with the candidates' vague policy perspectives, Takahashi's camp swiftly changed its strategy, specifically taking up women's issues to target female voters. In her manifest, Takahashi tried to distinguish herself from other candidates by declaring she would develop legislation to support child rearing and give financial aid to women entrepreneurs.

The exit poll showed that the majority of women voted for male candidates; thus, the candidate's gender did not have a strong impact on voter choice in the Hokkaido governor's race. Takahashi failed to mobilize women partly because her career as an elite bureaucrat and her affiliation with a conservative party gave many feminists the impression that she was simply “a man with a skirt on.” Ultimately, Takahashi's victory was brought about by the Clean Party's decision to endorse her at virtually the last moment of the race.

Takahashi's campaign drew considerable media attention because both her background and the recruiting process employed led Hokkaido voters to recall the successful campaign of Fusae Ohta of Osaka, the first female governor in Japan. Like Tokahashi, Ohta was a career bureaucrat, and being an elite METI woman had a strong impact on the recruiting process in both cases. Fusae Ohta was elected following her predecessor's resignation due to a sexual harassment scandal involving one of his campaign workers. In that race, the political parties carefully calculated the anti-male and anti-populist sentiments among Osaka voters.

Japan's second female governor, Yoshiko Shiotani, was elected in the prefecture of Kumamoto in April 2000, two months after Ohta's election in Osaka. Shiotani was the lieutenant governor of Kumamoto before her election as governor. Unlike Osha and Takahashi, Shiotani did not come from an eligibility pool comprised of career elites. When the incumbent governor suddenly passed away, the local political network asked Shiotani, a devout Christian with many years of service in the welfare institution, to run for office. Although she ran as an independent, Shiotani had the endorsement of the conservative LDP and the Clean Party. The extensive involvement of community and women's organizations in her campaign contributed to her landslide victory.

Akiko Domoto was elected in Chiba in March 2001, making her the third female governor in Japan. She was the first woman governor who ran and won the election as a real independent, that is, without receiving the endorsement of any major political party. Her success can be partly attributed to the active involvement of women's rights organizations and other civic groups in her campaign. Although Domoto did not serve as lieutenant governor, she was formerly a member of the House of Councilors. As the head of the small political party, Sakigake, she had been championing women's causes, human rights, and environmental issues, was well known by Chiba voters, and often appeared on television. Feminists and other activists evaluated Domoto's performance highly, so when she decided to run for governor to challenge the male- and money-dominated political culture of Chiba, she could reasonably expect moral and practical support from women and younger people.

With the exception of Domoto, female governors in Japan have two distinctive features: appointment as a lieutenant governor and elite status in the ministries of the central government. Both Ohta of Osaka and Shiotani of Kumamoto were lieutenant governors before they were elected governors. Shiotani moved directly from one office to the other in the same prefectural government, whereas Ohta served as lieutenant governor in the prefecture of Okayama before being elected as governor of Osaka. Lieutenant governorship seems to grant women running for governor greater credibility. The METI that sent Ohta and Takahashi to the governor's office serves as a mechanism for career women interested in politics to gain access to political office.

That people with elite status in the ministries of central government comprise an eligibility pool for governor is true for both women and men seeking governorship in Japan. It is possible that the increased entry of women into a nontraditional sphere such as central bureaucracy, and their subsequent promotion to the executive position, will enhance women's political recruitment, thus promoting their entry into the even more untraditional sphere of the governor's office.

There are also similarities in the electoral settings in which Ohta, Shiotani, Domoto and Takahashi entered the governor's office. These women ran for office in the context of a male-dominated political culture, sometimes during crises caused by their male predecessors. For example, there was a sexual harassment scandal in Osaka, a sudden death in Kumamoto, corruption in Chiba, and extreme distrust of the prefectural government in Hokkaido. Although the candidate's gender did not seem to have a discernible impact on voter choice, women candidates provided a compelling alternative to “politics as usual” in these gubernatorial elections, at least from the perspective of the candidates' recruiters.

The four women governors recently developed a proposal to the Japanese government calling for more effective enforcement of the “Violence Against Women Act.” The jointly submitted proposal suggests that women governors are united in their defense of women's rights and protection of women's interests as women, thus implying that “women represent women.” Although Takahashi and other women in political office regularly face this common assumption during their tenure, further research is needed to determine whether women governors actually represent women, particularly because electing women to the governor's office is such a recent phenomenon in Japan.