Equality still has a long way to go...

By TOMOKO OTAKE (The Japan Times)

International Women's Day, commemorated March 8, was a chance to celebrate women's achievements. But it also highlighted the fact that discrimination continues to be a major problem for women around the globe -- and Japanese women, unfortunately, are no exception. In fact, the world's second-largest economy ranked 43rd in the United Nations Development Program's Gender Empowerment Measure in 2005, the lowest of all the developed nations and most second-tier countries, too.