Arab News Japan

Osaka's mayor Ichiro Matsui is facing backlash for implying that men should go grocery shopping as opposed to women, as they take “a longer time [grocery shopping] because they browse through different products,” in a press conference on Thursday.

Matsui added that women contribute to overcrowding in supermarkets, while men going grocery shopping would help reduce the potential spread of the virus, since they spend less time browsing.

“Men quickly grab what they're told to buy so they won't linger at the supermarket -- that avoids close contact with others,” Matsui told reporters.

Popular Japanese journalist Shoko Egawa took to twitter to criticize Matsui’s comments, tweeting that “people who know nothing about daily life shouldn't make comments.”

https://twitter.com/amneris84/status/1253281790317391872?s=20

The journalist’s tweet garnered over 3,000 likes and 1.5k retweets.

Osaka is one of first seven prefectures which was declared under a state of emergency April 7. The Japanese mayor’s comments after he said supermarkets should limit the number of people entering the shop in order to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus.

51 percent of Japan’s population consists of women, according to the World Bank data. However, despite Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s efforts to empower women through his campaign ‘womenomics,’ Japan ranks 110th out of 149 countries in the World Economic Forum's index measuring the degree of gender equality.

Japan remains a male-dominated society.

As of April 25, the country has 12,829 confirmed cases, with 345 deaths so far.