Japan’s parliament will get two more women’s toilet cubicles, officials said Thursday, following a petition by 58 female lawmakers demanding more facilities in line with their better representation. In Japan, gender roles are rigid and women are under-represented in politics, with only 68 female MPs elected out of 465 seats in the last lower house election held in February.The government says it wants to include women in at least 30% of legislative seats. “There are only two individual cubicles for women in the toilet adjacent to the main chamber, but this number will be increased to four after the current Diet session ends on July 17,” a spokeswoman for the lower house said in a statement.He said on condition of anonymity that plans to add more stalls on other floors are also being considered.Hideko Nishioka, the only woman on the committee involved in approving the expansion, told local media, “I welcome the move to improve, if only slightly, the acute shortage of women’s toilets for Diet staff and secretaries.”The cross-party petition, whose 58 signatories include Sanae Takaichi, Japan’s first female prime minister, was presented to the lower house committee on rules and administration in December. One of the signatories, Yasuko Komiyama of the opposition Constitutional Democratic Party, said at the time, “Before the plenary session begins, many female lawmakers line up in front of the toilet.”The Diet Building was completed in 1936, nearly a decade before women got the vote in December 1945 after Japan’s defeat in World War II. According to the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper, the entire lower house building has 12 men’s toilets with 67 stalls and nine women’s facilities with a total of 22 cubicles.Last year, Japan ranked 118th out of 148 in the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report. Women are also poorly represented in business and media. In elections, women candidates say they often face gendered remarks, including being told they should take care of children at home.(This is an AFP story)