Misogynist thinking is indeed strange, at least going by a story from Reuters in this morning’s Age on the Japanese imperial succession.

While the British-cum-Australian monarchy gives male heirs preference over females, Japanese law goes further and restricts the succession to the male line: women cannot become emperor or pass on a claim to their children. But the current heir apparent, crown prince Naruhito, has only one child, a daughter, so the government is considering amending the law to allow female succession.

A group of “conservative scholars”, however, is lobbying against the change. Their objection, however, is not so much to having a woman on the throne as to the idea that the succession could pass through a woman. “We are not opposed to a female emperor, but we are opposed to the disruption of the imperial lineage through male DNA,” a spokesman said. “We had eight empresses in the past, but none was married.”

So women are allowed to rule, so long as they carry “male DNA” from their fathers. But the son of a reigning empress, who presumably would only have female DNA, is ruled out. The language of prejudice changes with the times, but not the ugly reality underneath.