Despite being Asia’s oldest continuous democracy, Japan has been far behind the region’s other countries in electing a woman leader. That changed Tuesday when Takaichi Sanae, a conservative in Japan’s long-dominant party, became the nation’s first female prime minister.

Despite the ceiling-busting triumph, however, this former drummer in a heavy-metal band got off on the wrong foot with a comment that helps explain why so few Japanese women enter politics or buck a cultural norm that sees women primarily as caregivers.

In a speech, Ms. Takaichi asked everyone to “work like a horse,” and then added, “I myself will cast aside the idea of ‘work-life balance’. I’ll work, work, work, work, and work.”

While perseverance is a highly admired trait in Japan – and helped her in becoming head of the world’s fourth-largest economy – public reaction forced her to clarify that she was speaking only about members of the Liberal Democratic Party like herself. If anything, the new prime minister wants to assist homemakers, who are mainly women, and make it easier for them to balance homelife and work.

She pledges to designate homemaking services as an official occupation worthy of tax deductions. In addition, she wants to expand support for women’s health “so that men can properly understand when women are struggling, whether at school or in the workplace.”

In a country with a weak feminist movement, Japan has made only sporadic advances for women to enter politics since World War II. Leaders who have won women’s votes often found success by appealing to the everyday interests of women. A good example is the three-term governor of Tokyo, Koike Yuriko, who also served as Japan’s first female minister of defense. Her family-friendly policies, such as free day care for preschool children, helped elevate the number of women in the city’s assembly to 41 out of 127 in a June election. That is an unusually high proportion in any of Japan’s political bodies.

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When women take part in politics, Irie Nobuko, a Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly member, told Kyodo News, “Real-life concerns – such as childcare, nursing, and education – are brought to the forefront. A truly inclusive society must consider both male and female perspectives.”

For her part, Tokyo’s Governor Koike entered politics simply “because of my ideas and principles,” she wrote in a 2010 article for Harvard International Review. “We deal not only with women’s issues but also with defense and economics – all the topics that concern the administration of the nation, just like any male member of Parliament.”