21-03-2025
Natsue Kondo: The female vice admiral who broke the glass ceiling at Japan's SDF
In December 2023, Natsue Kondo became the first woman promoted to top leadership at any of the three branches of the Self-Defense Forces.
More than a year on, Maritime Self-Defense Force Vice Adm. Kondo, 59, remains the only female SDF officer holding any of the top ranks — admiral and vice admiral at the MSDF, and general and lieutenant general for the Ground and Air Self-Defense Force.
Kondo commands the MSDF's Ominato District, based in Mutsu, Aomori Prefecture. This group is tasked with protecting maritime security in areas north of Aomori, including the Tsugaru and Soya straits, as well as keeping an eye on the Russian and Chinese militaries.
"I was initially planning to be a high school teacher," Kondo said in a recent interview. "I didn't really have a lot of knowledge about the SDF or have a strong feeling for national security."
One day when she was working as a temporary teacher at a junior high school after graduating from Yamaguchi University, an SDF recruitment pamphlet at a city government office caught her eye. Attracted by the diverse jobs and the global working environment offered by the SDF, Kondo took a test and passed.
"I felt that even someone like me was needed by the SDF. This made me want to contribute to this organization," she said.
Kondo "hadn't given any thought" about being the first female top-ranking SDF officer, she said.
"Of course, I have a sense of mission and responsibility," she said. "But everyone in a similar position to mine has such a resolve regardless of whether they are a man or a woman."
She joined the MSDF in 1989, when the Showa Era (1926 to 1989) ended and the Heisei Era (1989 to 2019) began.
Although the working environment for female SDF members was far less desirable back then, Kondo said, "I can't really recall any hardships."
The only bitter memory so far was being excluded from a long-distance training voyage after she graduated from the Maritime Officer Candidate School because she was a woman. Conducted for around seven months both in and outside Japan, the training was held as an opportunity to learn knowledge necessary for officers and develop a global perspective.
"I wanted to be a crew member of an MSDF vessel, but there was no (living) quarter for women on the vessel at the time," she said.
It was customary for the school's graduates to board boats from a pier and then get on a training ship docked in a bay.
But five female graduates including Kondo had to go back to the pier. "All of us were crying" in disappointment, she said.
"I thought that the values I would have developed (through the training) must be more important than I could imagine, such as views on the nation, on the world and on security, and the sense of mission," she said.
"I thought I was at a great disadvantage because I lost out on this golden opportunity," she recalled. But she added that such experiences are not necessarily a bad thing, "because (they) can provide the valuable experience of overcoming adversity."
"The meaning of advancing in one's career differs depending on what each individual values," she said. "We must not let any opportunities for women to challenge themselves be taken away."
