Japan is better than all Middle Eastern countries on the map. As for numbers, Saudi Arabia, where women can't drive, is 0.603; Japan, where women can serve in the Diet, is 0.656. This might lead one to wonder about their methodology.

Saudi adult female literacy is 91%; Japan's is 99.9%.

Oh I should've stated that Japan is in the Top 117-156 along with Middle Eastern countries or 23th percentile. One difference between the two is that the former is a sexually open society while the latter is extremely religious. The former's women have more volition compared to the latter, but Japan is a developed country where the cost of living is high and yet their women have to work twice or even more compared to those in developing countries in order to be able to provide for themselves and/or their family.

Additionally, Yamaguchi (2019) found that there's a large gender wage gap in Japan because of a disproportionate amount of Japanese women in non-regular jobs. There's also that employer perception against female employees and that, one is more likely to get a managerial position if they're a male so much more than if they're a college graduate. If they're female, they're less likely to advance in their career once they've settled for a family because they're expected to take care of the house and children which is contradictory to the requirement of working longer hours in a managerial position.

Japan have a strong traditional values when it comes to family and hence its gender roles. This role extends to main careers open to women, such as children’s education, nursing, and other supportive roles in health care. This stereotype also reflects on their hiring practices because educational background alone doesn't reflect the gender segregation among professions, i.e. Japan ranked high on 'Educational Attainment' subindex, and yet their women are underrepresented in other professions.

Yamaguchi, Kazuo (2019). Japan’s gender gap. https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2019/03/gender-equality-in-japan-yamaguchi.htm

I'd say. South Korea is 0.687, way over Japan and on par with several European countries. Did they even do proper research? It's not just job discrimination that Korean women have to deal with: sexual harassment and physical beatings of female employees are standard corporate practices.

Pretty sure Japan has backwardness in the offices too, e.g., they require women to wear high heels on the job and their labor minister thinks it's necessary. See my comment above for more. In general, 95% of rape/sexual harassment aren't reported because the country doesn't acknowledge it as something serious and it's considered a taboo subject. They also have lax attitude about pedophilia. These things affect men/boys too but they're in minority of the cases.

South Korea is far higher in terms of 'Political Empowerment' compared to Japan, they placed 68 vs Japan's 147 out of 156 countries. I only ever hear about Japanese female politicians on the news after they've received sexist remarks from their colleagues. At least South Korea is in a more hopeful hands.