Japanese culture has quite a lot of sexism but so do many "western" countries some are better in some ways some are worse in some ways. And divide between "the West" and Japan isn't so huge Japan is fairly westernized in many ways. It's a rich liberal democracy with a lot of similarities to other rich liberal democracies we may label western.

> A lot of visible local businesses in rural Japan tend to be run by men

And you don't think that has anything to do with sexism in society?