Japanese succession crisis postponed - it's a boy

The New York Times is reporting that Japan's Princess Kiko gave birth to a boy, thus ending the recent drive to amend the rules of succession to allow a woman to become emperor and to allow the imperial line to pass from mother to child, rather than limiting it to passage from father to child.

As I discussed in my previous post on the subject, it's likely that Japan will face the same problem in the future. Also, it has likely dealt a blow to feminism in Japanese society. While Princess Masako, the Harvard-educated, former-career-diplomat wife of Crown Prince Naruhito, was first seen a symbol of the modern, successful Japanese woman, it's recently been possible to view her as symbolizing the way that Japanese society confines its women. She has reportedly been chronically depressed at her forced withdrawal from public service and has suffered under intense pressure to produce a male heir. Had the rules of succession been changed (there would have been a struggle, no doubt, but I think they would have been changed to allow female ascension of the throne), I think that Princess Masako's daughter Princess Aiko (who would have become empress, assuming today's birth had produced a baby girl and that the rules of succession had changed) would have symbolized major step forward for gender equality.