She spent her first ten years in the House on the sidelines, but came to national attention in 1980 when she was highly critical of Japan's unequal treatment of women, specifically about women-only home economics degrees and the father-dominated family registration law.

Doi was responsible for recruiting young women with grass-roots activist backgrounds, such as Kiyomi Tsujimoto, into the party.

Doi's status plummeted as her earlier statements telling abductee families to "get over it" were shown on television, as was Doi's comment in Pyongyang in 1987 at the birthday party of Kim Il Sung: "We JSP members respect the glorious success of DPRK under the great leader Kim Il Sung."

Doi apologized to the families and claimed that North Korean authorities had been deceiving her all along,[2] but resigned the party leadership soon after.

In 1989, Doi, together with Naoto Kan, Keiko Chiba, Tomiichi Murayama and other 129 Japanese politicians from Japan Socialist Party, Socialist Democratic Federation and Komeito signed a petition to the South Korean President Roh Tae-woo for the release of North Korean spies including Sin Gwang-su who had kidnapped a Japanese person in June 1980.