Sexism in Japan

Warning: I'm going to say the 'S'-word. Sexism. After six months in Japan, I am beginning to pick up on a pervading sexism here. Although Japan is one of the world's wealthiest developed nations, the gender gap is wider in Japan than you might expect. While this controversial and opinionated post significantly departs in tone from the previous ones, it has been on my mind and is worth a discussion.

You may have thought about the issue during the 2012 Olympics when the world champion women's soccer team flew coach while, on the same flight, the sub-par men's team flew business class. The story made international news, and the team captain and star Homare Sawa remarked, "I guess it should have been the other way around. Even just in terms of age we are the senior." The JFA stipulated that if the women's team proved their worth with a medal, they would be upgraded for their return flight. They did, and JFA kept their promise. Regardless, the men's team found themselves with plenty of leg room, even without a medal. 

I have become accustomed to the frequent, subtle sexism. When in public, people primarily address my husband. People find it strange that I am the primary earner.  In my town in Japan, most members of town offices and all the town leaders are male. At junior high schools, the male students dominate class and their female counterparts must be coaxed to squeak in their barely audible voices. At the town gym, I get many curious glances when lifting weights or running the track because the ideal, feminine woman is not powerful. Here, the feeling of the societal gaze is strong. For me, I am judged not only as a foreigner, but also as a woman. Needless to say, as an American woman in Japan, I am incapable of meeting the expectations for Japanese women: thin and beautiful, passive and powerless, shy and demure. 

Japan remains one of the industrialized world's least equal countries, while nations like the U.S. continue to improve political empowerment, educational attainment, economic participation and opportunity, and health. At Japan's top 500 companies, women account for less than 1 percent of executives, compared with 10 percent in America and the UK. The 2012 Global Gender Gap Report, which measures the aforementioned factors, ranks Japan at #101 near India at #105. The Nordic countries occupy the very top of the list, with the US at #22, China at #69 and Yemen last at #135. While many nations have much improvement to make, the facts are surprising about Japan. 

The social consequences, like the effect on the career and family due to changing gender roles, is nothing out of the ordinary. In 1985, only 30.6% of women in their twenties were single. But because of the increasing pressure and desire to have a career, the rate rose to 54% in 2004.  Unmarried women in their late twenties and onward are the subject of much town gossip, and I know a few female ALTs who have been questioned endlessly about why they don't have a boyfriend or are unmarried. They are ridiculed by peers and called names like "Christmas Cake" which becomes undesirable and goes on sale the day after Christmas. While there is an up-tick of Japanese women in the workplace, they are so frequently overworked that they find it quite difficult to raise a family. At the same time, with Japan's aging population, women are feeling more pressure than ever to have children. Oh, to be a modern woman. 

However, Japan has a history of great females. Did you know there have been eight empresses in Japan?  Did you know that the author of The Tale of Genji was a woman? But even in this history, you can see the well-established roots of gender inequality. The Tale of Genji was written primarily in hiragana, Japan's syllabary. Males were allowed more education than women and Chinese kanji were "men's writing" while hiragana was the "women's writing." This further distinguished the power of educated men and the deference of women. Linguistically, women's speech is expected to conform with traditional standards of onnarashii, the code of proper behavior for a lady. Women speak with an artificially high tone of voice (omnipresent in Japan), and their polite speech and even grammar has a feminine characteristic.

After WWII women received the right to vote and the new constitution stipulated equality between the sexes. The late 1960's and early 1970s saw Japan's radical feminist movement. One leader was Misako Enoki, a pharmacist who organized activists to push for the legalization of the birth control pills. Her approach was to generate media attention by forming a protest group called Chupiren, who wore pink motorcycle helmets and took part in publicity stunts like confronting unfaithful husbands in their offices. They weren't taken seriously by the media. Mitsu Tanaka was the most visible individual figure during the movement. She wrote a number of feminist manifestos and her writings called for a dismantling of the household system. "By questioning man and authority, we will deconstruct our own fantasies of love, husband and wife, men, chastity, children, the home, and maternal love."

I think Tanaka's quote about the household system begins to touch on why advances for gender equality have stagnated in Japan. Japan is a land of tradition, and in many ways resistant to change. They do things because it's the way they have always done things, and that is reason enough. To question is to disrespect. Tradition calls for Japanese women to serve as willing subordinates to men. 

As a socially and politically emancipated American women, I can't help but force my ethnocentric world view upon Japan. However, I value Japan's traditional culture and I see value in preserving it. This balance between social change and honoring tradition must be struck, and it is an issue that is being struggled with the world over. I think that Japan's traditional culture is beautiful, but when it comes to women's rights, I think that Japan should change. Cultures aren't to be mummified, petrified, placed in test tubes to observe in a museum; they adapt and make transitions to modernity.

Here is one example. While women traditionally weren't able to participate in many of Japan's martial arts, now, I have seen junior high girls practicing kendo and met an American woman who placed 2nd in a sumo tournament in Fukashima. Dori from Kansas, an ALT in Mori, Japan, just 30 minutes south of my town, earned the pride of her town, the respect of her students and the fame of NHK news and newspapers by participating in a sport in which it was once forbidden for women to enter the ring.

As Japan becomes a more globalized nation and as they continue to measure their success against other industrial powers, I predict the country will want to "keep up with the Joneses" so to speak. In the next ten to twenty years we will see great improvements for gender equality.

Until then, I'll be soliciting hundreds of confused looks and disapproving glances at the gym, restaurants, and any old place with the preposterous behavior of a modern American woman.

I'd be interested to hear what you think about the topic of gender equality in Japan. Do you have a different opinion? Have you experienced something in Japan to add? Have you read a great Japanese feminist author? Please chime in with your experience or opinions!