At the risk of carrying this into TLDR I owe you beer for saying banana in your next post territory, quickly (haha):
Discrimination against women is only one part of the bigger picture here:
Men over 65 (sometimes as low as 60 now) are forced to quit jobs they both enjoy and are productive at. Many times a company will actually cut off its nose to spite its face in this regard, as Japanese men typically have forged their entire identity around their job position. Many of them, in perfect socialized style, have actually given up any true relationship with their families in respect to their company. Working well in excess of 8 hours every salaried work day is a given here. In some companies, being the last one in the office becomes almost an unconscious competition with one’s coworkers. I have personally worked in companies and witnessed first-hand the live-to-work culture (as opposed to the American work-to-live mentality) in which the first half of the day is one protracted gathering at the figurative water cooler, seeing near to zero productivity, followed by a fierce, laser-focused shift into massive productivity after 5pm (when they should just be going home) that sees much of the prior 8 hours’ work get tackled over the next 4 hours or so. They are not being “lazy” in the first instance. They would literally run out of work by late afternoon if they were moderately productive throughout the day. Japanese are anything but lazy.
Again, this is programmed into the system. They are helpless to do anything about it even, for the most part. In the above example, the workers would receive a call from the head office in Hiroshima around 10pm every night for a report on what they’d done that day. They, including the peon who had to open the store at 8:30am, ALL have to stay until they get that phone call and let the district manager know that they’ve been “productive” and how so.
I haven’t even gotten into concepts of “in-group” and “out-group,” or “tate-mae” and “honne” (roughly: “social facade” and “true feelings,” respectively), discrimination against other Asians, the weird role Westerners hold (also separated into race) in this society, the way pets are treated and animals are viewed (you don’t want to hear some of these things nor do I want to say them) or about a billion other things. Again, GENERALLY SPEAKING.
My point: Japan is a REALLY interesting case with regard to “roles.” I think it’s evident by my tone in telling some of this that I do not hold a lot of these “roles,” in the highest regard.
I do want to make clear, however, that I could write up a similar, almost mirror opposite diatribe against America, and it would sound just as bad. Seriously. I hire both Japanese and westerners, for instance, and let me tell you, I sincerely wish I DID NOT have to hire any western employees. I mean that. They are typically selfish, unloyal, sometimes lazy, argumentative, demanding, and most are not able to follow simple, clear instructions without thinking that somehow doing it “their” way is better (forgetting that my decisions are based upon 9 years of experience including actually owning the business as opposed to their year or two and I’m paying them $3000 a month out of my own pocket to have it done MY way!).
I stand firm to my prior statement about the roles of men and women in any culture. My statement has nothing to do with oppression or de facto mandatory social obligations, but with what each person is suited to do. I’ll stop here, believe it or not. I certainly hope someone read this far because this was probably the most time, energy and emotion I’ve ever put into any forum post, at least that I can remember.
