Japan - Status of Women
Japanese society can be notoriously conservative when it comes to gender roles. High school girls are really into the 'kawaii' ("lovable", "cute", or "adorable") culture so they had to be cute. Japanese women suddenly transform from sweet and cute girlfriends into shufu — professional housewives emotionally and physically distant from their husbands and fully devoted to their children and home.
Japan is a very male-dominated society. Japan’s ranking dropped from 101 in 2015 to 114 in 2017 in the annual Global Gender Gap Report released by the World Economic Forum (WEF). It is ranked 165th in the world when it comes to women’s political representation. Though Japanese society is hesitant to talk about sexual abuse or misconduct, Japan is highly sexualised. Pornographic magazines are easily available in general stores, sexual services are freely advertised in public and manga fetishing young girls is common. The country's long-standing problem with groping - or chikan, in Japanese - is often experienced by schoolgirls on public transportation.
The sexualisation of schoolgirls extends to themed bars in red-light districts and exploitative "JK cafes" (JK stands for joshi kosei or high school girl) where adult men pay to chat to teenage girls, have their fortunes told or have their ears cleaned.
Women in various lines of work, including receptionists, beauty therapists, waitresses and childcare workers, have complained on social networking sites that they were banned from wearing glasses at work. As to why, a beauty therapist was told that "glasses are dangerous because they could fall on customers." But some reasons were far from convincing. One receptionist was told that "women wearing glasses look cold," while a worker at a massage salon was warned that they "create a gloomy atmosphere."
As a result of the intrusion of the western imperial powers into East Asia (Japan, China, Korea) in the mid-nineteenth century, men and women across East Asia grappled with the notion that a country’s level of civilization was reflected in the status of its women. Equality between men and women has been a basic idea of activities of the United Nations, such as the Charter of the United Nations and the Declaration on the Elimination of Forms of Discrimination Against Women. In a broad sense, the term "gender equality" includes social, legal, economic, religious, and political equality between the female and male halves of humanity, yet it goes beyond equality of opportunity.
In a special address at the 44th World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe underlined the importance of this topic in Japan, and stated his intention to make his country a place where women shine by ensuring that 30% of all senior leadership posts would be occupied by women by 2020. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe made “womenomics” a centerpiece policy, pushing to overcome a shortage of daycare spots and elevate women to leadership roles in government and the private sector. Prime Minister Abe’s attempts to mobilize Japanese women have had the unfortunate effect of calling some of the stereotypes about Japanese women as passive and “behind” to the surface in the western media.
In 2013, Japan ranked 105 out of 136 countries included in the Global Gender Gap Index, a decline of four places since 2012. The overall score of 0.65 on a scale of 0 to 1 can be roughly interpreted as meaning that only about 65% of the gender gap between women and men has been closed. Put another way, women had only 65% of the resources and opportunities available to men in terms of health, education, economic participation and political empowerment.
Japan, like China and Korea, is heavily influenced by Confucian ideals. Confucian society focuses on the family. Men are the heads of the household; women are dependent on the men. Women are expected to marry, produce heirs, and over see the household. Women marry between 22-27 years old. It was not uncommon for women to be socially outcast if she failed to marry by age 27.
In the mid 1990’s young women started frequenting tanning salons to excessively tan themselves, and dressed themselves in neon pink and yellow adorned with white hair and excessive make-up. In the early 90’s, young women dressed in bodycon style, standing for “body conscious clothing.” These form-fitting dresses were paired with heels and feather fans when enjoying nightlife. Other fashion styles include Mori-kei (mythical emerging from forest attire), Gothic/Sweet/Punk Lolita styles, Rockabilly (those who dress like 50’s rockers), Dekora (bright colored casual outfits with cute accessories), gyaru (girly glam style with short skirts, bright colors), and Visual-Kei (a style influenced by rock and punk with lots of leather and bulky silver accessories).
Japanese consumers are well known for their unending thirst for designer labels and the latest fashions. Japan is a country where looking cute is considered appealing and looking sexy can be viewed as being promiscuous. Therefore, girly fashions with pink, ribbons, lace, pearls, and shiny beads are acceptable even for those in their late 30’s to early 40’s.
With rapid declines in fertility, rising levels of female education, and changing attitudes, women have entered the formal labor sector in increasing numbers. A greater proportion of them are working as "regular employees." These trends, especially among married women, have been dramatic.
At present, young Japanese are marrying later or not marrying at all. One of the reasons for this is a uniquely Japanese one: the wife of the oldest son is expected to care for his parents. This often is not an enticing prospect for educated young women. Many choose instead to live rent-free as a “parasite single” with their own parents or become a “freeter”, one who works in contingent jobs without settling down. At the same time, the divorce rate is rising and many married couples are electing not to have children at all or to have only one baby.
By 2013 the rate of female participation in the labour force was only 63%, compared to 85% for men. It was one of the lowest female labour participation rates among OECD countries and 79th globally. While Japanese women participate in the labor force as actively as American women, in the United States, nearly all women work for someone else. In contrast 12 percent of all Japanese working women were self-employed (predominantly as homeworkers), and an additional 19 percent worked in family-run enterprises. Only two-thirds worked as "employees." Only slightly more than half of all working Japanese women attain the status of "regular employee."
Japan is known as one of the world's industrial and trading nations and the first Asian country to develop a technologically advanced industrial economy, but the Law of Equal Opportunity and Treatment between Men and Women in Employment (Equal Opportunity Law), which did not come into force until 1986, has not had a great effect on working women's situations. In the 1997 Equal Opportunity Law was revised and finally, more than ten years later, the law that met the international standards was established.
In Japan, the divorce rate rose from about 2 percent between 1970 and 1974 to 10 percent between 1995 and 1999 with a corresponding drop in marriage rate from 92 to 69 percent, while the proportion of widowed persons rose from 6 to 21 percent.
Men experienced disability at a younger age and at a faster rate than did women. The duration of time spent with disability in women was twice as long as in men. Consequently, women consume about two-thirds of the total resources of formal caregiving services in Japan. Women in Japan are increasingly educated, postponing marriage to higher ages, and less likely to care for parents in the home. Given these changes in family structure and social norms, the capacity for informal family caregiving has decreased dramatically.
Women in Japan tend to receive more social supports from the national government and from their relatives than do men. For instance, widows receive their deceased husband's pension as well as their own from the government, but widowers only their own pension. In addition, the national government provides child support for divorced women. Finally, many Japanese women return to live with their parents after a divorce (16%) or live with their children after their spouse's death (64%).
The law does not criminalize sexual harassment but includes measures to identify companies that fail to prevent it, and prefectural labor offices and the Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare (MHLW) provided these companies with advice, guidance, and recommendations. Companies that fail to comply with government guidance may be publicly identified, but according to officials, this has never been necessary. Sexual harassment in the workplace remained widespread.
In February 2016 a Japanese government study found nearly a third of working women who responded to a survey reported being sexually harassed on the job, such as unwanted physical contact or being subjected to degrading comments.
Couples and individuals have the right to decide freely and responsibly the number, spacing, and timing of their children; manage their reproductive health; and have the information and means to do so, free from discrimination, coercion, and violence. Women had access to contraception and maternal health services, including skilled attendance during childbirth, prenatal care, and essential obstetric and postpartum care.
The law prohibits gender discrimination and generally provides women the same rights as men. The Gender Equality Bureau in the Cabinet Office continued to examine policies and monitor developments. Despite these policies, NGOs continued to allege that implementation of antidiscrimination measures was insufficient, pointing to discriminatory provisions in the law, unequal treatment of women in the labor market, and low representation of women in high-level elected bodies. NGOs urged the government to abolish a six-month waiting period stipulated in the law for women, but not men, before re-marriage; eliminate different age minimums for marriage depending on sex; and allow married couples a choice of surnames. In December 2015, Japan’s Supreme Court ruled the six-month waiting period was unconstitutional, but upheld the practice of one surname per household.
Women continued to express concern regarding unequal treatment in the workforce. Women’s average monthly wage was approximately 70 percent of that of men. Sexual harassment in the workplace remained widespread. In June 2014 the Japanese Trade Union Confederation released survey results indicating that approximately 49 percent of female employees had suffered sexual or power harassment in the workplace and 31 percent of those women did not file a complaint or seek consultation.
There also continued to be cases of employers forcing pregnant women to leave their jobs. On 04 September 2015, MHLW announced the name of an employer who unfairly dismissed a female employee due to pregnancy and had repeatedly refused to follow the ministry’s corrective guidance. The ministry stated this was the first time it disclosed the name of an employer pursuant to the law. In a separate case, on November 17, the Hiroshima High Court ordered a Hiroshima hospital to pay 1.75 million yen ($16,500) in damages to a physical therapist who was demoted after seeking a lighter workload due to pregnancy.
The government increased child-care facilities and maternity leave, along with encouraging private companies to report gender statistics in annual financial reports. On 28 August 2015, the Diet passed a law that requires national and local governments, as well as private sector companies that employ at least 301 people, to analyze women’s employment in their organizations and release action plans to promote women’s participation and advancement.
The law criminalizes all forms of rape involving force against women, including spousal rape, and the government generally enforced the law effectively. The law defines a rapist as “a person who, through assault or intimidation, forcibly commits sexual intercourse with a female of not less than 13 years of age or commits sexual intercourse with a female under 13 years of age.” Prosecutors interpreted forcible to mean evidence of force and/or physical resistance by the victim is necessary to consider a sexual encounter to be rape. Although prohibited by law, domestic violence against women remained a serious problem. On January 3, revised legislation allowed victims of abuse by domestic partners, spouses, and former spouses to receive protection at shelters and seek restraining orders from court. A stalker-control law prohibits e-mail harassment.
On 28 December 2015, the foreign ministers of Japan and the Republic of Korea jointly announced they had reached an agreement that they said “finally and irreversibly” addressed the treatment of World War II “comfort women” (women trafficked for sexual purposes). The announcement, which met some civil society criticism, noted the Japanese prime minister’s “most sincere apologies and remorse,” and a commitment by the Japanese government to provide 1 billion yen ($8.3 million) for a foundation to be established by the Republic of Korea to provide support for the former “comfort women.”
Tokyo Medical University for years rigged entrance exams to limit its intake of women students, slashing their scores by well over 10 percent across-the-board. The university reduced scores from the paper test results of all women before they went on to sit for a final test. The reduction rate differed from year to year, sometimes reaching more than 10 percent.
The practice was triggered by 2010 entrance exams when the university found out that women accounted for nearly 40 percent of successful applicants. The university continued with the practice without informing test-takers of the scoring system, which favors men. After 2011, the percentage of women among successful applicants hovered around 30 percent until this year, when it fell below 20 percent. An official with the university told NHK02 August 2018 it was concerned that a large increase in the number of women posed a serious problem for the future of the university hospital, because female doctors tend to quit after marrying or starting families.
An international survey of the percentage of female representation in national parliaments ranked Japan in 165th place. It's the lowest among all industrialized countries. The Geneva-based Inter-Parliamentary Union released the results of the survey of the number of women in parliament in 193 countries as of 01 January 2019 this year. The publication comes ahead of International Women's Day, on March 8.
The IPU says female representation is highest in the African country of Rwanda at 61.3 percent. Japan fell seven notches from a year earlier, with female lawmakers accounting for only 10.2 percent of Lower House seats. It is the only member of the G7 countries that ranked lower than 100th. France is ranked 16th on 39.7 percent, Italy 30th with 35.7 percent and the US 78th with 23.5 percent. Globally, the average ratio of women in national parliaments increased from 11.3 percent in 1995 to 24.3 percent, contrasting sharply with the position in Japan.
Japan's health and labor minister suggested that putting undue pressure on women to wear high-heeled shoes at work could amount to power harassment. Takumi Nemoto was speaking at a Lower House committee on 05 June 2019, three days after a group submitted a petition with nearly 19,000 signatures. The campaign is named #KuToo, after the #MeToo movement against sexual harassment, and is intended to allude to the Japanese words for "shoes" and "pain." Nemoto said his ministry accepted the petition, and he thinks it is important to improve the working environment for all employees so they can feel comfortable. He also said each workplace has its own characteristics, and requests for women to wear high-heeled shoes should only be made when necessary and follow socially acceptable norms.
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