If you follow international news or read about the next Olympics in Tokyo 2021, you may have heard about the resignation of Yoshiro Mori, former president of the Tokyo Olympics following his sexist remarks. A lot of people have been shocked by his attitude, as he declared nonchalantly in front of the cameras that women talked too much in meetings. In reaction, a huge number of volunteers resigned in protestation, causing further chaos in the organization of the already disastrous Olympics. The international community also strongly reacted and condemn Mori’s remarks.
But for anyone following Japanese politics closely, this attitude is hardly surprising. Worse, it is even something all too familiar for us.
Most international news outlets closed the affair after the resignation of Mori. But not only he is far from the only high-ranking official with this attitude, he was also strongly supported by his peers. Toshiro Nikai, secretary-general of the ruling party of Japan, the LPD, recently said that women would be allowed into important meetings, but only if they didn’t talk. He completed this absurd statement by proposing that women could put their opinion in a little suggestion box at the end of a meeting. How encouraging! Do I need to precise that only two women are a minister in the current cabinet? Needless to say, they are not even occupying important positions….
Of course, this discrimination hardly stops at the political world. In the business and enterprise world, the gender pay gap is one of the worst in the world. (121st in gender equality among 153 countries) Sexual and psychological harassment is rampant, causing distress and even driving many women to suicide. And for all of this, many still blame women and their “inability to work” as a reason for this situation. Recently, Kengo Sakurada, head of a powerful Japanese business lobby publicly claimed Japan’s glass ceiling was “partly women’s fault”. He is far from being the only one believing this.
Even in the academic field, women must fight and study harder than anyone else to attain the same result as their male counterpart. One of the most prestigious Japanese university has been caught fudging numbers of examination in order to limit the number of women entering medical school. Even when they attain graduation, Japan has one of the lowest rates of female researchers, limiting their possible career. In fields such as IT where the demand for new hires is high, especially in the japan declining demographic, women are still refused and reduced to part-time work, since they cannot take “men’s jobs”, whatever that means. And even if they go through all of that and find a stable job in the position they want, many women must choose between their career or founding a family, lest they be fired if they try to do both and shamed according to old cultural standards.
I could go on and on and cite many more examples of discrimination against women, but I think you can understand. Long story short: Japan has a problem regarding women’s right.
So what can we (and I speak a foreigner living in Japan) do about it? We certainly impose change on Japan. Not only because we have no authority to do so, but also because policy imposed from the exterior is rarely effective and are often unable to change the cultural norms, which is the more important aspect of this problem. As long as a sexist mentality remains in Japan, there will remain discrimination against women, no matter how many laws are written against it.
But I don’t think, contrary to what many people believe, that we should not speak up against this situation. We can point to this problem and discuss about it, though the final solution ultimately will remain in the hand of the Japanese. We should not believe that Japanese women are entirely passive, like damsels in distress waiting for their knights to save them either. Many of them do speak up loud and clear against this discrimination, and Japan has many active feminist movements and organizations. One of the best things we can do, then, is help them and amplify their voice on the international scene, helping them to be relevant and have political power.
In the last decade of Japanese politics, it has become clear that the country and its ruling party have international ambition. But if it wants to become a representative for democracy and human rights, it first needs to guarantee the rights of half of its population. It is a cultural problem as much as a political one and there is no easy solution. But Japan needs to at least show a willingness to move in the right direction. Not only to keep its influence abroad, but also to not lose the certain talent and creativity of its women population, who cannot contribute at their full potential not because they lack talent, but because their is a hard, unbreakable wall standing in their way.
Happy women’s right day.
