I. HATE. SEXISM.

For some reason, sexism in Japan has been been bothering me especially much lately. It seems like I've seen it so many times in the past few days. Shall I enlighten you?

-A commercial for a type of stress-relieving drink (fairly popular in Japan, it's a "medicine" with alcohol) features a young couple sitting at a table and looking worn-out. A thought bubble pops up over the woman's head- she's thinking about how tough doing the laundry is! How hard cooking everyday is! How housekeeping is so tiring! After, a similar bubble goes up for the guy- everyday at the company, busy, busy, busy, he's practically overworking himself! Then, of course, the little miracle drink pops up and saves them. Do you see anything sexist about that, or am I just reading into it too much?

-In a movie, a group of teachers are discussing a very delicate situation; one of the students has committed suicide, and a new teacher has been seemingly rubbing it into the faces of the students who bullied him. What do they do? Well, the principal goes off and says his opinion, and a female teacher opposes him. She gets shut down with an, "Oh, we shouldn't talk about that, okay?" and a glare. She quiets down and sits. Then a male teacher stands up and begins to argue. He is allowed to argue. This isn't quite as obvious as the first example, I think- the director probably wanted to show the strength of the one teacher by comparing him to a "weaker" teacher, and the female teacher was their choice. However, you can bet it wouldn't be the other way around.

-It is often beaten into little girls' minds that the best way to express love for a guy is to cook his meals for him. They dream about the day that they can cook meals for their husband.

-The Japanese NHK Broadcasting Company covered the Vancover Olympics in February. One segment featured 3 newscasters discussing the athletes, results, and performances. It was a younger woman, a younger guy, and an older guy. Half the time when the woman opened her mouth, the older guy would cut her off and say his opinion. He didn't cut off the guy. The only thing I thought was good about that was how the woman seemed to get really irritated- a few times she even tried to keep going and cut him off (although it didn't work very well, sadly).

-A teacher was telling me about a time when he had been at teacher-selection for who would be representing the school in a school fair (or close to that). When selecting the female teachers, the man in charge said to the other men, "They're like pretty flowers, aren't they? There for show but not for any serious work!" To which they all smiled and laughed and rejoiced in their manliness together. The teacher telling me the story had been surprised and rather uncomfortable. If that had been me, I would have sabotaged the fair by oh-so-clumsily making the mistake of writing "All-Girls' School" in the school brochure. Or by calling in American Feminists. ^-^

After being here for these past 6 months, I think I have one or two decent explanations as to why there's still a lot of sexism in Japan. One is one I'm stealing from the teacher I mentioned in that last paragraph: When America rewrote the Japanese constitution after WWII, they just threw in "Equal Rights for Women". The Japanese women did not fight for it. They barely knew it was there. So they kept living on as they always had, men superior to women. And today, while it has gotten a bit better, it's still very there.

The other reason is my own observation. In Japan, roles are very clearly defined. If you are a salary man, you act according to the predetermined standard of salary man. If you are a big company head (a lot of Rotarians!), you act as a big company head. If you are a housewife, you act as a housewife. If you are an office lady, you act as an office lady. Not only is it ridiculously easy to fall into these roles in Japan, it's also respectable and smiled upon. Japan prides the group, not the individual- completely unlike America. That's why businessmen can come home at 4 in the morning drunk, but not be seen anywhere without a suit. And why housewives can know 220 recipes, but not how to drive. That's the okay for them (although the driving one isn't quite as common as it was 20 years ago). And so it's easy and respected for women here to act as "the standard Japanese woman". You don't have to think. Your life is set up for you.

I am, of course, biased towards the American view on this kind of stuff. That's not to say there aren't redeeming qualities to the Japanese way- after all, how nice is it to have your life all planned out like that? It's like wearing a school uniform, you just wear it without worrying about anybody else criticizing your style!-, but I would never be able to do it. The women in Japan don't often see the sexism all around them because they really don't care, but sometimes, it's all I can see. I want that newscaster lady to stand up and say, "If you don't stop cutting me off, I'm going to scream "Ain't I a Woman" at the top of my lungs until the high pitch frequency shatters your sexist eardrums!!". I want the little girls to stop thinking about their future husband's happy meal and start thinking about real jobs with people who respect them. And I want that lady in the super-drink commercial to suddenly realize, "Oh, what if me and Señor Hubby over there shared the workload? It's be good for me to get a job and for him to learn how to cook and clean."

That's probably not going to happen in Japan anytime soon, but I do see changes- mostly in the men, actually. Lots of guys are starting to sort of... check out the lady's way, you could say. They care about fashion and want to go shopping with girlfriends, and are even willing to learn how to cook. If that's how it is in Japan, I'm all for it. But right now it's still FRUSTRATING and IRRITATING to me. So-

Tell me if you liked this rant on Japan. I feel like I've been filling you in on my time as an exchanger and not as much about Japan as I'd like, so tell me if you want more of one or less of the other or whatever you think. And tell me what you think about sexism.

Jaa ne!