Gender Gap In Japanese Politics And Society

Nowadays, Japan is still considered as “center of Asian’s women problem”. Although Japan has been a democracy – the gender neutral system – for a long time, gender gap still leads to difficulties for Japanese political system. From my point of view, gender gap is one of the problems which not only cause trouble to Japanese politics directly but also leave a lot of roundabout issues for this country.

According to statistics compiled by the internal affairs ministry in 2016, there were only 10 percent of members of prefectural assemblies, 15 percent of city and ward assemblies, and 10 percent of town and village assemblies. Moreover, there were no women in percent of Japan’s town and village assemblies. Moreover, the number women candidates for governing party is down to 40 percent three years ago and still having no tendency of increasing recently. These are just very easy to be noticed examples from the reality in this political system. William Pesek from Japantimes. co. jp provided us with information that Japan level in gender-equality ranking which held by World Economic Forum in 2017 was only 114th, 16 steps lower than before and even lower than many other developing countries as Nepal, Guatemala or Philippines. Japan becomes the only developed country that have low ranking in this realm. It is believed that president Shinzu Abe’s womenomics is flopping. The World Economic Forum(WEF), based in Cologny-Geneva, Switzerland, was founded in 1971 as a not-for-profit organization. It gained formal status in January 2015 under the Swiss Host-State Act, confirming the role of the Forum as an International Institution for Public-Private Cooperation. The Forum’s mission is cited as “committed to improving the state of the world by engaging business, political, academic, and other leaders of society to shape global, regional, and industry agendas”.

Above is general information about gender gap issue which are particular in politics but still can throw people such a big surprise about the seriousness of this problem, it will be more considerable if looking to for detail of every situation happened because of that. In early period of last year, a Japanese woman politician, Yuka Ogata, was thrown out and heavily criticized by media when she decided to bring her 7-month-old child to the assembly because she was denied to be help with baby by during the meeting. This situation has raised question about gender gap once again. The story that she was reported by her action can be blamed for the strict in Japan working culture, however, we can see clearly that there was no support for working women in this country. Meanwhile, in America and some other countries, bringing children to assembly or, at least, being received childcare provision are very normal things. To explain the effort of changing working environment in Japan of her, Yuka Ogata emphasized the quitting job problem of women because of the pressure in work which made them barely be able to have day off to take care their children if they are sick, and being harassed by colleagues who have to take on their workload while they are on maternity leave.

From that, people can understand that this issue not only occurs in politics in Japan but also exists in every single aspect. In Japanese companies, the “glass ceiling” phenomena still exists in various realms including: hiring, promotion, job assignment and especially management processes. Taking management processes for instance, according to OECD survey chart, number of female managers in Japan is much lower than other developed countries as America and other Europe countries. It undoubtedly becomes one of the problems that not only government but also individual company are struggling with year by year. One of my Japanese acquaintance has told me a story about her experience when she was interviewed for her job in the past. During interview, she was asked a lots about personal stuffs such as if her mother had a job or if she was living alone. The result was she had to say “no” to both questions since the company would underestimate her if she had working mother or lived too independently. Moreover, in her company, women had no seat in important meetings and what they actually do is very similar to house work: bring tea to your boss, swept very days and so on. It might sound weird but actually happened here.

I think I am quite lucky because I have not been in this situation yet despite of living in Japan for 3 years. Nevertheless, I still notice that most of managers in my part-time workplace are men. There are some women who are trying to get to manager chair but it has taken them for 5 years – double the time that a man need to become a qualified manager. I do not think that happens to them because they – female employers are not as good as men. I have chance of working with all of them and I can see that they can control all the work as well as senior managers. The consequence of gender gap can go further and worse than any expectation. In politics of Japan nowadays, most of candidates are male and they have to admit that the lack of women causes the weakness and incomprehensiveness in some aspects as childcare or health. Moreover, the existence of gender gap in political realm which is considered as leader of country can be unethical emulation to society. Residents can see what their government and council’s working way and imitate it unconsciously. As a result, if there is still bad attitude to female gender in politics, there will be the same problems in other aspects.

Although gap in payment between male and female no longer happens, people attitude and conception about gender seem still occur often. It can be considered as an indirective reason for the rapid decreasing in population in Japan. According to surveys, percentage of abortion here is high. Many women choose this as a solution as they cannot not only afford living for their child but also give more time to their family. People might be surprised once knowing that it will be very tough for Japanese women to have kids although they can be provided enough to raise their kids until 18 years old. However, having babies in Japanese also means they can lose their job easily then maybe they have to end up with being housewives. A lot of feature leads to that consequence. If they can deal with the harassment from people who take place them while they are pregnant, they can be unsupported by parents – in – law. In many Japanese thought, women should be the one who stayed home to take care of children and housework, which can be implied to “losing freedom”. The scene that Japanese women start to bored with marriage and children is predictable. The long-term consequence of this situation is decrease in population and immigration. There is more than one time that Japan is criticized by other countries as inequality behaviors in workplace or society and I believe that this consequence can bring bad effects to Japanese politics and social life somehow. Fortunately, this situation seems being improved these days. Although there are still some negative indicators but some basic problems as wave discrimination are getting much better. However, Japan should find other ways to solve this problem from the root.

According to Haruaki Deguchi from Japantimes in “How Japan can fix its gaping gender gap”, Japanese should learn the way of thinking about women in society and especially in working place from Europe then they can change the way they treat. For example, in Europe countries, people think that a woman can became much better and more effectively after having baby because raising a child is already hard work but they still can deal with, so companies have been given many supportive policies for women after gestation period such as easier to get promotion. The article also mentions France three-point principle introduced by President Jacques Chirac: “women can have children when they want to, that no children are put on a waiting list, and that a woman’s career path cannot be suspended due to childbirth and child rearing” which helps France recovered their fertility rate up to 2. 0 and can also become potential solution for low fertility rate in Japan. One of the main reasons lead to this problem is remained feudal thought – the concept that only men can solve important problem. This issue can be reduced by early education. Early education for children is the first and main step to change old concept in whole society. That is reason why educate for children about equality of gender in Japan becomes one of the solutionIn my opinion, the remarkable immigration to Japan, despite causing many changings in Japanese traditional life, still has played an important roll in improving Japanese people attitude. Recently, foreign employers have covered 20 percent out of young labors; companies or any other kinds of workplace here often include at least 10 percent of foreigners. While dealing with new culture that foreign workers bring along with, Japanese maybe have learnt about importance of women.

In general, gender discriminate is detrimental to every aspect in society, from small organization as company to politics of country and Japan is one of evident instance. Politics and society of Japan not only becomes negative with international market but also be incomprehensive. Changing is compulsory solution that government and individual need to come up with to make this country better.