(no subject)
Sep. 9th, 2005 03:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
akujunkanI got disgusted a few months ago with a well-known feminist blogger who was all too eager to believe someone's proclamation that Japanese women are frequently raped in the streets, despite the fact that neither she nor the OP (who'd read about her statement in a crime novel) had ever once set foot in the country. This sort of willingness to believe the absolute worst is one of the unfortunate habits of a lot of feminists, and counterproductive when trying to assess and solve the real problems.
Sexism exists in Japan, but it isn't women being dragged into alleys by roving gangs and raped (that sort of thing tends to happen where the bush administration has control over an area). It's much more insidious.
There are six separate sections in the wing of city hall where I work, with about nine to ten people in each. Today a man from another division came over to talk to the second in command in my section. He first stopped at my supervisor (the only other woman in the division)'s desk.
"Ice coffee," he said, and then strolled over to a seat while she dropped the work she was doing and leapt up to go fetch him a pre-prepared iced coffee from the carton in the refrigerator not ten paces from where this man had been standing.
My supervisor's other duties include passing out omiyage and washing, three times a day, the dishes dirtied by everyone in the nearest three sections during the course of working hours.
As I said, there are six divisions in this wing, each with nine or ten people, and of those nine or ten people, one is a woman. When I first came here I was impressed with how progressive that was – one tenth of the civil servants in my small backwater town are women!
Now I have the sneaking suspicion that they were hired to provide drinks and cleaning servies for the men. And they do official work on top of this.
Japan is currently in the midst of an election, and the televisions have been on for the past few days so that we can watch the current mayor and city council debating the opposition parties. One of the women in the city council stood up to address the mayor.
"I want to know what you and your party plan to do about gender discrimination," she said. The second in command in my division turned the volume down until he noticed my supervisor and I (the only other two people present) were paying rapt attention. Then he turned it back up.
The woman in the council room continued, "Conditions for women are horrible here. Even female section chiefs are expected to do cleaning. We're regularly bullied by male employees! What is being done?"
My second in command laughed, in a way that both dismissed her complaints as trivial and clearly said my supervisor had better be laughing with him.
That was one tough moment. I like this guy. He's nice, always in a good mood, and has a good sense of humor. But that only makes it harder – it's always harder to protest inequity when the person upholding it 'really is nice guy' who just happens to have benefited greatly from the status quo. But the fact remains that he's not out there washing basins of dishes three times a day - what the hell does he know?
That's the real problem in Japan. It's not as dramatic as pretending that all Japanese men exercise a license to sexual impunity, but on the other hand, it's the real one that needs to be solved.
That will be all.
Sexism exists in Japan, but it isn't women being dragged into alleys by roving gangs and raped (that sort of thing tends to happen where the bush administration has control over an area). It's much more insidious.
There are six separate sections in the wing of city hall where I work, with about nine to ten people in each. Today a man from another division came over to talk to the second in command in my section. He first stopped at my supervisor (the only other woman in the division)'s desk.
"Ice coffee," he said, and then strolled over to a seat while she dropped the work she was doing and leapt up to go fetch him a pre-prepared iced coffee from the carton in the refrigerator not ten paces from where this man had been standing.
My supervisor's other duties include passing out omiyage and washing, three times a day, the dishes dirtied by everyone in the nearest three sections during the course of working hours.
As I said, there are six divisions in this wing, each with nine or ten people, and of those nine or ten people, one is a woman. When I first came here I was impressed with how progressive that was – one tenth of the civil servants in my small backwater town are women!
Now I have the sneaking suspicion that they were hired to provide drinks and cleaning servies for the men. And they do official work on top of this.
Japan is currently in the midst of an election, and the televisions have been on for the past few days so that we can watch the current mayor and city council debating the opposition parties. One of the women in the city council stood up to address the mayor.
"I want to know what you and your party plan to do about gender discrimination," she said. The second in command in my division turned the volume down until he noticed my supervisor and I (the only other two people present) were paying rapt attention. Then he turned it back up.
The woman in the council room continued, "Conditions for women are horrible here. Even female section chiefs are expected to do cleaning. We're regularly bullied by male employees! What is being done?"
My second in command laughed, in a way that both dismissed her complaints as trivial and clearly said my supervisor had better be laughing with him.
That was one tough moment. I like this guy. He's nice, always in a good mood, and has a good sense of humor. But that only makes it harder – it's always harder to protest inequity when the person upholding it 'really is nice guy' who just happens to have benefited greatly from the status quo. But the fact remains that he's not out there washing basins of dishes three times a day - what the hell does he know?
That's the real problem in Japan. It's not as dramatic as pretending that all Japanese men exercise a license to sexual impunity, but on the other hand, it's the real one that needs to be solved.
That will be all.
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no subject
on 2005-09-09 09:18 am (UTC)making such statements... i wonder if that blogger has any sound basis at all. ~__~;;
Now I have the sneaking suspicion that they were hired to provide drinks and cleaning servies for the men.
Aw :(
no subject
on 2005-09-10 02:58 am (UTC)About B: I know! And people in the city hall wonder why I insist that I won't work for an American company in Japan. Women's status is bad enough in those regards; being a foreigner, I'd be hit with a double whammy.
no subject
on 2005-09-10 12:31 am (UTC)no subject
on 2005-09-10 03:09 am (UTC)Thing is, this woman is really gung-ho about feminism, which is cool. My point is that making the problem seem worse than it is because you like the drama does not help solve it.
no subject
on 2005-09-10 08:29 am (UTC)no subject
on 2005-09-12 07:00 am (UTC)And re: you last sentence - whizzum!