04. July 2006
By Hiroko Hashimoto
Lowest among the developed countries, Japan was ranked 41st by the United
Nations Development Programme in terms of the Gender Empowerment Measure in the
year 2000. There are three main factors behind such an unfavourable evaluation.
One, Japanese women have little participation in political activities.
The ratio of females in Parliament is only 7.5 percent (104th in the world,
according to a survey conducted by the Inter Parliamentary Union).
Two,
female managers are few. The ratio of female managers in Japan is less than 10
percent, the lowest among the developed countries and lower than in many
developing countries including the Philippines.
And three, women earn
much less than men. On the average, their income is only around 52 percent of
the income of Japanese men.
In 1999, the Japanese government promulgated
a Basic Law for Gender Equal Society. Declaring it a policy to promote equal
participation of women and men in family matters as well as in society, the law
directs the government at all levels to take positive actions for the promotion
of gender equality.
Some local governments have already enacted their
own legislation. In fact, even before the Prime Minister announced his plan to
formulate the Basic Law for Gender Equal Society at the Parliament, Saitama
prefecture had already organised a research group to draw up such an ordinance.
The result is a more detailed ordinance that includes law enforcement and
provides for the establishment of a grievance committee to assist victims of
violence and other violations of women’s human rights. In Tokyo, on the other
hand, the local government can request private companies to report on the status
of their implementation of gender equality.
Furthermore, an alliance of
women parliamentarians from various parties plans to submit a draft law to the
current Parliament for the prevention of domestic violence.
Gender
equality in Japan is still far behind the situation in other Asian countries.
One aspect is that most Japanese men have not been involved in this issue, and
this is what the present paper focuses on:
Men’s Involvement in
Gender Equality as Public Work
In No. 1, 2001, the national
machinery for the advancement of women was upgraded to the status of Bureau,
under the Cabinet Office, from being an Office under the Prime Minister.
Officers of the Gender Equality Bureau consist of 22 women and 17 men. Among the
managers, four are women and five are men. Although the top manager (the
Director General) is a woman and 56 percent of all staff members are women, most
of the managers are men. Even this ratio is special, since the percentage of
female government officials at managerial level in Japan in 2000 is only 1.1
percent.
I conducted a study on the status of gender focal points and
gender mainstreaming in all 47 prefectures and the 12 specially designated
cities in Japan in 1997.
According to the results of the study, there
were 55 female officers and 45 male officers at the gender focal points/women’s
office of the 47 prefectures. At managerial level, more women were found (58
versus 42 male managers). Since the percentage of women among all local
government managers is only 3.4 percent as of 2000, this figure shows that
mostly female officers are working to promote gender equality. On the other
hand, quite a number of male officers are also employed in this job, although
many women NGOs frequently complain that these men hardly show their passion for
promoting gender equality.
Public servants in Japan usually transfer
from one job to another every two or three years. For both female and male civil
servants, gender focal points/women’s offices are only one of these assignments.
They acquire their expertise on gender issues through their work, regardless of
their sex.
Many elective officials—mayors, governors and city
councillors—have supported gender equality, partly to demonstrate their concern
for female voters.
Attitudes Towards Feminism and/or Gender
Equality
There has been a gradual decrease in the
stereotyped idea that "men work outside and women stay at home." According to a
national opinion poll conducted in 1997 on attitudes towards gender equality, 65
percent of the male respondents and 52 percent of the females agreed with this
idea. The attitude is more prevalent in rural rather than urban areas.
A
similar opinion poll conducted in 2000 focused on male attitudes towards gender
equality. More women (83 percent) and men (77 percent) agreed that men should
take a leave from their jobs to take care of family members who are sick. But
child-care leaves for men were supported by only 70 percent of the women and 67
percent of the men. All generations of both men and women agreed to men’s taking
leave in case of illness in the family. The older people, however, were less
receptive to child-care leave for men than the younger women. Regarding domestic
chores, 83 percent of female and 71 percent of male respondents believed that
men should share in the housework. The older they were, the less women supported
that idea, while among the men no such age pattern is distinct.
It may
be concluded that most Japanese, whether women or men, accept stereotyped sex
roles. However, younger women are the least likely to agree.
Sharing Domestic Chores
Article 6 of
the Basic Law for Gender Equal Society states that men and women should equally
share domestic chores including child rearing and caring for sick family
members.
However, husbands spend an average time of 20 minutes per day
on housework, whether their wives are employed outside the home or not. Husbands
in their 40s work the least, while husbands in their 20s perform chores a bit
longer. It may be concluded that Japanese men are not undertaking domestic
chores like their counterparts in other countries.
Therefore, many
Japanese women have to quit their jobs when they marry or give birth to their
first child. Japan is one of the very few countries where the labour activity
rate of women drops sharply in their late 30s to early 40s. Another developed
country where this phenomenon has been observed is the Republic of Korea.
Persistence of Patriarchy in the Rural Areas
Niigata prefecture (whose main product is expensive rice) is richer than
other prefectures whose economies are also mostly agricultural. Yet 35 percent
of women in Niigata’s farming families have no bank account in their own names,
nor do they possess their own properties.
The Japanese government has
promoted the "family management agreement" scheme, to increase the economic
independence of rural women. Once families make the agreement, its women members
could obtain a minimum salary for their farming work. However, only 480 out of a
total 123,160 farming families in Niigata prefecture have entered into such an
agreement.
The truth is, many conservative politicians of the ruling
party of Japan do not appreciate the "family management agreement" scheme. They
strongly opposed its inclusion in the Basic Plan for Gender Equality which was
discussed and approved by the Cabinet at a meeting in December 2000. Because of
their opposition, the Ministry of Agriculture had to drop the agreement from the
Basic Plan. The conservative politicians fear that such a scheme could destroy
the traditional family system in Japan.
However, rural families today
already find it extremely difficult to pass their occupation and properties on
to the next generation, as their sons can hardly find Japanese women willing to
marry them. It is no longer acceptable for most women to work long hours on the
farm, without any economic independence and having to obey and take care of
their parents-in-law.
I myself grew up in a rural area in Japan. My late
father became a farmer as he had to leave the Imperial Navy after World War II.
My mother repeatedly told me that I should get a good education so that I would
not need to marry a farmer. At the age of 16, I left my family to study at a
prestigious high school in the city. Since then, I have returned to the village
only for short visits.
Inevitably, some of those rural men who remain
unmarried until their 40s and 50s obtain brides in their 20s from other Asian
countries such as China and the Philippines by paying 3-4 million yen
(US,000-33,000) to the women’s families.
Re-emergence of
Right-wing Fundamentalism
Parliamentarians belonging to
the ruling party of Japan supported the passage of the Basic Law for Gender
Equal Society, convinced by the party leaders’ argument that the law would
ensure the necessary supply of qualified personnel in the labour force. It is
estimated that Japan will face a serious labour shortage in the 21st century due
to the long decline in the country’s fertility rate, which has been decreasing
in the last 50 years. (As of September 2000, the rate had gone down to 1.33.) In
order to meet this problem, Japanese society must build support systems for
working women, and men have to share domestic chores. These issues are provided
for in the Basic Law for Gender Equality Society. Therefore, Parliament passed
this law not to expand the enjoyment of women’s human rights but to utilise the
labour of women towards the revitalisation of the Japanese economy.
Meanwhile, several right-wing magazines and journals have attacked the
Basic Law by warning that it could destroy the country’s family system. They
also oppose feminism which they say is similar to Marxism, an ideology which was
not able to survive. Those right-wing "experts" include many men and some women
of various ages.
Towards a Gender Equal
Society
We can foresee a slightly bright future among the
younger generation. Most young women and some young men are gender sensitive. (A
Men’s Liberation Group has already been organised.) Non-traditional men who want
to live freely also find it difficult to survive in Japanese society. The total
number of suicide victims in recent years has exceeded the total number of
victims of traffic accidents in Japan. In particular, the suicide of men in
their 40s has increased drastically. Some kill themselves in order to utilise
the money from their life insurance for the family they left behind, and/or the
company they owned. These tragic incidents are directly related to the
oppressiveness of traditional sex roles in Japan.
It is important for
Japanese women to change our society in close collaboration with gender
sensitive men such as those in the Men’s Liberation Group. We could also start
to change our society from local areas. More and more women are entering the
political arena in the various localities since the late 1980s, and this is a
good sign.
Hiroko Hashimoto is Professor of Women’s Studies at
Jumonji University in Japan. She has published many articles on gender policy
and gender mainstreaming and worked as social affairs officer at the United
Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia Pacific (UNESCAP) from 1991 to
1996. Prior to that, she was Head of Information and International Exchange
Division of the National Women’s Education Centre of Japan for five years. She
has been active in NGO activities for Beijing + 5 and +10 and was adviser to the
Government Delegation to the Special Session on Women 2000.