Womanhood in Japan (February 2024)

“Womanhood in Japan” series column rounds up Japanese news related to women’s daily experiences of sexism here and considers what we can do to increase the pace of change.

Japan looks to be losing tolerance for sexist comments

Politician Taro Aso at the end of January gave us our periodic installment of a sexist remark from a senior Japanese politician by describing his own party’s foreign minister, Yoko Kawakami, as “not that beautiful” and an “obasan,” which can be a derogatory way to refer to a middle-aged woman. This was (of course!) in the context of praising her ability.

As disappointing as such comments are, it was heartening to see even television personalities criticize Aso on social media as it suggests that Japanese society is steadily becoming less tolerant of such views.

Gaffe-prone Aso, who is aged 83 and vice president of Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party, made the comments in a speech. He is also reported to have mistaken Kawakami’s name twice and suggested that she is the first woman to serve as foreign minister. She is actually the third. Aso himself is a former foreign minister and prime minister.

Kawakami (aged 70) was magnanimous in response, saying that she is happy to receive any comments, but many commentators called for Aso to apologize and pointed out the extra scrutiny put on women related to their age and appearance, not just their ability.

Kawakami’s calm response disappointed many people. Personality LaSalle Ishii wrote on social media, “Get angry about something like this” and actress Maiko Kawakami wrote, “I hoped you would tell him bluntly, but perhaps it’s because you are good that you can’t do that,” the Sankei Shimbun newspaper reported. This last comment suggests that Kawakami was knowing her place—as many old Japanese male politicians seem to expect women to do.

Opposition party politicians dug in too, especially in regard to what many praised as a “mature” response from Kawakami. The Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan’s Kiyomi Tsujimoto wrote, “Parts of the media are praising Kawakami’s unconfrontational response as a mature approach. It needs to be understood that this discourse and trend is maintaining discrimination against women.” Especially in Kawakami’s position as a representative of the people and the nation, she needs to think beyond what is right only for herself and stand up for the wider good.

Old Japanese politicians hanging on so long is delaying the natural change in top-down social values to a point where they are incompatible with the mainstream, so we need the public to voice their opinions to push those values into line. This simultaneously breaks down the general expectation in Japanese society for people—and women in particular—to know their place with their “superiors,” thereby potentially creating a society that is more able to adapt, which is a win for all.

Kawakami’s star may be on the rise

The point Aso was trying to make was that Kawakami is doing her job very well. Unusually well. “A new star is on the rise,” he is reported to have said, noting that he was impressed that Kawakami met many of her counterparts one-on-one at the United Nations General Assembly soon after she became foreign minister last September. “No Japanese foreign minister has done something like that before,” he said.

The Japan News suggests that Aso may even support Kawakami to lead the LDP and therefore become Prime Minister—Japan’s first female P.M. The sudden focus on the possibility of putting a woman in the job comes as some believe the party may try to halt the slump in the approval ratings for P.M. Kishida’s Cabinet by appointing its first female leader, the news outlet said. Kishida’s term in the post is due to expire this fall.

It should be an exciting prospect. And Kawakami’s effective, no-nonsense approach could be very beneficial for Japan, especially compared with other female politicians who seem more interested in the title than the work. But if Kawakami doesn’t demonstrate that she will stand up for women, voters will doubt that she will be able to stand up for the nation.

As Tsujimoto tweeted, “Also for the women who are standing strong, say what needs to be said. A woman who is praised for knowing her place in a man’s world won’t become the next prime minister.”

Personally, I admire Kawakami’s no-nonsense approach to the job. When politicians take on the top job they are often expected to show a bit more of their personality. While Kawakami seems stoic, wouldn’t it be wonderful if she had a sense of humor that as prime minister she would have the latitude to display. At the very least, if this same incident were to occur again, in that situation I would hope she would say—with a wink and a smile—something like, “I am happy to receive any comments, even from a not-very-handsome ojisan (middle-aged man).”

Checklist for job skills helps more women enter corporate management

Speaking of women and positions of leadership—under pressure from the government, the Tokyo Stock Exchange and foreign investors, leading Japanese firms have recently been increasing the number of women on their boards, but most of them have been external hires, rather than internal. That is in large part due to the effects of the tradition of dividing the hiring of regular employees into career track and non-career track, and bundling women into the latter category. But to break down the unconscious biases that can affect hiring decisions, personnel services firm Recruit Holdings’ Japanese subsidiary has created a checklist of core competencies required for initial management positions, Thomson Reuters reports.

Women account for just 13.4% of directors and executive officers at the 1,836 firms listed on the TSE’s Prime market, and only 13% of them are internal hires, the report notes. The percentage of female directors who sit on multiple boards is double the rate for men, according to a study of all TSE-listed firms by governance consultancy ProNed, meaning that Japan’s diversity push is more limited than it may seem.

Recruit’s competencies list aims to peel away preferences for qualities traditionally associated with men, such as the ability to work at all hours, “and has raised the number of female candidates for each position by a factor of 1.7 and that of men by 1.4,” the report says. It will, of course, take some time for the women filling these posts to reach the top ranks.

The approach helps to counter imposter syndrome, which women are considered particularly prone to, and which Recruit says is especially strong in Japan. In a country that tends to emphasize what people can’t do, rather than what they can, this is a good tool for everyone.

Keeping women challenged keeps them in the workforce, research says

Indeed, it is the ability to lead a fulfilling career that is the key to keeping Japanese women in the workforce, a new study says.

Research by PhD candidate Yorum Beekman on women in Japan and South Korea who have been working at large companies for a long time found that while parenthood and the burden of housework do affect women’s careers, “As long as the overall work experience is fulfilling, women tend to continue working hard despite being overworked at work and at home.” This clarifies just how detrimental the Japanese traditional of relegating female workers to a non-career track has been to keeping them in the workforce and nurturing their skills.

Beekman found that good relationships with co-workers can help women through difficult patches and that, “Only when interactions with co-workers and immediate supervisors are perceived as negative, or the work itself is no longer stimulating enough, do women begin to question whether pursuing a career at the expense of other aspects of life is worth it.”

This suggests an imperative to promote women to keep them challenged by and interested in the work they do. It opposes a common assumption here that it is better to give moms undemanding jobs that allow them time to attend to their children’s needs. This is premised, of course, on thinking that Japan needs to dig itself out of, that the measure of an employee’s effectiveness is how much time they spend in the office.

The study also says that “a competitive or polarizing work atmosphere is disastrous, as are the assumptions of authority figures about one’s suitability for leadership and the lack of diverse female role models at the top of an organization.” While these factors are not new, the overview that women need to be allowed the ability to have a career—not just a job—and negotiate it relatively on their own terms, somehow is. Everyone wants that. Making changes toward this goal, even if they are initially focused on women, will benefit everyone.

Leading business lobby wants women to be allowed to keep own surnames

In a stark example of the Japanese corporate world helping to potentially push the government to make changes that women want, the head of the nation’s biggest business lobby has expressed his support for the introduction of a system that allows married couples to use separate surnames. “I want it to be implemented as a top priority to support women’s working styles,” Masakazu Tokura, chairman of Keidanren said at a press conference, according to media reports.

Japan’s Civil Code requires married couples to have the same surname, with the vast majority choosing the husband’s name. As many women these days are continuing to use their maiden names at work and in academia, but their married names on Japanese documentation, they have faced difficulties in the workplace. An article in The Guardian describes female executives being “locked out of hotel rooms or denied admission to meetings on overseas business trips because their ID didn’t match their surname.” (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/20/japan-married-surname-law-change)

The business body plans to draw up recommendations by October for a system that allows different surnames and submit it to the government, the Mainichi newspaper reported.

Tokura expressed bewilderment at why the issue “has been left hanging for so long” after a Justice Ministry panel in 1996 recommended the Civil Code be revised to allow separate surnames, but the report blamed that on opposition from conservative lawmakers citing traditional family values.

An editorial by the Mainichi cited a 2022 survey that found that 61% of households agree with allowing couples to use different surnames.

It seems unlikely that conservative politicians’ opposition to allowing separate surnames can withstand the active support of Japan’s largest companies. This issue has illustrated very clearly how politicians’ outdated thinking has been holding back the nation and its people. With speculation that a lower house election may be called toward the end of this year, perhaps this issue could convince voters to choose younger, more open-minded candidates, and female ones, at that.

Womanhood in Japan series