When will feminism rise in Japan?
The seemingly perfect city of Tokyo, considered one of the best in providing a convenient life. When I moved here, one of my first thoughts were “I am in the future”. There are vending machines and convenient stores with tons of options every two minutes in central Tokyo. It wouldn’t be much of an exaggeration to say that each building has a restaurant or a nail salon. I have lost my wallet here thrice, and I have got it back. This is unimaginable in any other part of the world. Everything is perfect.
After moving here, I heard things that I had never heard before. The first couple of times I chose to ignore it. However, it started getting really annoying gradually and I couldn’t ignore it anymore. Had these same things happened back at home, I would have been ready to pick up a massive fight. But here, I just express my disagreements “politely”.
“Women have to leave jobs after childbirth”.
“We can’t hire her, as she may get pregnant.”
“If the woman starts working, who is going to take care of the kid.”
And recently quite a disturbing one that came from the head of the Tokyo Olympics.
“We can’t have women in meetings. They talk too much!”
Different versions of such phrases have come from women themselves. I don’t disagree with parental care for kids or women choosing to be homemakers. After all, it boils down to personal choices. What I disagree with is the amount of control and influence the society has imposed on it’s women. The beauty industry in Japan is constantly minting money coming up with different ways to make women feel less beautiful. “Spot removal, Stain Removal, Hair Removal, Remove Fine Lines”, the list goes on and on. Again it’s not wrong to take care of how you look or appear, but it just pains me that women around me are not comfortable in their own skin to this extent. One of the most developed countries of the world stands 121 out of 153 countries in gender equality index.
Coming from a country ranking so low in the gender equality index, one may think that this shouldn’t come as a shock to me. But it did. And everytime it happens, it shocks me the same. Growing up I had blamed India’s gender inequality on illiteracy, poverty and the fact that it’s a developing country. Japan is far away from illiteracy, poverty and has high quality infrastructure. The situation really baffles me. It’s mere deep rooted patriarchy that has successfully controlled women for generations. Increasing political representations or building more inclusive workplaces may seem long awaited changes, the implementations of which are yet to be seen for most of the parts. Mainstream advertisements still show women cleaning the house and cooking. Beauty salons advertise their campaigns as “how to make your boyfriend happy?”. That makes me think, when will contemporary feminism rise in Japan?
