Recently while watching popular programs on NHK such as “ためしてガッテン！” i’ve started noticing the sexism displayed. Considering that our satellite NHK is “World Premium” and airs to every other country on the planet, Japan is showing to all how sexist they are.
On Gatten yesterday they were talking about Charcoal used in bbq’s. The woman co-host on the show had to lug a big bucket filled with charcoal and water all the way across the studio, with the camera focused on her, while the male co-host stood there with some tongs in his hand. You could clearly see the poor woman could barely lift the bucket and she was hunched over trying to lift it. Not only did the male co-host not offer a hand, the fact that the cameraman showed her trying to lift it and not getting any help or offer of help is bloody depressing. It just reinforced to me that Japan hasn’t changed one iota, they still view women as lower than they are. It really incensed me, as a woman. Then after she had brought the bucket of water over to the male co-host she had to scurry back to the platform and give a talk about charcoal while the male co-host put two pieces of charcoal on the bbq table. Woah! Big effort there man, don’t break your back!
Yakiniku on Tameshite Gatten
Of course Yasu thinks it’s hilarious that i find it so infuriating. He can see my point of view but it doesn’t stick out to him like it does to me. I guess Japanese males have been conditioned to not notice these things. How much easier would it have been for the guy to get the bucket and carry it over for his co-host? Such a simple thing. But he stood there like an idiot and watched with everyone else as she struggled with the bucket. These kind of things just make me so angry.
I think men and women are equal, in fact when i married Yasu i told him in no uncertain terms that he wasn’t and would never be higher than me. It’s a fact he accepted. Yet when we were in Japan he was always treated like he was higher than me, especially by his parents. This is digressing but when we went to a Japanese restaurant as a family, the restaurant served my father in law first, and then my mother in law, then Yasu and his sister, and lastly me (if ever i felt like an outsider it was then!). My father in law ate his meal and was finished before anyone even got theirs, and when i was living with Yasu’s parents, my father in law was always served first and started eating, not waiting for anyone else.
When i grew up it was just basic table manners to wait for everyone else to get their meals before starting. And even if male relatives did get served first, they waited until everyone else to get theirs before starting.
I know it’s a cultural difference, something that is offensive to me is normal to them. But Yasu expects that when his family comes to stay with us, his father is shown the same form of “respect”. Uh, hello, but we are all equal here, and as much as i respect his family, i won’t be allowing the father to just chow down before anyone else. “So maybe my family shouldn’t come to Perth then” is Yasu’s response. So that means Japanese guys shouldn’t have to change just because they go to someone else’s country?? Give me a break.
There is a great saying “when in Rome, do as the Roman’s do”, which i love. I just think it exemplifies what going to another country is all about.
Will his parents ever come to Perth? I’m not sure if his father could handle it. That’s going to be massive culture shock for him, but devil as i am, i’d love to see it.
For all the people currently living in Japan male or female, does sexism bother you? Do you even notice it anymore? Does it make you angry? Have you ever tried to change it?
8 Comments
Drives me to inasanity some times. A lot of the time I do the when in rome thing – but hey, hub has to take the cut too. He chose to marry a foreign woman and therefore reneg some of his Japanese-ness in order to wash the dishes, kiss the wife good morning, spend the weekends with family rah rah.
We live in a small town so the amount of stuff hub is involved in outside of work is amazing – and the stuff he doesn’t go to, because basically I have told him is crap and needs to spend time with family, everyone else thinks is because I have him shackled to ball and chain at home.
Only half true.
Only use shackles for special occassions :)
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Good on you for putting your foot down ;) But yeah you have kids, they have to come first before socialising!! Why does Japan let husbands get away with everything?
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Surely assisting the female cohost would have been more sexist.
By letting her carry the “heavy” bucket on her own it was treating her as an equal.
By helping her it would have been saying “You, as a female, are too weak to do this job.”
Please think about what you are saying when you say men have to help women with heavy work. If you want to be treated equally you can’t expect to be helped out when things are “too difficult”.
If you want to be treated equally you have to prove you are equal, and not cry “It’s too heavy for me. Help me. I’m just a girl”.
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Surely assisting the female cohost would have been more sexist.
By letting her carry the “heavy” bucket on her own it was treating her as an equal.
By helping her it would have been saying “You, as a female, are too weak to do this job.”
Please think about what you are saying when you say men have to help women with heavy work. If you want to be treated equally you can’t expect to be helped out when things are “too difficult”.
If you want to be treated equally you have to prove you are equal, and not cry “It’s too heavy for me. Help me. I’m just a girl”.
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So, giving the man and easy job and giving a woman a hard job is treating them as equal is it? So you must agree totally with Japanese society, because life in general is hard for a woman, it’s not equal.
I don’t think the camera should have focused so much on her struggling with the bucket.
I didn’t expect to be helped out when things are difficult. I’ve been in difficult situations in Japan, as a foreign wife, and never had any help. That is not equality it’s gender status.
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So, giving the man and easy job and giving a woman a hard job is treating them as equal is it? So you must agree totally with Japanese society, because life in general is hard for a woman, it’s not equal.
I don’t think the camera should have focused so much on her struggling with the bucket.
I didn’t expect to be helped out when things are difficult. I’ve been in difficult situations in Japan, as a foreign wife, and never had any help. That is not equality it’s gender status.
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This is coming much later than your original post, but there was one time that I noticed blatant sexism and questioned it. We were at a training session for our company, a big eikawa. The woman in charge of kids’s teaching, a Japanese woman, showed us a range of toys and dvds for the kids. For boys there was the excellent Bob the Builder – and girls got a little pink fluffy hoover and dustpan! Well, my hand shot up, and in the corner Bill the American trainer was probably thinking, oh oh here goes the Brit! After the session I asked the J. woman, who had been educated in the USA, why she thought such gender-specific toys were necessary, and if so, would it not be considered right to encourage boys to tidy up as well? She squirmed and did that smile that doesn’t reach the eyes.
Meanwhile, a Japanese guy told me that Japanese men are changing. Hmmmm. He then told me when it came to cooking he could boil water! However, I hold out a bit of hope for him seeing as his sister is pretty high up on the old career ladder (admittedly she lives here in London!), so he’s grown up with the knowledge that women aren’t just there to put the dinner on the table.
Japan does hold an appeal for the more regressive western male, of course. I abhor the eating when your food comes and not waiting for everyone else, but as you say it is cultural. I was more shocked when, on my first full day in Japan, another American trainer told us that in Japan you just start eating when your meal arrives, then proceeded to tuck in. I would forgive that in a Japanese person, but in this case it seemed like an overblown sexist pig making the most of being out of his comfort zone. In fact whenever I’ve had meals with Japanese people, both in Japan and here in London, they’ve waited till all our meals have arrived.
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This is coming much later than your original post, but there was one time that I noticed blatant sexism and questioned it. We were at a training session for our company, a big eikawa. The woman in charge of kids’s teaching, a Japanese woman, showed us a range of toys and dvds for the kids. For boys there was the excellent Bob the Builder – and girls got a little pink fluffy hoover and dustpan! Well, my hand shot up, and in the corner Bill the American trainer was probably thinking, oh oh here goes the Brit! After the session I asked the J. woman, who had been educated in the USA, why she thought such gender-specific toys were necessary, and if so, would it not be considered right to encourage boys to tidy up as well? She squirmed and did that smile that doesn’t reach the eyes.
Meanwhile, a Japanese guy told me that Japanese men are changing. Hmmmm. He then told me when it came to cooking he could boil water! However, I hold out a bit of hope for him seeing as his sister is pretty high up on the old career ladder (admittedly she lives here in London!), so he’s grown up with the knowledge that women aren’t just there to put the dinner on the table.
Japan does hold an appeal for the more regressive western male, of course. I abhor the eating when your food comes and not waiting for everyone else, but as you say it is cultural. I was more shocked when, on my first full day in Japan, another American trainer told us that in Japan you just start eating when your meal arrives, then proceeded to tuck in. I would forgive that in a Japanese person, but in this case it seemed like an overblown sexist pig making the most of being out of his comfort zone. In fact whenever I’ve had meals with Japanese people, both in Japan and here in London, they’ve waited till all our meals have arrived.
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