and in Japanese there are four kanjis that express the matter
DAN SON JYOU HI
What does that mean?
Male admire female humble and it actually means predominance of men over women
Hey guys and girls on Ask Japanese this is CathyCat greetings from Tokyo and
today we're going to talk about things that women and girls here in Japan struggle with
Now you might already know this but out of 156 Japan still ranks 120 in gender equality why?
But also in the domestic life there are a couple of things that Japanese girls and women really
struggle with and this might actually right now be affecting the low birth rate here in Japan as well
so let's find out some of those things
Little disclaimer here equality is not about taking
something away from men it's about equal treatment of everyone and also Japan is currently changing
some of these things are quite tough but we have hopes and we have wishes for the future
Number one no more housewife or the good housewife
now most of the people that watch our channel actually come from the USA
USA USA USA
did you know that 70% of households in the USA actually have a dishwasher
In other countries like Australia they even have 90% of dishwashers in households
lots of time saved
so how many dishwashers can be found in a Japanese household guess with me
sixty percent, fifty percent, forty percent, thirty percent
what do you think? Wash wash wash
The answer is 30% which means the majority of people here in Japan still washes all their dishes
by hand and don't forget the Japanese people actually use more dishes than the average it's not
just one big plate you're washing up there's loads and loads of tiny little dishes one for the salad
one for the fish one for the rice one for the miso soup so if a whole family has dishes together as
food together there's a lot of dishes that you have to wash by hand it can take up to hours
dishwashing is still considered one of the chores that the females have to do of course
sometimes the guys will wash up too but generally it's something the females do
and actually also the idea "of like oh there's no need for a dishwasher you just wash it by hand"
or the image of the "good housewife" who spends hours in the kitchen washing up dishes instead
of using a dishwasher... also one of the host families I went to they had a dishwasher but
the idea of the "good wife" was so strong that she actually preferred to still wash all the
dishes by hand instead of using the dishwasher because it is the duty of the woman of the house
What is Japan famous for? Anime manga? yes. sushi and samurai? yes. geisha yes
Sumo? yes. Ask Japanese? yes...
but also another thing green tea
And this is one of the reasons why females struggle with working life in Japan now tea
green tea is accustomed to be served to visitors so when visitors come to a company they usually
get some green tea served and it's still considered a female duty to be the one to serve green tea to
the visitors of a company... there are a couple of surveys here in Japan in which women were asked
which duties they wish they didn't have to do at the office solely just because they are female
such are making tea taking calls getting copy papers and handing out souvenirs these things
are still very considered very much a female thing and a female duty and a lot of women wish
they didn't have to do that because they're just as qualified as their male counterparts and why do
they have to do these four chores
those were the top four but there still are quite a lot of other
duties that women have to do even though they are just as qualified as their male counterparts and
most of these traditional things that women have to do here lead back to the idea of ....and they're
all related to the housewife which means they have to kind of look after everyone a little bit more
and they have to do more duties cleaning cooking looking after people serving tea as well as even
in some companies the women have to clean the toilets of the men
that's wow i mean come on
Anmoku no Zatsumu
that's the word for silent unequal duties that women have to do
Now we learned some of the things that Japanese women are struggling with we're not even at
the tip of the iceberg but there's also some funny expressions for female strength
that have been delivered to women for centuries and they're like supposed to
support the women ...there's some here that we should talk about
onna naradeva yoakenuu ....that comes from Japanese religions and amaterasu the goddess of sun is actually
female and for one time she had enough with the world she thought "that's it i've had it"
she hid in a cave everything got dark and the word fell into darkness but they had a
clever trick to pull her out of the cave she came back out and the sun was rising again
Onna no ichinen iwaomo toosu
This pretty much means that if a woman really focus and concentrates on one thing she can even
pierce a rock... so this sounds more like a Sailor Moon special attack and similar but it also
respects the women and says "if you really put all of your focus on one thing
you're mighty strong girl you're mighty strong"
A study conducted in the USA compared 20 famous countries and realized that Japan
landed on LAST place with executives here in Japan, female executives are really
underrepresented here in Japan for example Norway has 35 percent but Japan has... what do you think?
There are three reasons that lead to this a domestic survey has found that
Japanese women here in Japan earn about half the salary that men earn on average
I also mentioned to you how hard it is to be fully employed in companies and that a lot of
people only become contract workers or part-time workers and that counts for as well the majority
of short-term workers and part-time workers are women which means they are actually not
as secured as well as their male counterparts are because they got the "seishain" in position
and they're just part-timers and number three is that women often will have to leave
the workforce because they have a child and it's really hard for them to re-enter the workforce so
they cannot continue working meaning they can't go up in the ranks meaning they can't become an executive
the oecd ranked Japan second worst for the wage difference between males and females
here in Japan and we're not even counting people from other countries in... it's just between
males and females and that creates a society in which the power is mostly held by men meaning
they have power in the form of money but also get more power because it's easier for them to move
up to executive positions men are more likely to get promoted and such
many women do get overlooked
they don't get respected as much they still have to do the other duties for example like making
tea and such and it can be incredibly tiring to work the same amount or even more get paid less
and every time you get told that you're not gonna get promoted so it can be super frustrating
Next one is "men over women" now a big scandal happened during the preparation time for the
Tokyo olympics and that's because one of the chair persons pretty much says women are the reason
why they're not enough women in the committee is because women are too competitive and when one of
them speaks they all think they have to speak and it takes too much time because they're speaking
so much... around something like that... the idea that the man stands over the women is very much
rooted in traditional thinking of society and as Japan is one of the most hierarchical societies
it means that usually the oldest people are in charge meaning people from our grandparents age
or over are currently in charge so we have some very old men who still live by these old standards that
they'd been taught when they were maybe kids which means they haven't managed to change up to the
current times and still have certain opinions we have heard some of those opinions not only
from the olympics committee officer but also from politicians in Japan that still think in the old
ways not knowing that right now so many things have changed and they don't quite apply anymore
and in Japanese there are four kanjis that express the matter DAN SON JYOU Hi what does that mean
male admire female humble and it actually means predominance of men over women but
Japan knows that this is currently a problem so they're trying to tackle it, younger companies
are trying to give equal opportunities to people and such but since most of the companies that have
well established here all the companies that still work with the hierarchy it's still struggling
and that's why we have less people in the economy politics and such who are female
Now this is just the tip of the iceberg there are many more things actually so if you would like us
to focus on that sometime in the future please let us know in the comments down below i know there's
a little bit more serious than what we usually do ...it's not all sunshine and rainbows but it is about giving
everyone an equal opportunity at having their best life here in Japan also these highlights also
other issues that men have for example they don't earn as much as their grandparents used to do so
it's really hard for them to become the sole bread winner and if their wife can't continue working
it's really hard for them to actually have a family and such it all ties in together there's a
lot more to talk about but the good thing is that we started talking about these things and more and
more spotlights more and more lights are getting turned on on these issues to change Japan for the
better and hopefully Japan will light up like the night sky and in the future we have a brighter
future... okay that sounds a little bit cheesy where we're hoping for the best of Japan I think change
is always a good thing for the better if it means that people are getting treated equally thank you
so much for tuning in let us know in the comments down below if you heard about any of these issues
or maybe other ones you would like us to focus on in the future don't forget to leave a like
for equal opportunities for everyone and don't forget to subscribe for more stuff here from
Tokyo I wish you a lovely day and a good night and i'll catch you soon on Ask Japanese! Bye ... check out our socials!