Japanese men have more opportunities than the nation's women in education, employment and society in general. Equality activists are "not optimistic" that effective change will happen anytime soon. But what if it could?
Women in Japan are bogged down by traditional rolesImage: PHILIP FONG/AFP/Getty Images
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Nearly 80% of people in Japan believe that society benefits men over women in the Asian nation.
That's according to a recent study conducted by the Cabinet Office, which also revealed that just 14.7% believe women are treated equally in Japan.
It underlines the chasm of inequality between the genders in everything from politics to education, and "socially accepted views, customs and conventions."
What else did the survey reveal?
Asked about the areas in society with the greatest contrast in gender equality, nearly 82% of respondents said politics — and more than 64% cited workplaces.
Education has long been considered an area in which male and female students in Japan are at least equal Image: Takashi Aoyama/Getty Images
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Close to 60% also singled out home life, with "socially accepted conventions" requiring that women are typically tasked with cooking, cleaning, managing the home and raising children.
"I am not surprised at those figures and it's unfortunate that nothing seems to be changing in a positive way," said Chisato Kitanaka, an associate professor of sociology at Hiroshima University.
"It is a problem in every part of Japanese society, but perhaps most visibly in the wage gap and employment and promotion opportunities for women," she told DW.
"Young women come out of universities and colleges with the same skills and knowledge as men, but the companies and organizations that hire them are too often stuck with old-fashioned ways of thinking."
"The assumption is that they will work for a couple of years, get married, leave the company and have children," Kitanaka said, "so there is little point in giving them the same training or advancement opportunities as male employees."
Japan through the eyes of women photographers
Kyotographie, a Kyoto photography festival, celebrates its 10th edition by shedding light on female Japanese photography. Taboos, prejudices, gender boundaries but also environmental issues are topics of the works.
Image: Ai Iwane
'Zaido'
Devastated by a series of tragic accidents, Yukari Chikura followed a dream in which her deceased father appeared, asking her to go to a remote village in Tohoku. There she took part in a 1,300-year-old festival called Zaido, capturing it with her camera. "Seeing people fight again and again to preserve heritage gave me the courage to live again," she said of the experience.
Image: Yukari Chikura
'Sawasawato'
From 1959-84, around 93,000 people left Japan for North Korea as part of a repatriation program. Some 1,800 were Japanese women who had married Korean men. Noriko Hayashi portrays these women in her series "sawasawato." "I visited these elderly women, interviewed them, and took photos. I traced their memories as I traveled back and forth between Japan and North Korea," Hayashi (above) said.
Image: Noriko Hayashi
'New Skin'
Mayumi Hosokura's digital collages compose a new world where distinctions of sex are dissolved. Her works use her past photos of male nudes and male museum sculptures, as well as selfies found on the internet and magazine pictures. "Not only in artworks but in our daily lives, gender might be a bit more neutral and connected closer," Hosokura commented.
Image: Mayumi Hosokura
'Eagle and Raven'
After a trip to Iceland, where she was fascinated by water landscapes and their unique lights, Ariko Inaoka started to photograph twin sisters she had met there, returning every year for eight years. They became her muses: "They told me ... 'We dream the same dreams together.' They made me think that even though we don't dream the same in our sleep, we share the same dreams," Inaoka said.
Image: Ariko Inaoka
'A New River'
When the cherry blossom viewings that usually take place each spring in Japan were cancelled due to COVID, Ai Iwane captured the trees blooming in the dark. Her photos reflect the ambiguous borders between nature and human: "When I walk under the cherry blossoms in the dark, I often hear the voice of wild animals … the boundaries between human and nature became blurred," the artist explained.
Image: Ai Iwane
'Ilmatar'
Momo Okabe's series Ilmatar — the name of a Finnish goddess of air — is inspired by her own experience. Okabe, who considers herself asexual, became pregnant through IVF. As fertility treatments become standard, she believes the process is worth recording: "Impossible things happen ... If we pay more attention to such things, and photograph them, life would be even more beautiful."
Image: Momo Okabe
'Mutation / Creation'
Harumi Shimizu's series documents human fascination with mutations. Her work, an inventory of animal and vegetable strangeness, sublimates the weirdness and questions the concept of beauty: "People have long responded to mutant animals and plants. This kind of curiosity is universal to some extent. I want to know more about [it] ... so I collect these mysterious things and take pictures of them."
Image: Harumi Shimizu
'Hojo'
In "Hojo," Mayumi Suzuki uses her personal experience of undergoing infertility treatment to talk about the complexity of women's bodies. "When I went to the market when after I gave up, I found … all these odd-shaped unsold things. I thought they were just like me. I wanted to express this vague feeling with my own body," Suzuki said.
Image: Mayumi Suzuki
'Die of love'
Hideka Tonomura explores relationship intimacy through blurry and sensorial pictures, thereby depicting her own "theater of love." Photography became cathartic for her while she was dealing with traumatic experiences: "I kept shooting to live, to keep me alive." Tonomura also initiated the Shining Woman Project, which sheds light on women fighting cancer and combats the prejudices they face.
Image: Hideka Tonomura
'Negative ecology'
In Tamaki Yoshida's pictures, stunning landscapes and wild animals from the island of Hokkaido are eroded by detergents, shampoos and other chemicals contaminating water and environment. "I always believe the animal world and human world are both equal. Rather than invading or being invaded, it is best to coexist symbiotically. I think humans are capable of that," Yoshida commented.
Image: Tamashi Yoshida
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Room for change in politics and education
In Japanese politics, women account for just 10% of members of the 465-seat lower house of the Diet, putting Japan in 165th place of the 180 countries monitored by the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU).
In Japan's last lower house election, just 18% of the candidates were female.
Education has long been considered an area in which male and female students are at least equal, however Hiromi Murakami, a professor of political science at the Tokyo campus of Temple University, insisted that this is not always the case.
"The inequality is perhaps less obvious, but there have been a number of scandals in recent years in which universities were found to have selected male applicants over females who had better exam scores," she pointed out.
Japan's gender disparity appeared to have taken European jobs commissioner, Nicolas Schmit, by surprise when he was in the country earlier this month for a G-7 labor rights meeting.
"We wanted clear, solid and strong statements, which I think more or less we got on equal pay and on better integration of women in the labor markets," he told Kyodo News, adding that there was "a strong awareness on the Japanese side that something has to be done."
That recognition was echoed by Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who this week instructed his cabinet and employment experts to ensure that women occupy 30% of the executive positions at major Japanese companies by 2030.
At present, women account for just 9% of the executive positions at Japan's 3,795 listed companiesImage: Takashi Aoyama/Getty Images
Kishida said that increased pay, internal promotions, and ending violence against women in society are key to ensuring that women occupy more companies' top jobs.
'Women not at a disadvantage'
Traditionalists, however, bristle at the suggestion that women are seen as inferior to men in the workplace.
"I do not believe that women are at a disadvantage in Japanese society because there are already laws in place that guarantee they have the same rights as men," said Professor Yoichi Shimada, an academic at Fukui Prefectural University.
"Perhaps the disadvantage lies with a society that expects that women's main role is raising children, but I do not think this is a special problem," he said.
"I feel it is the same situation in other parts of the world, in the US or Europe, so this is not a big issue."
And that is exactly the sort of attitude that the associate professor of sociology Chisato Kitanaka said makes her pessimistic about genuine change in Japan.
"These attitudes run very deep in Japanese society," Kitanaka said.
"There may be change but it will be very gradual and it will be very slow."
