Yesterday my wife and I went to our favorite restaurant and noticed that the girl who had been working there was gone, replaced by a young man who was waiting the tables instead. I guessed why the girl wasn’t around — “I’ll bet she quit to get married” — and when we asked the owner, that was indeed the reason.
When it comes to men and women there’s definitely a different mind set at work over here, with a high number of women actively yearning for kekkon taishoku (leaving employment due to marriage) so they can become housewives, at least until the kids are old enough for them to return to work. While I personally believe women can do anything they set their minds to, the goals that many women in Japan set for themselves can be quite different from what’s considered the norm back home.
During my career as a teacher I had one student who had really dedicated herself to learning English, studying in the UK and working hard to achieve her goal of becoming a “ground hostess” for JAL, one of the most sought-after careers here. Naturally she threw all this away when a coworker proposed marriage to her, quitting her job and becoming the only perfectly bilingual homemaker in the neighborhood.
The challenge for me as an outsider is to keep from judging things like this from my own local world-view, since Japan isn’t the U.S. and the U.S. isn’t Japan, but sometimes it can be a challenge.
I, too, have met intelligent and accomplished girls in Japan who tend to give up the pursuit of something outside the home when they get married. On the other side of the pond, I meet Japanese women who do get married, and still continue to pursue career interests. Girls in Japan who don’t want to get married often tell me that it is because they don’t want to give up their freedom–the expectation is that marriage=loss of mobility.
The difference seems to be partly the girls’ level of interest, but also how much she is supported by her environment. It is difficult, for example, for a woman who gets married to continue to work/pursue activities outside of the home if she isn’t supported in this by her partner or her family or even society at large. Even when I got married, my family’s response (in Japan) was: “Well, we won’t see you much anymore since you now have a husband and can’t leave him.” And I’m an American! But my family still has some “Japanese” expectations of me.
To place the blame, as it were, solely at the feet of Japanese women is a bit narrow and extreme, I think. The “problem,” if you even want to call it that, seems larger and more societal to me. As it stands now, I meet Japanese women in the US all the time who came here to experience a level of “freedom” (their words, not mine) that they don’t have at home.
Japanese society is perfectly capable of change–if it wants to. I’ve been reading a lot lately about the late 19th and early 20the centuries and it is so interesting to see how so many of the social norms we accept today about Japan were very much the result of government plans. And while I do agree that if large scale societal changes are to happen, they must be driven by the desires of women, I’m not altogether sure that this is how things will happen in Japan, as I’m not sure it’s how change has happened in the past.
It’s not just Japan, either.
My friend works for Cathay airlines as a steward (or whatever they call ‘em waiters-in-the-sky). He’s surrounded by intelligent, multilingual young women who are trained to lead and direct in emergency situations and get the chance to travel all around the world to broaden their horizons.
It drove him nuts to have to sit and listen to their conversations about the future - the very vast majority starting off with “I want to get married and when I quit Cathay and stay home…”.
It also drove him nuts when they’d max out their luggage allowance buying things for sale outside Hong Kong and expect him, as a man, to haul that stuff on/off buses and trolleys. He told ‘em to forget that idea of chivalry right away. He was gay, he was a slight guy who rarely visited the gym and didn’t have the muscles, he wasn’t going to marry ‘em and, therefore, he wouldn’t succumb to their feminine wiles.
But that’s another topic, I guess.
I also don’t get it. With Japanese divorce rates going up, how to women not expect a horrendous post-divorce financial future if they’ve been out of the workforce for a number of years and can’t take care of themselves independently?
Depending on alimony and child support? Or getting ’small jobs’ that many married women seem to get… except that seems more for pocket money than actual living expenses?
I believe the rising divorce rate is at least partially driven by divorce post retirement. (man retires and comes home, wife leaves home now that man is always home) I think some laws were also changed relatively recently that gave women more of the assets. I’m too lazy to find the sources right now, so you’ll want to double check that before spreading the rumor any further.
[…] to Blame for Gender Inequality in Korea and Japan? Over at Japundit, Peter Payne briefly discusses the phenomenon of kekkon taishoku, or leaving work to get married (I assume it’s exclusively […]
I think the problem here is the ethnocentric view of women that western folks have and the idea that enriching your skill and knowledge is something that you do to attain an external goal rather than to be an educated person.
The perception that it is somehow a waste for an educated woman not to pursue a career is steeped in the capitalist notion that we should hone ourselves into money-making instruments and use them to attain positions which enhance the perception others have of us via our jobs.
This betrays a lack of regard for the role of homemaker. This is a role that is essential and contributes not only to the stability and successful relationships of a particular family’s members but also to the raising of healthy, mentally-adjusted children who grow up to be adults who interact better with everyone they encounter. I sincerely believe that a lot of the social problems in the west (including the obesity epidemic) are related to the lack of a stay-at-home parent. It doesn’t even have to be a woman, but having one primary caregiver who can devote significant time and energy to raising children (in couples where children are planned) is essential. That means those women who quit are actually performing a far more valuable service than just earning more cash for a higher standard of living and to gain the approval of people who can’t see beyond a job title.
Bravo, Shari!
Yeh, Bravo, Shari. What’s wrong with a woman wanting to get married, have children, stay home and make a good home for her, her kids and her husband. How did we all get here? With supermoms? No, my mom did the same thing as that waitress, and she was a great mom. Enough of all the judgmentalism. Let everyone be whoever they want to be. Long live home-makers, they make a home what it is.
Dang, Shari. You said that much better than I could have! My wife got a bit of flack from her English friends for going the housewife route.(Not from any of my pressure, I would have liked the extra income at first.) They felt she should pursue independence and a career, as though those are unquestionably the ultimate goals one should have.
Now, with kids, I wouldn’t want it any other way. If we absolutely needed the money, fine. But I agree that many social problems are indeed aggravated by the lack of parents at home. Is a day care worker going to be anything remotely close to replacing a parent’s love and guidance?
Anyway, what’s so great about a “career?” I can’t think of any career that would be more important than a family. I mean, I would question the mental stability of someone who says “I wish I never had children, and had been a ground hostess instead.”
And independence? That only has value if there is nobody you can depend on, not something to aspire to.
“Freedom” is used a lot, I agree. There is freedom, and then there is simply lack of commitment to any responsibility or to any other person. The latter is just sad.
There’s a guy I know who lives down the street. He used to belong to the army but is now happily functioning as a homemaker while his wife works outside the home. Kid seems well-adjusted.
I don’t disagree that the West devalues the role of homemaking and childrearing (not to mention education–but that’s another topic).
But I think the original question was: why don’t Japanese women continue to pursue professional pursuits even after marriage?
Is it because, as you suggest, the home is so valued in Japan that women understandingly and knowingly take on this extremely valuable position, without feeling that they are giving up anything else as the selfish women of the west do?
I can’t completely buy this reasoning–as many of you do so easily–because, as has been noted countless times on Japundit, there is a group of women who AREN’T getting married, preferring instead to retain their careers to the point that the birth rate and population of Japan are in decline.
This, to me is the crux of the issue–the fact that work and motherhood are seen as such either/or choices in Japan, not just by the women, but by society.
And this leads me back to my point; I don’t think you have the situation that you do in Japan today only because women “refuse to work” after marriage, but because by and large it isn’t really acceptable if they do.
I certainly agree that the West has made a mess of this issue, and on a personal level, if we do have a child, I’m prepared to be the caregiver. It’s not even a question in my mind.
“There is freedom, and then there is simply lack of commitment to any responsibility or to any other person. The latter is just sad.”
What is freedom as you define it, ghoti?
Edited to add: on the issue of a declining population and birthrate, simply see the post above. This is not to say that I think it is clear what Japan should do, or that I would even want it to follow the west (look through the archives of Japundit and you’ll see that I’m pretty consistent on this point), but there is clearly some kind of problem which will sooner or later need to be addressed. Or maybe the population will just shrink and that’ll be fine.
It also partially depends on the field you work in and what track you’re on. Education is certainly a field where female workers can and do keep working after marriage or even children. OLs were never hired as “lifelong employment” types, they were temporary workers. There were always plenty of male workers in this bracket, but they weren’t given OL type duties. So they weren’t exactly giving up careers when they quit after marriage.
I’d say there’s been a reaction even in the US against the anti-family, anti-motherhood (marriage and motherhood=slavery) feminism of the 70s, 80s and 90s…although the ’stay home mother’ is still often seen as someone to be pitied by too many people.
Well, there was this article in the NY Times a couple years back that really touched a nerve with my friends at least–it was all about how super educated women were staying home in record numbers to raise their families.
So, I would agree that the anti-family stance has lost a lot of its popularity, which is a good thing, I think.
I don’t know. I personally plan to stay at home when/if we start a family. But then I also refuse to hire a housekeeper and insist on doing my own laundry, which are seen as quaint attitudes in the big city.
In the end, I just don’t think there are terribly easy answers, but change of some sort seems inevitable to me.
I must just chime in and say that I take offence to the notion that stay-at-home-moms make for better adjusted children. I was under the impression that NEETs, Freeters and Hikikomori were an increasing problem in Japan and that the japanese are up there with us scandinavians with regard to teen-suicides (and that is withouth the looooong dark winters we have in these parts which drives the numbers up at that time of year).
Be a homemaker or not, your choice. What I find most annoying about this whole thing is the fact that people for some reason just can’t accept other peoples choices. One might be as good as the other, though pragmatically, there is more sound reason for the capitalist argument in a capitalist world than the argument about well-adjusted children for which there is no evidence. personally I will unashamedly say that in my utopic world we would be living in an anarcho-syndicalistic society where capitalism is frowned upon and the old saying ‘it takes a village to raise a child’ is not just spoken but practiced in that every adult took responsibility in correcting and caring for the children in their surroundings instead of just ignoring the antics of some snot-nosed brat whose parents either are too busy with work to raise them well or have nothing else in their life but their spawn because of beaing a homemaker and thus spoil the brat and let them get away with their antics. Bad parents exist regardless of work-status.
Need I say that I am not a parent? =)
Whatever your choice, be happy with it. Or at least, don’t regret it much.
In my opinion, homemaking is probably most labor-intensive and stress-inducing during the early years of childhood development. If done right though, there’s a better chance of well-adjusted kids (though nothing is guaranteed). It probably doesn’t help that parents are having kids later in life these days. And no homemaker should define themselves solely through their kids. That’s just unhealthy.
2RYO yes, that is unhealty, but htose parents exist. In the US they are called Soccer Moms (we have those in scandinavia as well). Their egocentric selfish spoiled brats are refered to as Project Children and I don’t know if my impulse to strangle or pity the little horrors is the greater. If I recall correct, in japan one of the words that made it onto the yearly top 100 buzzword list was ‘monster parent’ which reffered to the japanese version of Soccer Moms.
Let me reiterate, bad parents exist regardless of work-status.
The fact of the matter is many Japanese working women don’t quit when they get married. In fact, most of my female coworkers in the past and my students who are married worked. Not one quit until pregnancy.
One has to keep in mind that being a housewife, particularly in Japan, is a labor-intensive job. They have to shop more frequently (small refrigerators and a culture which places a higher value on fresh food). They have a culture which embraces more food variety at each meal for better nutritional balance. Wives tend to handle all the paperwork and budgeting. They do laundry every single day for the most part. Most housewives are dynamos from morning to late evening in Japan. In a culture with few dishwashers or clothing dryers, there’s a lot of cleaning time.
While I agree that bad parents exist regardless of work status, I can’t agree that, by and large, a stay at home parent is extremely helpful in raising better people. The “spoiled brats” are related to economic prosperity and smaller family sizes, not a lack of good care. In the U.S., default menus are instant and frozen meals and it’s part of what is taking its toll on the health of folks living there.
Rune, stating one’s preference does not necessarily mean that a person is unaccepting of another’s lifestyle choice.
@Edward I can agree with that and I did not take offence with Sharis preference. What I took offence with is this statement of hers: “This is a role that is essential and contributes not only to the stability and successful relationships of a particular family’s members but also to the raising of healthy, mentally-adjusted children who grow up to be adults who interact better with everyone they encounter. I sincerely believe that a lot of the social problems in the west (including the obesity epidemic) are related to the lack of a stay-at-home parent.” (my italics)
This is not stating of a preference. This is stating that stay-at-home-moms are the BEST solution and more than implying that having two working parents leads to messed-up kids. Now how can you in all seriousness say that stating that another lifestyle choice than the one you advocate leads to more messed-up kids is not unaccepting? This is what I took offence to as should also be quite clear from the very first sentence in my post and let me quote again
“I take offence to the notion that stay-at-home-moms make for better adjusted children”
I countered with a question as how this ties in with NEETs, Freeters, Hikikomori and high levels of teen suicieds. This question has so far been ignored in the debate.
It seems to me that it is not I who am the one who is unaccepting of anothers lifestyle choice but Shari. I have several times stated that one might be as good as the other and what annoys me is the fact that some people don’t accept others choices. I have not once claimed or implied one to be superior to the other while Shari on the other hand has done so with regard to the homemaking mom and this is what I took offence to. Especially since a lot of people were supportive of her statement in defence of homemakers without commenting on the bigotry.
@Shari It seems you equate ‘the west’ with ‘the US’. I am not american, I am European, Scandinavian to be more presise. Both my parents work and that is the norm here. But then agian, both of my parents also take part in both child raising and housework, here those things are a shared effort. As a matter of fact my father does most of the cooking. My mother would wash the dishes and me and my brother would help her doing the wiping.
As we are in scandinavia we are in what is basically a socialist wellfarestate whether the government is socialist, liberal or conservative. This means we have long periods of ‘maternaty’ leave for both parents guaranteed by law (in my language it’s called ‘parental leave’ notice the gender neutralality of the term).
Now, I cannot speak of how families eat now, but when I grew up in the 80s and 90s I ate homemeade meals almost everyday (I am born in ‘76, so I am a firedragon and please excuse my combativeness and temper =)). I’d say more than half of my generation grew up in homes with a produce garden even cityfolks, we have a long tradition of something called ‘garden colonies’ where apartment dvellers have a small plot of land with a small quaint house where they grow vegetables and enjoy being sorrounded by greenery.
Now, I am still not claiming that this is better, but please Shari, do not belittle it either. If I would, I could make a strong argument for the fact that handling both a job, home and family would require even more ‘dynamonism’ of scandinavian women than their japanese counterparts. But this would be based on a lot of fallacies and assumptions as I do not know and don’t have the time to research this aspect of the japanese culture to make a decent comparison.
Also it seems to me you have quite deftly ignored my question as to how your theory (for it is nothing more) adds up with the NEETs, Freeters, Hikikomori and high rate of teen suicides. In my response to you I actually have been taking your statements into account without blindly ignoring that which didn’t suit me.
Also my answer to Edward can also be taken as being directed to you seeing your writing is it’s entire subject matter.
Please excuse me of being long winded. But I do not enjoy having my argumentation misrepresented. Also I find it in bad manners not to tackle direct question to ones argumentation of a point and here again I refer to how the better mental health ties in with NEETs, Freeters, Hikikomori and a high teen suicide rate. This repetition might seem obnoxious, but I hope that in this way I might get a response.
Late reply, Marie. I know many women, and several men even, who define freedom as freedom from obligation. Japan is still filled with obligations for the native born. But once free of that, so many of them just seem to drift, with no particular attachment or aim in life. As though being free was enough. They say they are happy, but they just seem numb to me. They work a nondescript job and live in a nondescript flat in London or LA, and their biggest achievement in life is that they escaped from Japan.
I sympathize, because I grew up dreaming of escaping from Detroit, but it wasn’t the defining moment of my life when I did.
I just don’t understand the whole “career” thing. If someone had a passion, I understand. But they pay a price for that passion on a personal level. If it’s a real passion, that is partly paid back by the satisfaction they get from pursuing it. But most people are just kidding themselves when they talk about their careers. I think they have been brainwashed by current thinking. There is no comparison between a career and a family.
In my ever humble opinion!
addendum
I live in a country with less obecity and more working moms than in the US, just to add that little factoid as a bullet to shoot down Sharis argumentation. Any lifestyle choice can be good, as long as everybody involved believe it is, be it polygami or being a hermit.
To quote the beat author William S Borroughs “Nothing is True, everything is permitted” or the wiccans slogan “Do what thou will, lest it hurt none”.
We can also go christian in “Can the blind lead the blind? […] why do you see the splinter in your brothers eye,but do not notice the ledge in your own ear? How can you say: ‘Brother, let me remove that splinter in your eye!’ When you seen not the ledge in your own ear? Hypocrit, first remove the ledge in your own ear; then you will see clearly to remove the splinter in your brothers eye.” But remember also to love thy neighbour and to punish the one you love. Which is what I belive I am doing here - loving all of you by pointing out when you border on hypocracy.
Much love
Rune,
who will now be off ot the doctor to beg for a shot of cortisol and afterwards will be celebrating that it’s wedensday.
Rune,
Sorry if I misunderstood your comment.
Have a nice Wednesday!
Rune,
A quote from a heroin addict who shot his wife in the head does more harm to your argument than good. It’s far from clear that the statement supports your idea, anyway, as I think it was Dr. Benway who said it, in his character as a totalitarian madman. It is also contradicts itself.
I disagree that any lifestyle is good, even if everyone involved thinks it is. I am not saying we want more laws regarding social behavior (there are already too many), but we should at least recognize that certain behaviors can eventually harm and even destroy healthy societies - even if they seem to be relatively benign. This is really missing from most Western discourse, and disappearing from Japan as well - the idea that an individual is not simply responsible to himself, but to society.
My own behavior has been anything but consistent with this, so call me a hypocrite if you want. But, I will not dodge the charge by pretending that all my selfish actions are good for the world and society.
Gothi
You would be very right at laying the hypocritical charge at me as well, it is unfortunately a part of human nature, one finger pointing at someone else and three pointing back at you and all that. But let me make it clear, I need a good talking to as much as the next person and am glad that there are people willing to give me one (though seldom in the situation itself).
With regards to the Borroughs quote I see it as a sort of zen koan and you are probably right that it probably does not help my argument. That is unfortunately one of the disadvantages of writing stream.of.conciousness posts like I have a habit of doing and then realizing I am late for a doctors appointment before editing >_>
I don’t believe I said that all behaviors are equal. When I first wrote that I was annoyed by the fact that people didn’t respect each others choices, it was in the context of working mom vs. homemaker and I also qualified that any lifestyle choice can be good as long as those involved agree on this. Now as you point out not all lifestyles are good. The lifestyle of the unabomber for example was very bad, because it impacted people in a way they didn’t agree on. On the other hand, the Hermits of Harlem http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collyer_brothers in my opinion harmed none by their choice of lifestyle. They might not be percieved as productive citizens, but that is because of the frame of reference lent to us by a capitalist society where the production of material gain is the penultimate goal of any existence.
The erosion of the individuals feeling of responsibility towards society I believe is a response to societys lack of responsibility towards the individual. This is something I find to be more and more prevalent beginning with the structures we sorround us with, like state and industry, this seeps down to the personal level and starts an ever increasing vicious spiral and the post-modern worldview I present is a defence against this. I believe the creation of new and smaller inclusions or groups while accepting those who are forming other groups that have other values as long as they do not harm our own group will lead us to become more caring. The reason for this is that man is not made to function in such large groups as we have to today. Our brain is still the same as it was 50.000 years ago, we just have better ways of recording and imparting data or knowledge now than we ever had and also have a larger source of knowledgebase to share - we are not more intelligent, we just have more data. I don’t believe there are very many people who only feel responsible towards themselves. I do believe there are many people who do not feel responsible towards a blankfaced, alien society they cannot comprehend. But I do believe most people feel responsible for those people who are in his immediate sorroundings, much as was the case a hundred or five hundred of a thousand years ago.
So, the question boils down to, what constitutes a healty society. I don’t believe the nationstate is or can ever be such a thing.
I myself am an ex-NEET and ex-hikikomori due to schizofrenic psychosis. I have experienced the uncaring face of society, both in form of the state and in form of my fellow man. My primary symptoms are acute social anxiety and low self worth combined with a high self esteem. I will never become a father, though my government would want me to, because we need to produce as many warm bodies as possible to keep the machine operating. I have had my testes snipped, because my maternal grandmother and my mothers brother are also psychotic, I do not want to impart my flawed genes to another human being. I am not opposed to adoption, though it would have to be with a partner so strong that she would be able to carry my part when I get the occational schizophrenic episode and have to fight very hard to get back on top again.
I don’t know if this makes sense to you as I present very ambiguous thoughts on this matter but I don’t believe I can represent it better than this.
Shari wrote: “They have to shop more frequently (small refrigerators and a culture which places a higher value on fresh food). They have a culture which embraces more food variety at each meal for better nutritional balance. Wives tend to handle all the paperwork and budgeting. They do laundry every single day for the most part. Most housewives are dynamos from morning to late evening in Japan. In a culture with few dishwashers or clothing dryers, there’s a lot of cleaning time.”
French women with families have small refrigerators (at least, in the cities) and they definitely have a better sense of food. But they work out of the home and carry on careers in much higher numbers than Japanese women.
And I have no idea why the hell would Japanese women want to do laundry every day once a kid’s outta cloth diapers… . None of the multi-kid families I know in Paris would do that (and, no, that doesn’t mean they let au-pairs do it so don’t start…). And, strangely, I know many eco-friendly multi-kid households without dishwashers in my neck of the woods who seem to manage fine (especially when the kids get to the age where they’re expected to do chores, like put away the non-pointy cutlery).
I’m not trying to be contrary - I’m just not seeing the time requirements of your suggestion.
Just as staying home should be an option (which seems to be the norm in Japan), so should being able to go out and contribute to the financial health of the present family, to contribute to the future of a joined family and to maintain a more level financial independence field for either partner in case the working partner dies or becomes incapacitated somehow or the marriage comes to an end (which seems to be the norm in the US).
Seems to me, logically, the success of a mother-staying-home scenario only works, ultimately, under a few condidtions: 1) if the marriage stays whole throughout at least the childhood of the kids. Though I would tend to think it’s only really successful if the stay-at-home scenario means the woman doesn’t see sudden drops in her lifestyle until she is about retirement age; basically, the trough between people needing less money for material things and the increasing costs associated with aging, 2) the mother is coming off such a high pay career track that, should she have to return in a few years, her invariable slide down the career ladder would still be able to maintain her in a middle-class lifestyle.
A mother who stays at home, raises happy kids and slides down the economic ladder if the breadwinner is removed from the scene, is not a successful outcome to the scenario, regardless of whether she chose to do this. The definition of a viable option should not be contingent on such one-sided sacrifices.
I’m curious to know about Japanese divorce law - who gets what, what child support provisions there are, what’s the rate of divorce settlement breakdowns, the financial health of divorcees five years after the papers have been signed (i.e. are the fathers still paying alimony and child support - at least child support), what the government kicks in financially (through tax breaks, for example), etc.
Basically, is there any financial incentive to get women to stay in the work force as a social policy fallout from family law or are married women so protected by laws that they can option out of the competitive job market knowing that divorce won’t eviscerate their lifestyle (and that, inevitably, of their children since I assume the vast majority go with the mother in divorce cases in Japan).
Or what’s the percentage of women in loveless marriages because they *know* they won’t be able to function well independently outside the marriage (and how many men stay in loveless marriages because they don’t want their children to suffer financially and socially if their wives get custody).
And how many second marriages are reactions of women not being able to maintain equitable financial independence in a job market instead of the very real contemporary Western ideal of marrying solely for the sake of love, rather than necessity (now that I’m old, I’m seeing the intrinsic, ruthless value of marrying for mutual necessity rather than lust and love… so much for illusions :::sigh:::).
My impression is that Japan’s aging population means they’re eating up their own savings on their own care. How much will trickle down to their divorcing kids and could afford to help financiall buttress single daughters with kids - who knows. Would be an interesting topic.
Family groups also seem to be getting smaller and dispursing and tight-knot social groups are easing and unravelling, by the sounds of it. So the social net that suddenly-single-head families used to rely on certainly don’t seem to be there like they may have been, perhaps, a few decades ago.
And what happens to these women once their kids leave the household? Where are they financially? Are they going to be financial burdens first to their kids, then to the government because they haven’t been able to provide for their own welfare?
What I also find interesting about this issue is that at least staying home as a housewife in Japan still seems a true option and the norm. In North America, it really seems to be becoming a true luxury that has to be finely evaluated by a couple. And mothers working in a career or full-time job that pays well is a true option/necessity while in Japan it seems a true luxury that has to be finely evaluated by a couple.
So, you know, it’s not *only* a question of giving women the ability to pursue outside careers, it can come down to cold, harsh economic reality for families and government, too.
you don’t need a stay at home mom to grow up well balanced.
hell, my parents worked so much that as a child my first word (while being prodded to say “mommy” and “daddy) was aowison (my babysitters name until i was five was allison).
i turned out alright.
Obviously from your typing skills your parents didn’t believe in capital punishment… . Good on ‘em!
(Sorry… couldn’t resist :-))
Oh, crap, Betty - you beat me to it.
Rune,
Hmmmm…”societys lack of responsibility towards the individual” being responsible for its inverse. I hadn’t thought of that - but its certainly something to chew on.
Betty,
The loveless marriage excuse always seems a bit of self-indulgence to me, at least where there are kids involved. Unless they are at each other’s throats, I think parents should work it out for the family. Just my opinion.
“The erosion of the individuals feeling of responsibility towards society I believe is a response to societys lack of responsibility towards the individual.”
Interesting comment. On the one hand, government-funded social programs designed to cast safety nets are more prevalent now than ever before in most developed countries. One could say that society is certainly demonstrating more responsibility towards the individual through these programs. What I think though is that many of these programs tend to let individuals off the hook when it comes to lending a real hand to their fellow man (and woman). So do we cut back on these social programs and try to seek a better equilibrium? I’m just a lowly commentator.
“The fact of the matter is many Japanese working women don’t quit when they get married. In fact, most of my female coworkers in the past and my students who are married worked.”
Well, now I’m confused.
First I thought the argument was that Japanese women don’t work because they value the role of homemaker more than the capitalist western societies.
And now the argument is that they DO work?
As for homemaking being a more full-time job in Japan–well, I think it’s a full time job anywhere. But different countries have found different “solutions” to the work. Some hire help and some make due with the small refrigerators with hired help!
I actually think Betty lays out a pretty comprehensive picture of the challenges of the family in the modern world.
And I still maintain that the reason why Japanese women quit when getting married isn’t just because Japanese women intrinsically value family more than money-obsessed western women (Louis Vuitton anyone?), but because it is a greater societal expectation that they WILL quit, just as it is more largely expected that married women in the west will NOT quit work.
Ghoti, while I sympathize with your view of freedom, surely you see that it is a limited definition greatly influenced by your own personal history? To say that escaping Detroit didn’t turn out to be such a hill of beans, and to turn this experience into a prescriptive mandate that younger people shouldn’t similarly follow their dreams is somewhat limiting, don’t you think?
In NYC, the city is filled with people who came here to pursue their dreams, and many fight and fight and fight to make these callings come true, and most of the time I’m pretty inspired by those who do succeed and am glad there is a place where art and creativity are valued enough for people to thrive.
I would never want to take this away from anyone.
This is not to say that all young dreams come to fruition. But I’d rather that a society errs on the side of letting people try and the deals with the messy consequences.
Again, there are no easy answers with this stuff.
My response this time will be short and I will probably not address all points I should seeing how involved I have become in this particular debate.
RYO you are correct in there being more governmental social programs. But they are also paired with a growing tendency for cost/benefit analysis where the individual is treated as a potential for income and expenditure and these are weighed up against eachother. Also it seems to me that in the 7 years I was dependent on social services the social workers got swamped in paperwork and reports and guidelines. Social services workers today are left as custodians of a set of rules and have very little influence in how to act on a case to case basis. From speaking with others in my situation on the web, I have a feeling that the same thing is happening in a lot of other countries. The social sector has to be streamlined and cost-effective and if you do not fit in one of the neat little boxes that some anonymous commity has decided to group the users of the social services into, you will not get the proper help and implementing more and more programs that target a specific group of people because they happen to have been up in the press does not actually help very many people at all, because with new schemes and new programs you will need funding and a restructuring of resources and staff all to be taken from a limited pie.
Why has it come to this? I dunno, maybe it’s becaue our lawmakers are so busy trying to cope with new emerging economic superpowers who also want a share of a limited global pie that they forget that they are dealing with people unless it’s time for reelection.
Marie:
Women work after marriage, but mostly quit when they become pregnant. There are plenty of exceptions to this, by necessity or desire.
My personal experience was meant as an illustration, not as the basis of an argument - and my argument was never that people shouldn’t follow their dreams. Dreams are great, but running away from someplace (and I am sure you know how many Japanese refer to leaving Japan as “escaping”) is not a dream. My point is that a large number of Japanese escape to New York or wherever, and then just drift for years on end. If someone has a dream, they will go wherever necessary to pursue it. If this argument is based on experience, it’s the experience of seeing so many aimless Japanese expats whose defining moment in life was that they left Japan. They are not as visible as the successful people you talk about, but they are numerous. And I never gave my definition of freedom - I referred to what some people call freedom. I don’t think we disagree on this point.
And I am not sure how we drifted this way from the original topic, and am too lazy to reread an find out!
Rune,
Just a thought, but government cannot replace society. The government will never care, much less provide love and guidance. Maybe part of the problem is that, as our societies have grown large and complex, people confuse the two. Society includes friends and family, and families have been torn apart by economic realities, among other things. Not to say that families are all wonderful, but they are generally better than government.
“And I never gave my definition of freedom - I referred to what some people call freedom. I don’t think we disagree on this point.”
I did notice that! And I was left a little bit confused because I wasn’t sure if you just weren’t defining freedom, or really were drawing a distinction between what some people think and what you think. (And for the record, if you asked me to define freedom, I couldn’t do it in a blog post). Anyway, thanks for clarifying.
Aimlessness does seem to be a kind of modern characteristic, and I’ve been thinking about Shari’s point that too much wealth contributes to the family breakdown. I wonder this myself sometimes.
I guess it also depends on how you define “too much wealth”, too.
In North America, it seems that TV-culture and real estate culture seems to infer that having anything less than expensive, impractical granite countertops and stainless steel appliances and marble everywhere seems to denote being poor. Or a house of less than 2500 feet with a family room opening up to the kitchen and at least four bedrooms for a couple with two kids… .
But methinks this vision of ‘wealth’ is based largely on credit, credit cards and shuffling around the money… so it’s kind of an illusion, anyway.
So I’d like to know how Japanese households handle debt. Maybe the onous for women staying at home is also possible for the simple reason that a family isn’t wallowing in debt?
Japanese have traditionally had a positive savings rate, as much as 20% of their income saved. Since the bubble burst, that’s gone steadily down as people lose jobs, etc., but I believe it is still positive (Americans have negative savings rates). Since Japan has been a cash based society, people usually only made large purchases when they had the money for it (including buying a new car in cash). Houses and condos have loans, but I’m not up on the terms. I know some of the folks here own a home in Japan and are more up on this and can probably explain it.
The old seniority pay based system (also breaking down) made it easier to to fund a stay at home mom as well. You’d (husband) start out with lower pay, but by the time you got married and had kids, your pay would be higher. But for the working class, I think quite a few wives/mothers who quit, would start working part time jobs for income and have their parents look after the kids, particularly in more rural areas. Now that people are moving away from that support network, it’s harder (and pre-preschool daycare in Japan has been uncommon until recently).