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Just Mumbling around Career Education

Episode 63: October 10, 2021

  • Episode 63: We Are Supposed to Be All Different and All Wonderful, Aren't we? (October 10, 2021)

    Teruyuki Fujita (University of Tsukuba)


    Among people born and raised in Japan, finding someone who has never come in touch with Ms. Misuzu Kaneko's poetry may be a difficult task. "A Little Bird, A Bell and Me" is one of her best-known works, and it is no exaggeration to say that its closing verse, "We are all different and all wonderful," has become a part of our daily lives, even apart from the poet herself. Her poems, though they were written almost a century ago, still gently embrace our hearts and encourage us. The message that "You are perfectly fine just the way you are." runs through many of Kaneko's poems, including "A Little Bird, A Bell and Me," of course, but also "Soil," "Grass," and "Sunlight."

    The message that Ms. Misuzu Kaneko presented to us through her poetry for children has only recently become linked to a social change.

    For example, women's studies, gaining strength in Japan around the 1970s, sharply criticized the underestimated perception of women. Later, it stimulated the development of men's studies. Based on the results of these studies, the social message that "both men and women should free themselves from socially framed gender norms and make life easier for each other as human beings" has gradually been shared in the past decade or so.

    As a typical example, let's focus on the changes in the implementation of the childcare leave system for male employees.

    In post-war Japan, men worked extremely long hours based on selfless devotion, which substantially contributed to the country's rapid economic growth. In the absence of men, women took on all the household chores including childcare and elderly care. The tax system and social security system have significantly been instrumental in luring people into and maintaining this gender-based division of labor. On the other hand, social problems such as death due to overwork, the loss of purpose in life after retirement among men, and serious restrictions on women's social involvement have become apparent. During the period of high economic growth, these distortions were concealed by the stability of the labor market through the effective functioning lifetime employment system and by the wage increase with a real sense of satisfaction. However, with the collapse of the economic bubble in the early 1990s, we faced a situation where we had to ask ourselves, "Is this the way it should be?" We realized that it was time to rethink the stereotypical framework of the division of labor among the sexes.

    To symbolize this, the "Act on Childcare Leave, Caregiver Leave, and Other Measures for the Welfare of Workers Caring for Children or Other Family Members" was enacted in 1991. To put it simply, the act established a system that allows both fathers and mothers to take childcare leave to improve the situation where the percentage of men taking childcare leave was practically zero. Well, this was already about 30 years ago. However, a nationwide survey on the rate of men taking childcare leave launched in 1996 revealed an astonishing rate of 0.12%. And in 2020, almost a quarter of a century later, the rate of men taking childcare leave has finally increased to 12.65%. Although 28.33% of these men only take less than five days of childcare leave, and if we take into account the clear difference between the percentage of women who take childcare leave (81.6%), we must say that we have a long way to go. However, the conventional division of labor between men and women is slowly but surely changing.

    Further, there has also been a movement to acknowledge the diversity of gender identity and sexual orientation, and since the MEXT (Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology) released a booklet in 2016 calling for attentive support for students regarding gender identity and sexual orientation at schools, various attempts have begun to develop in many regions. Although same-sex marriage is not yet legal in Japan, the number of local governments officially recognizing same-sex partnerships has been increasing nationwide, beginning with Shibuya and Setagaya wards in the Tokyo metropolis (2015), Iga City in Mie Prefecture, Takarazuka City in Hyogo Prefecture, and Naha City in Okinawa Prefecture (2016).

    "If the reality is that each one of us is forced to live our daily lives at the expense of our true personalities, and if the causes of such reality are historically and socially fabricated, then we can change them with our own hands." This common understanding is finally finding its way into Japan.

    ✽

    I've been assuming this way for a long time, but recent survey results reminded me that my brain is more of an "intracranial flower garden" than I was aware of.

    That was the result of the "Survey on Unconscious Gender Biases 2021," released on September 30 by the Gender Equality Bureau of the Cabinet Office. ...... Well, it's not something as simple as "We have a long way to go." The real path is much, much further. But we can also see a glimmer of hope. The results, in a nutshell, are such.

    Both the summary and the detailed version of the survey results have been released on the Internet, so I will only share the main findings here in a very brief manner. If you are interested, please visit the Cabinet Office's website to see the results directly:
    Results of the Survey on Unconscious Gender Biases 2021 (in Japanese )
    Summary of the survey results (in Japanese)

    ✽

    This survey was taken via the Internet in August 2021, targeting approximately 10,000 men and women in their 20s-60s nationwide. The survey asked respondents to answer "agree," "somewhat agree," "somewhat disagree," and "disagree" about the conventional gender roles.　

    The first thing to note is the percentage of affirmative responses ("agree" and "somewhat agree") to the survey item, "Men should work to support the family." The percentage of affirmative responses from men was 50.3%, more than half, and that of women was 47.1%, nearly half. The affirmation rate for the item "Women have sensibilities unique to female" was even higher, at 51.6% for men and 47.7% for women. There is no conceptual specification or definition of "sensibilities unique to female," so it is left to the interpretation of the respondents, but a plain guess would be that it implies "attentive to detail," "capable of thinking out-of-the-box," "not assertive," and "not fond of competition."

    To put it quite simply, there is a widely shared understanding in Japan today that men engage in work and show leadership, and women follow suit.

    It is true that there are general biological differences between male and female bodies, and that the male and female hormones that determine such differences have their specific functions. But obviously, there are individual differences among us. The results of this survey show that insufficient attention has been paid to how crude generalizations such as "men should work and support the family" and "women have sensibilities unique to female" have caused various difficulties in life for many people. We should also note that 29.5% of men and 22.9% of women agree that "women should be in charge of housework and childcare," which may not be a majority, but it is by no means an exceptional minority opinion.

    The survey also confirmed that men tend to be more affirmative about traditional gender roles than women. For example, out of the top 10 items with a positive response rate, "Men should pay for dating and meals (37.3% affirmation rate for men [22.1% for women])," "Men should not cry in public (31.0% [18.9% (below the top 10)])," "Men should get married and have a family to be full-fledged members of society (30.3% [20.7% (below the top 10)]), and "Men should prioritize work over the family when both husband and wife are working (29.8% [23.8% (below the top 10)])," suggest a tendency for men to be submerged in stereotypical gender roles and experiencing difficulties. Further, other results, such as "I am not comfortable with female bosses (18.4% [10.8%])" and "Women should take care of their parents, regardless of whether they are their parents or parents-in-law (16.2% [8.9%])," made me genuinely wonder, even though I am also a man, "Hey, guys, when are we living in?" If nearly 20% of men feel uncomfortable with female bosses and leave the care of their parents to their wives, it will not be easy for Japan to improve the Global Gender Gap Index (World Economic Forum, 2021), in which the country regularly ranks at the lowest among the G7 countries.

    ✽

    On the other hand, there are some bright signs in the results of this survey.

    For example, more than half of the male respondents (50.3%) agreed that "men should work to support the family," but when we look at the affirmation rates by age group, 41.7% of those in their 20s and 63.5% in 60s agreed, indicating a difference of more than 20 percentage points. As for "Women should be in charge of housework and childcare," there is a marked difference between the two age groups, with 23.9% and 37.5% of men in their 20s and 60s respectively agreeing.

    In general, the older the age of the respondents, the more likely they are to adhere to traditional gender roles. To put it another way, by waiting for the generational change that is sure to occur over time, it is almost certain that the unconscious biases of gender in Japanese society will change. ...... Undoubtedly, such a long-winded approach will not improve the living conditions of those who are forced to live their daily lives today, sacrificing their personalities and identities. Changing the mindset of us middle-aged and older men is the top priority.

    However, it is not easy to reconfigure the channels of thought that have lost their flexibility and plasticity due to aging, including my own. Even if you try to appeal to such "old brains" with logic, their ability to accept and understand close logic has weakened in the first place. (It's sad to admit, but it's true.)

    But seeing is believing. When you see a real-life example, even old brains can't pretend it didn't happen. Men who have taken long-term childcare leave, women working in management positions, and people open about their non-majority gender identity and/or sexual orientation. ......It would be great if the daily lives of these people could be disseminated, either by themselves or by a third party with their consent. By all means, the decision on what information and to what extent to disseminate, and what media to use, should be made by the free will of the individual. At the same time, the decision not to disseminate such information should naturally be given the same highest precedence. In addition, when handling business information, organizational consent is also essential. Many conditions must be cleared, but actual examples work well for a brain that has become difficult to accept precise logic.

    ✽

    And these real voices do not only appeal to the old brains. It is always the actual voices that change the existing system itself.

    It may sound I am getting off track, but the small lumpy surface on the side of the bottle to distinguish between shampoo and conditioner, initially introduced with the voice of the visually challenged, are useful for anyone in the shower. The pictogram, created with the voices of people with different languages, is an easy-to-understand display for everyone. Buildings designed for wheelchair accessibility and faucets convenient for people with limited range of motion of hands are user-friendly for everyone. ...... I don't think I need more examples, but a system that is fair and open to those marginalized as minorities brings it closer to being fair and open to everyone. Obviously, the choice to maintain the status quo of any system is the most hassle-free option for the fleeting moment, but it may prove to be unwise in the mid to long-term perspectives.

    "A man on parental leave? Of course No. There is no precedent for that in our company. Who's going to cover up the mess?" ...... At this moment, the hiring of a talented new male employee who would have applied to join the company a few years later was thrown out the window. "Female managers?　Women can't be in management because of their uneven emotions. It doesn't fit the culture of our company." ...... Another talented female employee has just decided to leave the firm.

    Furthermore, such organizations will be labeled as entities that do not contribute to the achievement of Goal 5 in the Sustainable Development Goals, which promotes gender equality and women's empowerment, and Goal 8, which aims to achieve both economic growth and decent work, and will have to pay a painful price. Not to mention the decrease in the number of people seeking employment at such organizations, the drop in demand for the goods and services they produce, and the exclusion of such organizations from the investment are easily presumable consequences.

    ✽

    Gone are the days when it was permissible to lump each person into existing categories such as "male" or "female" while making sweeping generalizations. Now any organization needs to earnestly face each member, find out the strengths and potentials within. I believe this is the simple fact everyone recognizes. We need to build a society where we can naturally say "We are all different and all wonderful."

    However, when we try to do this, our internal "unconscious gender biases" will manipulate our perspectives and thoughts. Since they are "unconscious" biases, it takes considerable effort to recognize their existence. The first step may be for each of us to be self-aware of the fact that we all have troubling biases, and that they may be forcing someone else to live a difficult life. Such self-awareness will also lead us to realize that we have been binding ourselves with our inner biases.

    (Translated and uploaded on October 13, 2021)

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筑波大学人間系

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