Kickboxing Geishas: Chapter 3 - PowerPoint Presentation

Slide1

Kickboxing Geishas: Chapter 3

By: Chris Thomas and Dani PeytonJapan in the Modern WorldMay 6, 2015Slide2

Chapter 3- “Tea and Sympathy: Working women in japan”

Main Ideas of Chapter:There is a struggle for Japanese women

to balance traditional business careers with pursuits of married life and motherhood.

The most glaring difference between men and women is that few women occupy professional positions.

Primary question of the chapter: “Is

there an actual movement or is it just a few women getting ahead, on their own terms, in their own way?” (pg.59

)Slide3

According to Data…

5 million women have joined the workforce since the

Equal Opportunity Act of

1985 was established.

The number

of women in management positions

remains unchanged.

According to a Ministry

of Labor

study,

48% of business leaders felt women do not have knowledge, experience, or judgement to serve as senior

executives and

35% said women do not stay with

companies

long enough to receive

a senior

position.

A 2005 Cabinet Office survey found that

m

ore

than 63% of companies have no intention

of even hiring women.Slide4

Issues within the Japanese workplaceSlide5

Businessman vs office lady

“Businessman” is the English-inspired salary manNo equivalent for a businesswomanInstead, women are referred to as “office ladies”

Office ladies make copies, clean the kitchen, and pour tea.Slide6

Costume culture

There are no career clothes for women, only ladies who lunch or “the first blue suite for the post-university job interview.” (pg.60)Rochelle Kopp, author of The Rice Paper Ceiling

, says that women “need to be more conscious of the image you’re putting across,” (pg.60).Slide7

Limitations on Language

There is no good way for women to speak to male subordinatesKopp says, “Just as in the Meiji era when the introduction of Western ideas meant the creation of all new words, Japan is going to have to be just as creative about language and women’s roles in the workplace,” (pg.60).Slide8

Getting to Work

A sexual minefieldGroping on the subwaysCommutes of 1-2 hoursTrains are packed full

Pornographic magazines sold at newsstandsSlide9

Response to Women’s complaints

Japan Rail Company offered female-only carsMen were arrested more often for assaulting women 2,201 arrests in 2004 from 778 arrests in 1996Slide10

Life experiences of the Japanese workplaceSlide11

Yasuko Nakamura

Founder and President of Boom, Inc.Built her own company after being an office lady for 11 yearsMakes teenage girls her full-time job

“Joshi Kosei”- Voracious shoppers with a quirky eye for fashion and an uncanny ability to start trends

These girls came up with Tamagotchi and sassy lingo

Currently 8,000 girls are employed by Boom, Inc.

Relied on the development of products such as soft drinks and cosmetics

Schoolgirl style created by

Uchira

and

Osoro

GenerationsSlide12

Yoshitaka Yano

40 year old producer/director/writer“Our generation has more freedom in doing anything, but also I think that even though we have more freedom, if women want to survive in a career they have to work hard-probably twice as hard as the men. Only the strongest can survive in this society.” (pg.66).His wife, Akiko Oku, worked for labor division of the government where she was primarily asked to serve tea.

She categorizes women into three fields:

Career women

w

ho have high positions in a company or have established their own companies.

Office ladies working for the company without hopes of gaining higher positions.

Freelancers who are outsiders doing what they wish.Slide13

Yoshitaka Yano Continued

Office ladies are powerful because they continue to work and figure out how to have both a career and a family unlike women 20-30 years ago who quit once they got married or had children.Slide14

Masako Nara

Senior executive at the traditional, copier giant company, CanonShe holds herself higher than the “girls” who work at the reception deskShe was one of, if not the first to reach executive rank at a Japanese company

She had the rare opportunity to have a female mentor in the workplace

She overcame the tea challenge

Once married, she kept her maiden name as an act of power, control, and authority

She

b

elieves Japanese women are the nation’s most precious wasted assetSlide15

Fumie Shibata

On the vanguard of Japanese working women.CEO of her own design firm.Largely regarded as one of the leading industrial designers in the world.

Only woman dressed for work wearing jeans.

Only female from her graduating class to succeed in industrial design.

Her way to success was by winning design competitions to show her competency to future clients.

Believes Japans herd mentality only hold women backSlide16

Additional InformationSlide17

The role of Housewife

Collective amnesia regarding housewife rolesBelief used to be that women played the role of “O

kusan

” or “person in the back of the house.”

However, women have always been productive, especially in farming communities.

The high infant mortality rate and low life expectancy rate of 50 years old forced women to have many babies in order for a farm to survive.Slide18

Daughters of Pre-Bubble Economic Boom

Daughters career ambitions directly related to how they viewed their mothers situationsIf mom was a happy housewife, the daughter would want to follow in her footstepsIf mom was limited, the daughters would seek careers

Yuki Yamashiro

Foreign Relations

Mother was a housewife, and it is the reason that Yuki pushes herself in her careerSlide19

Role Models

“Perhaps because Japan is not, by nature, a country of individualists, the role model question gets a lot of blank stares.”Japan is more group oriented, there is no place to think of individuals, when their careers are about the bigger picture.“I don’t aspire to famous women because, really, I don’t know their lives or how they really work or what they really are like as bosses.” –Mina Takahashi, Mori Art MuseumSlide20

Perseverance

Despite challenges of corporate Japan more and more young women are pursuing careers. “A japan labor institute survey of men conducted in 1991 revealed that the most common view of women colleagues is as ‘considerate supporters’ the same survey showed that only 26 percent of men regard women as ‘able partners’ an amazing 15 percent said they have no impression of women whatsoever”– Sumiko

Iwao

,

The New Lifestyles of Japanese Women

This type of thinking is why Japanese women choose to pursue careers overseas

Women who have had overseas experience are having profound effects on Japanese culture when they return.Slide21

Sources

Chambers, Veronica. (2007). Kickboxing Geishas: How Modern Japanese Women Are Changing Their Nation. Simon & Schuster, Inc. New York, NY.