Corporate life of Yukako Kurose withered away after she had a baby. In 1985, Japan passed a resolution which administered equal opportunities for both the genders, especially in work-front. Women like Kurose acknowledged it with open arms but (for them) it was nothing less than mere eyewash.
Her promotion was due but the authorities discounted it, why? Because she started leaving for home before the office hours just to pick up her daughter from creche. She was then pushed into a dead-end clerical job, at last, she quit,
Japanese work customs make it almost impossible for women to have both a family and a career.
If we look at the average percentage, we find that there has been an increment in the number of women occupying the work front but it must also not be overlooked that not many women have occupied the top managerial position. With respect to women in the US, Japan constitutes 42.5% of women in managerial posts.
Equal opportunity law is essentially toothless
Statistics have also revealed that women tend to leave jobs once they are in their late twenties or early thirties, when they have their kids, while others prefer to remain single.
Experts pronounced that no doubt gender bias attitude is a rising phenomena along with this, one very important thing that comes into the forefront is the corporate culture which hinders a woman’s progress. Elaborating further, they said that it requires tremendous amount of work load, which even calls for ‘morning to midnight’ work, which women are not in a position to give as they have to share familial responsibilities as well.
Another and the most important paradigm is the spineless equal opportunity law as it fails to instill any hard and fast punishment to the violators of the rule.
Is corporate culture really a problem for women?
If the experts say that women folk cannot handle the corporate culture because of the amount of work load and odd hours attach with it, then we may share the instance where women have give in their best to counteract it. Ms. Ariishi, is an engineer by profession and is ever ready to meet the growing demands of her job. She goes back to her home by seven only to come back after putting her little boy to sleep.
No doubt, women cannot give hundred percent to their work front because they have to shoulder familial responsibilities as well. Various critics would stand up and give their ‘intellectual’ feed on the topic but has anyone ever think where would the women land if their spouse shares their familial responsibilities. I guess notion which highlights women as housekeepers needs to be amended, especially for working women, it would not only lead to her individualistic progress but nation’s as a whole.
Via: New York Times
