John Yamamoto-Wilson wrote:

> Eric Takabayashi wrote:
>
> > It is not "the system" which is to be blamed for women CHOOSING not to
> work.
> > Women in the US pay taxes, but they are much more willing to work or even
> > support themselves.
>
> Eric, women are not choosing  *not* to work.

It is when they are not working, and there is not something to stop them from
doing so, such as discrimination or pressing domestic chores such as caring for
children or homebound elderly relatives. I can certainly see why a woman with
small children might be a housewife, but not a woman without children or with
children who can look after themselves. God man, I know women who do not even
do housework (maybe their live in mother or mother in law does it, yet they
have no jobs and bitch about life, the economy, or their husbands and their
jobs.

> What they are doing is choosing
> to keep their income below a certain threshold, determined by the state, in
> order not to get into a situation where they earn more, but get taxed on it
> and so end up pocketing less. In other words, they are making a perfectly
> logical choice, based on the options the system is offering them.

Or they could do like women in other countries, or like men do, and work more
to get more money. I don't avoid work to stay out of the next tax bracket, and
other than women in Japan, I don't know people who do. None who'd admit it,
anyway. I know part time and freeter men. They don't hold themselves down to
avoid taxes.

> > They WOULD bother to make their own damned money if it meant women NOT
> > collecting government pension or not getting 70% subsidized medical
> service.
>
> Yup. That would certainly put the cat among the pigeons. The average
> salaryman with a non-working partner would probably be sufficiently incensed
> to abandon his reputation for being a patient, long-suffering soul and
> embark upon armed dismantlement of the state. Otherwise, no problem.

Excuse me? Unless women earned their own money and made their own payments,
they would not get benefits. The same situation breadwinner men are in. But men
don't have a problem with working to support themselves despite paying taxes.
Women should learn it too.

> > Under the current system, one woman in the news calculated she would have
> to
> > earn 1.7 million per year, IIRC, to take home as much as she did earning
> less
> > than 1.3 million in a lower tax bracket.
>
> Absolutely. Now you're saying it yourself, "Under the current system". See?
> It *is* the system that's creating this situation, isn't it?

No, it's one woman being lazy. If men want more money, they work more or get
another job. I do. I don't sit on my ass while my wife works.

> > I don't know about you, but I certainly don't know MEN to deliberately
> keep
> > their work hours or salaries down (also hindering their career
> opportunities)
> > just to avoid paying tax. I don't know working age men who have a real
> choice
> > about working or not at all.
>
> Then you don't know about poverty traps,

What poverty traps in Japan are you referring to? I see discrimination against
women, and middle aged or elderly men, preventing them from working. The
problem I am talking about is with people who do have choices who hold
themselves down, yet may still bitch about it.

> about people who stay on welfare
> because a low-end job would involve getting to work on time each day,
> working all day and receiving only a paltry amount extra, which would mostly
> go on things like transport to work and spending the necessary extra on
> clothing, etc.

According to one international survey in perhaps 32 countries, including in the
developing world, only 4% of Japanese respondents did not have enough to pay
for food, shelter, medicine, etc., the lowest rate of the countries surveyed.
The level of hardship in the US was 15%. You'll notice Japanese level of
homelessness is also much lower than in the US, about one tenth the population.
And Japanese homeless can make do without panhandling. The most serious
complaint I personally have against any homeless in Japan I have ever seen is
recently, more of them seem to be unclean or have some sort of smell. And the
homeless community I see nearly every day seems to have lost their aversion to
using the public area, supposedly a playground under the elevated train tracks,
as their open air toilet, so the immediate area reeks of urine.

> > > Of course, it might
> > > encourage some of them to go on the game, but that could result in some
> > > nasty turf wars with the Chinese girls who at present appear to have
> > > cornered the lion's share of the market
> >
> > What market are you referring to which Chinese women dominate?
>
> Sorry, Eric. "The game" is a longstanding euphemism for prostitution.

Then foreign women are hardly dominant in that area. In fact, since coming to
Japan, I have begun to understand what one feminist writer meant when she
called marriage a form of prostitution. Women will even tell me proverbs such
as, the best husband is not at home, or tell me how happy they are that their
husbands are not around, or the hell they have to go through with their sick or
retired husbands. They'd be divorced if they weren't more worried about not
getting their husbands' money.

> > In Japan's case, if women from their end reduced the gap between how men
> and
> > women worked, men would also be able to work less, and have more leisure
> and
> > time for domestic chores. Northern European countries such as Norway have
> > reduced many such discrepancies between men and women.
>
> Well, yes, but what works in one society won't always work in another. You
> might as well recommend the US to adopt Norway's laws on control of firearms
> as recommend Japan to adopt Norway's policies on the employment of women.

Why is the gun situation in the US, which is notable in the world, analogous to
the Japanese situation on employment for women, which is hardly uncommon among
traditional or past societies? Even the US had a similar situation in my
parents' generation, and it was even more serious in decades and centuries
before.

Unless you are referring to the fact that unlike elsewhere, Japanese women are
not acting for themselves. There have been figures fighting for women's rights
in the US since at least the mid 19th century, putting themselves at risk,
being harassed, mobbed, and jailed.

> > So much so that there is actually
> > worry in Norway that women no longer "need" men to raise a family,
> > and there is a rise in single motherhood.
>
> There you go, you see. Every silver lining has a cloud. Japanese women have
> their problems, and - for all their "maturity" - Norwegian men have theirs.

I am not the one who claims that single mothers who work and raise a family are
any sort of problem. It's better than being trapped in an unhappy marriage like
many Japanese women will explicitly tell me. It is no wonder to me that the
elderly are the fastest rising group of divorcees in Japan, and it's the women
dumping the surprised husbands.

> > If women worked more, for more money, men could work less, for lower
> salaries,
> > and families would still make it, like in Norway. Men would also do more
> > domestic chores, as they do in other industrialized countries. I think
> what I
> > read just last month claimed husbands in Finland spent four hours per day
> on
> > housework and child care, and husbands in Japan were down at about 20
> minutes.
> > The little article I read did not report how much housework the women were
> > doing.
>
> > > and either there'd be a huge influx of cheap
> > > foreign labour to fill the gap
> >
> > There wouldn't be enough foreigners allowed to fill the gap. The UN
> estimates
> > Japan needs an influx of 600,000 laborers *per year*, for 50 years, to
> maintain
> > Japan's economy in the face of population decline.
> >
> > Japanese students could be allowed to work, as they do in other countries,
> to
> > supply low cost or low skill labor in part time jobs. That would encourage
> them
> > to stop living off their parents, too, and lead to more responsible saving
> and
> > spending.
>
> Now here you're simply talking out of the top of your head.

No, I've believed that Japanese children and young people should be more
responsible and independent for quite some time, and it is true.

> The number of
> hours spent by Japanese students doing "baito" (= part-time jobs) is already
> worrying enough.

I refer to high school students. You know, ALL the ones not allowed to work by
their school rules, thus having to get sometimes obscene amounts from their
poor parents every month to support a telephone, karaoke, or fashion habit.

> Some of them are running so close to exhaustion all the
> time it's just as well some of the lectures are as boring as they are, and
> the lecturers don't even try to wake the kids up as they try to catch up on
> their beauty sleep.

Then they need to manage their time like students in other countries who are
more independent from their parents, do. And as for high school students and
entrance exams, Japanese will need to learn sooner or later that those
examinations are not what determine the quality of a worker or a person. Also
in the US, there are part time study programs for people who are busy or do not
have much money up front.

> I not infrequently am asked to write recommendations for students to receive
> financial help as it is - the family business that's failed, the student
> that's working three nights a week for the family business and holding down
> a part-time job as well as trying to study....Your policies would ensure
> they didn't get a university education at all.

Wrong. Because I would help honest, hardworking people including those in
"poverty traps" or those who are somehow unemployable without enough money.
This view of mine that people should be helped is precisely what irritates
people who pay more tax or those who are more politically conservative.

> > There'd be a lot fewer idle young Japanese if they paid for their own
> > education or living expenses like many foreigners did.
>
> Poor kids! Their childhood has been sacrificed on the altar of entrance
> examinations,

That's a mistake to begin with. I would do away with those. Grades and other
than academic achievements, such as demonstrations of leadership and
extracurricular activity, are more important.

> their future is in thrall to some corporate magnate,

They should do away with that corporate structure, too. The economy is having
that effect. Economic instability is making millions of Japanese start to take
charge of themselves. Thank god.

> and you
> want to deprive them of the little bit of breathing space they get
> inbetween!

Of course you realize you are taking pity on those students who actually do
study. I know some high school students who sleep five hours a night, don't
meet their families at night, and don't watch TV because they study so much.
Well that's a mistake to begin with. But most students are not like that.

Students in other countries who hold down part time jobs while studying are
also cutting into their free time, if you have forgotten. I knew kids who paid
their own rent (perhaps even to their own parents) and tuitions, were already
independent adults, or perhaps are still paying off loans now. They dealt with
it.

> > Leisure is one sector with potential for growth. It would *create*
> > jobs, because I don't see many Chinese girls working at Disneyland, in
> > the Louis Vuitton stores, or as bus guides.
>
> Well, then, by all means let's give people more leisure.

That's why you needn't worry about Japanese studying or working themselves too
hard. They are beginning to decide for themselves that it is not the way. The
problem is some take it too far, dropping out of school because they simply
don't feel like going (note, I am NOT referring to or criticizing victims of
harassment), or adults going completely without work and becoming parasites
because they may be disillusioned or confused about their futures. According to
government figures 70% of unemployed people quit their jobs by choice. Of
course that includes people who were bullied to avoid paying severance, but
those people are not the problem. I refer to the people who will explicitly
tell people that they quit their jobs to take a rest, travel abroad, etc. - on
the dole. Just this week a woman told me she would "rest" and collect
unemployment before following my suggestion of a place to find precisely the
kind of work she wanted. In my experience of hundreds of such unemployed
people, easily 95% are women. Can't imagine more than say, five men who would
actually admit doing so. No, the men are too busy working and trying to take
care of themselves or support their families to muse about sitting on their
asses living off their wives' efforts.

> The problem is, the
> steps taken to do that so far seem largely to have failed. For instance, the
> Ministry of Education has introduced the five-day week for schoolchildren,
> and all that's done is create growth in the cram school sector (not to
> mention schools cutting sports events, etc., to make up for the loss of
> classtime).

Then those parents need to get it into their heads that grades and the name of
the school are not what matters. They should realize from the problems of the
last decade that more is needed in the home to raise children properly instead
of foisting the children and their problems on the schools.

> If they did something positive, like have students at one school for the bulk
> of their school years, so that they weren't spending all their time at one
> school preparing for examinations to get them into the next one, we might see
> some progress.

I am for district schooling. I am for public schooling. I would also be for
school vouchers and waivers for those in financial need. Particularly at the
elementary and junior high level, Japanese do not understand the concept of
having many levels of ability within the same school, preferring children to
travel perhaps hours each way, or having to live away from their families and
childhood friends, just to go to a "good" high school with a good program,
instead of having their free local schools improve.

> > There are still things that low cost foreign labor cannot do. Japanese
> need to
> > promote growth in such areas as high technology and service.
>
> Japan is already one of the countries on the cutting edge of high technology
> and its service industry is like heaven after the UK,

Funny, that is not what the Japanese are saying about themselves when they look
to foreigners and foreign countries for new ways of doing business. Look at how
just last month, one American president of a Japanese bank for the first time
ever in Japan, *gasp* offered service on weekends.

> but I won't get into
> all that as you seem to have a different agenda from that which drew me into
> this thread. My points are as follows: (1) different societies follow
> different roads to progress,

Yes, but it is not always necessary for the roads to be different. Enforcing
rights for women and instilling a sense of responsibility will improve the
situation of women in Japan. As a matter of fact, progress has already been
made.

> (2) holding up models that work in one society
> is no guarantee that they will work in another society

Yes, but that is no reason that "foreign" ways of dealing with women's rights
are unnecessary, incorrect or ineffective in Japan. If you'd seen the US
decades ago, you'd have said the same thing, but the US situation improved and
continues to improve, as it does in Japan. It's just that Japan is decades
behind the West in this regard, and the attitudes of women themselves don't
help much.

> and (3) these
> differences between societies do not have anything to do with one society
> being any more or less "mature" than any other.

That is your agenda, but I am talking only about women and those choices that
they do make to hold themselves down. Until the women stop holding themselves
down, there is not much incentive including legal means, for society or
employers to change to suit them.