John Yamamoto-Wilson wrote:

> Eric Takabayashi wrote:
>
> > Japan might become like other industrialized countries where women do more
> to
> > take care of themselves.
>
> Well, it might. And everywhere might become so much like everywhere else
> that we can't tell the difference.

I did not claim that and you know that is not what was meant.

> Then we could stop buying aeroplane
> tickets, couldn't we? But that might be bad for Mammon...oops, sorry...the
> economy, I mean!
>
> But aren't you giving examples of just how well Japanese women are taking
> care of themselves already, exploiting the system to the utmost? Frankly,
> your angle seems to have more to do with a kind of jealousy that Japanese
> women are already getting such a good deal for themselves (I'm sure you know
> that in many families the husband hands over his wage packet to his wife and
> gets pocket money in return) than with wanting to see them get a better
> deal.

I do want women to get a better ideal. With responsibility and power will come
FREEDOM and even greater choice than they have now.

Is your angle keeping women down and dependent on men, unable to even free
themselves from an unhappy marriage because they had not prepared themselves to
take better care of themselves? Do you simply accept women as victims? Why
don't you want them AND their society to change for the better?

> > > Don't you think that many of them would simply become an
> > > unacceptably heavy burden on their husbands who, as I say, would resent
> this
> > > and bitterly oppose such a move?
> >
> > You see the problem with women if YOU are the one proposing such an
> outcome?
> > Why don't such women just get it through their heads that if they want
> more
> > money, they need to work more or harder, or change jobs or train for
> better
> > jobs, if they want to earn like or be respected more like the dominant
> men?
> > Women in other countries did.
>
> This just feeds my suspicion that what's behind this is resentment that
> Japanese women have found another way to get a good deal for themselves.

Your attitude feeds my suspicion you want women held down. Are you sure you are
not excusing the Japanese politicians for their public statements?

I am not "jealous" of women. I prefer being free to do what I choose through my
own income, and NOT be tied to the home or babysitting all day. My wife is one
of those women who enjoy work, and explicitly feels bored at home with the
kids. Work for my wife and child care for my kids is best for all involved.
There are many women who do not like being tied to the home or children. Quite
frankly, it seems recently I don't know a single middle aged or elderly married
woman who actually likes being married, because I hear so often they'd LIKE to
be divorced or living abroad alone, freed from their husbands or even their
kids. So why don't they do something about it like women in other countries
did, and like women even in Japan do, even in this poor economy?

> > Welfare and unemployment is for people who
> > can't work, not people who quit jobs to go on vacation like in Japan.
>
> Eric, the world over people will quit working at MacDonalds or the
> equivalent when it suits them. They won't be walking out of career jobs -
> male or female - in Japan or anywhere else for anything other than very good
> reasons.

Bullshit. Is this more of your ignorance of the real Japan? Government findings
showed 70% of unemployed people QUIT their jobs. With the obvious exception of
the Sogo bankruptcy, I don't personally know any laid off people myself. The
many people I know out of work (near 100% female) CHOSE to quit. People
explicitly tell me that they quit their jobs simply because they didn't like
it, that they were not interesting, or they want a long vacation (long could
mean longer than one week, or literal years). Women (plural - NOT men) will
explicitly tell me to my face that they quit jobs to collect unemployment and
take a rest. You can hear such stories in the media as well. These are NOT the
many people I know complaining of such harsh conditions at work. Those people
stick it out, even if I suggest that doing so is not good for them, or that
they might prefer another job.

> > My family might lose half its wealth to inheritance tax or
> > capital gains taxes if we try to sell. If I want more money, I'll just
> have to
> > work and save. Other people who have more time to work more, can learn it,
> too.
>
> So you're playing by the book? Others don't,

There is nothing wrong with giving away wealth to avoid estate tax, as you were
not accusing people of falsifying reports or tax evasion. God bless them for
their generosity.

> and that applies worldwide, not
> just to Japanese women.

You mean worldwide that people who want money or more money, do not work for it
at outside jobs? They just live off their husbands or parents like Japanese
women? That would come to a surprise for the majority of western women.

> > Japanese women work from establishments or do it through the
> communications
> > network. They don't need to walk the streets unless they are touts
> advertising
> > a shop. You will never actually see most Japanese women who provide sexual
> > services for money.
> >
> > Did you not notice such a fact?
>
> How could I notice it if (as you tell me) I never see it?

You could know even the basics of mizu shobai if you were as street wise as you
claimed. Chinese street walkers (personally I've heard of Latinos) are hardly
representative of the Japanese sex trade. Do you not even get the sex industry
fliers in your mailbox or see ads in the papers or posters on the streets? Does
the open call for college girls, housewives, OLs, etc. make you think they are
asking for Chinese women and that the majority of women in the sex trade are
Chinese? Or do you hang around certain areas of Kabukicho?

> > > Well, and others will tell me that they have to place their husband's
> > > slippers just so at the entrance when he comes home, have his newspaper
> in
> > > place, serve him tea or coffee at his whim and the closest he ever gets
> to
> > > communicating with her is grunting,
> >
> > I know a lot of middle aged and elderly people. I don't get that, though I
> am
> > sure it is true of more old fashioned people.
> >
> > But that is another issue. So ask the women why they didn't support
> themselves
> > or get a divorce if they are so unhappy, or why they did not better invest
> in
> > themselves to be better able to support themselves.
>
> Because they are playing the conventional game, "behind every slogging
> salaryman there's a woman propping him up".

Then guess what? They will likely get the conventional housewife's or Japanese
woman's life, and they shouldn't act so ignorant when they find their pre
marriage or pre job search dreams don't hold up.

> This is the model on which Japan
> achieved world-class status,

Japan's questionable financial practices and outdated, inefficient business
practices were major reasons Japan achieved world class status.

> and you are arguing for them to change it
> now?!!

Yes. Because the system is being exposed for the mistake it always was. The
people I know, and the politicians on tv know it must change. They just don't
want to take the heat for changing it themselves (eg Koizumi regarding raising
taxes to pay for the elderly) or take responsibility for the results of their
own actions. If a woman living off her husband isn't living well enough, the
husband (or company or economy) is blamed, but if a woman trying taking care of
herself, it will mostly be up to her. Most women are scared of that. Men aren't
given a choice.

> Oddly enough, Eric, I suspect you are right,

Then why not simply say so, and not spend so much time standing up for such old
fashioned or inefficient ways and defending those who make such inflammatory
statements about women.

> but try telling *them* that -

I do tell them. Mostly I get the same excuses that you give. I noted to my wife
just last week after seeing a Super Terebi on successful female company
presidents that successful women I have met or hear about don't bitch about
barriers to women. My wife doesn't bitch about sexual discrimination, either.
She's too busy working and studying for a better job.

> *or* the country's policy-makers!

Oh, you mean like the men who made some interesting public statements, whom you
are defending?

> The decision-making machinery here is
> based on the idea that if it worked once it will work forever and any
> policy, once adopted, is set to run on zircon rails forever.

If you believe that is not the case, why don't you try pointing that out?

> > > Well, perhaps Japanese society (and in particular its women) wants
> different
> > > things, and forcing them to eat the same pie as the Sepponians simply
> isn't
> > > appropriate?
> >
> > No, women in Japan certainly do want the kinds of rights women in other
> > countries enjoy, such as more equality in society or the workplace. Don't
> tell
> > me you haven't noticed.
>
> OK, you're right again, but only in part. While women in Sepponia were
> claiming the pill as a woman's right Japanese women were opposing it because
> it involved health risks to their bodies

They were brainwashed by the Ministry of Health which prefers more childbirths
and lucrative abortions, they remember the old high dosage pills and their side
effects, and the fact that the newer low dosage pill is not covered by
insurance, which makes it seem an impractical choice. Don't tell me you haven't
noticed those issues either.

> and no risk or responsibility to the male partner.

There is risk or responsibility to the male. Perhaps the women do not want to
take responsibility for themselves and their own choices to have sex with men
they do not believe will stick around if a child is born or who do not respect
their wishes to put on a condom. If I believed a woman was not worth marrying
and risking disease and financial responsibility for, for the rest of my life,
I stayed away.

> (And, the more I think about it, the more I think they had
> a point.) This revolution in attitudes will come about - is, indeed, long
> overdue - but it will be a peculiarly Japanese phenomenon, just as the
> revolution in attitudes that has taken place in social attitudes in the
> south of Spain in the last few years is a peculiarly Andalusian phenomenon.
> At least, I hope it will. I'd hate to think it was just going to happen as a
> result of some form of cultural imperialism.

You mean like how some of Japan's more significant rights like women's suffrage
came about as a result of losing a war they started?

> > They just aren't as willing as foreign women to work for it to achieve it
> for
> > themselves.
>
> You don't know the half of it.

Are you agreeing with me, or claiming I don't know that Japanese women are
willing to fight for the rights they want to have?

> > > . All you need now is to get yourself elected, or bend the ear of those
> in
> > > power, and Bob's your uncle!
> >
> > I don't need to do anything to change Japan. Open your eyes and notice how
> > Japan has already changed a lot, even just during the short ten years I
> have
> > been in Japan.
>
> I've been here for ten years, too, and have indeed noticed many changes. It
> hasn't reached flashpoint yet,

It took well over a century in the US. It really took off about three decades
ago, and still continues today. I expect it will take Japanese women till my
daughter grows up to get their act together. I am not worried about my
daughter, but if she turns her back on the opportunities available to women
even today, and makes the choice to be a freeter or housewife (of course I
would allow it) she'd better be prepared to live with that decision. Beyond
graduation, "parasite" is one option not open to my children.

> but the day is coming (is indeed alreay here in some quarters) when women
> will be valued for something other than their ability to bear babies and
> serve coffee to their male peers at work.

If women in Japan also SHOWED themselves to be valuable, as women have
elsewhere, or were as willing to look out for themselves, they might get the
same level of respect as men or women elsewhere. But no, even the women who do
not claim to be victims of discrimination too often make the deliberate choice
to NOT attend four year university or look for a serious job (IF they even HAVE
an idea of the job they want and how to communicate that in interview), or
indeed, may explicitly not want ANY job at all, expecting family or future
husband to look after them; thus holding themselves down. If women quit their
jobs on me because they simply didn't like it, or because they were going to
get married or have a child, perhaps had it planned from the very start to only
work till age 25 or 28, (note men are MUCH less likely to do so) I'd be wary of
hiring women, too. In the US it would be discriminatory to ask people about
marriage plans. In Japan it could be necessary to make employment choices. Too
bad so many people lie or do not respect the terms of the employment contract.

> > Efforts need to be made just to encourage or hasten such change.
>
> Oh, I do my bit, believe me!

Then pardon my saying so, but excusing politicians who make idiot statements,
criticizing foreigners who would criticize those idiot statements, making
excuses for why people would CHOOSE not to achieve, or accusing me of being
jealous or cold because I would have people with choices be more responsible,
for THEIR own good; is not the way.