My mom just said something interesting, so I thought I'd talk about it here (and it's a slightly different topic to what I usually blog about).
According to my mom, married women in Japan are a lot more independent than their Western (i.e. American) counter parts. The logic goes like this. Because men work all day and are hardly ever home, women are not only allowed to, but expected to do things on their own. It is perfectly normal for a married woman in Japan to go to a restaurant or the movies either on her own, or with other women, but perhaps less common in the US. Also, married couples in Japan tend to be less mutually restrictive, that is, men have less control over their wives' daily lives, and women also have less control over men's daily lives (at least during the work week). Wives rarely demand that men be home at a certain hour or that he attend some social function with her, and the opposite applies as well.
Secondly, in the vast majority of marriages, the wife controls the finances and men are given monthly allowances. This essentially gives women more economic power and financial independence than the typical married non-working woman in Western cultures. Because jobs have traditionally been extremely stable and divorce rates have traditionally been extremely low, although that's starting to change on both counts, married women typically have not had to worry about losing their financial powers.
To a certain degree, I see the logic in what my mom says. There is, however, a "but". If you compare non-working married women, yes, Japanese women seem to be more independent than their American (Western) counterparts. But, if you compare women who are either single or working (married or not), I think women are less well off in Japan. My understanding is that women in Japan face significantly more challenges in the workplace than women in many Western countries (who, even still, face relatively more difficulties than men). Non-married women in Japan (and to a certain degree, married women) are strictly bound by oppressive (by Western standards) cultural expectations, and are granted less physical and mental independence. At the end, even married women are, to a degree, dependent on their husbands for their livelihood. The difference is, because marriages and men's income have typically been extremely stable, the dependency posed significantly lower risks.
I think it's also important to acknowledge that much of this is starting to change. Marriages are more volatile today than they have been in the past, and it is now possible for men to lose jobs. On the other hand, treatment of women in the workplace is slowly beginning to improve, although from what I see, the biggest changes are at foreign companies and some high tech startups.
Posted Tue, March 9, 2004 14:00 by john
keltische tattoos - tattoos vorlagen - tribal tattoos - tattoos piercing - tattoos tipps tricks - chinesische tattoos - tatoo motive - tatoo bilder - tatoo vorlagen - tribal tatoo - skorpion tatoos - tatto bilder - tatto vorlagen - tatto motive Tattos - chinesische zeichen - chinesische schriftzeichen - japanische schriftzeichen chinesiche zeichen -
[moderate]