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thoughts about permissiveness

Tags: women

I'm giving myself 30 minutes on this, no more, needs to be concise. (Actually, I edited this 10/31)

Last year I was briefly in Bangkok Thailand before escaping to the beaches. Near my guesthouse was essentially a little Japan tourist town which seemed to be marketed predominately to men. Across from the hostel was a sketchy looking business where the door was sometimes left ajar. What had caught my attention was the occasional glimpses of numerous women in evening-gown style attire lined up on what looked like to be bleachers. Since I was pretty sure it wasn't some formal choir practice I asked the Australian owner of the hostel about it and he described it as sort of like an escort service. He said he thought it catered to Japanese businessmen as a a place where they choose there lady for the evening. Occasionally you would see women escorted into waiting cars or taxis outside. This was Thailand so what happened after you can only imagine.

It took a little while of living in Japan to see the correlation to those places in Thailand and how things work. One thing that caught me off guard here in Japan was what seemed to be very large pink-light districts. These usually consist of lots of love hotels which rent in three or six hours increments, your average adult novelty and video shops and large bland buildings housing various adult-oriented businesses including, but not limited to, massage parlors and hostess bars. These bars are advertised around most busy stations and at night there is usually a couple of men in suits who try to persuade businessmen into the establishment. I have talked to a lot of people about this and the general consensus is that there is no direct prostitution involved in these although some women may choose to develop relationships with the men. Instead it is a lot of over priced drinking and conversation with young ladies. But, this is also related to the business culture here in Japan. The socialization outside of work is a large part of building relationships with your colleagues and clients. So, this is all harmless on one level until one considers the exclusionary nature of meeting the place.

I know that women are free to patronize these bars as well, there is no sexism in that aspect. But, the larger question is how many women would want to? It has been emphasized by many people I have talked to (and exemplified by the tales of rarely present husbands and fathers) that these social meetings are critical in the business environment. When I discuss these places with working women, they often say they might go along to the dinner beforehand but understandably excuse themselves from the next locale. Although women have made some strides in the past couple decades, Japanese women continue to trail every other developed nation in terms of work place equality. I still hear stories of positions in the business culture reserved for men and office workers requesting tea and coffee from their female equals. But, I cannot hold all the blame on the men, although I do think their culture is sexist.

Historically, culture has dictated a rather passive role for women in Japan. Similar to America during WWII, women took over many industrial jobs for absent men but afterwards returned to the home in droves. During the economic recovery period women's roles were still far below men and there continues to be a sense of a women's place is largely in the home and if you haven't married by 30 you're a lost cause. I think the derogatory term is "Christmas Cake", meaning you can't sell christmas cake past christmas. I've heard that this is an older phrase and has gone out of use but while diminished, the comment is still a fairly common held belief. But, when I talk to wives I seldom here complaints about their husbands absence, women here often have vibrant social lives centered around their family and their own friends. When asked about what their husbands do, most say they choose not to think about it. Herein lies part of the problem.

I think women need to make the men uncomfortable. By not openly expressing disapproval they are, in essence, conceding permission silently. I say, go to the hostess bars with the men, be sure to ask about their families and next time there is a company affair be sure to complement the businessmen on how he dotes on his children when talking to the young hostess nearly the same age as his daughter. I say wives should ask about the details of their husband's outings, expressing enjoyment in knowing that they had a good time, wanting to know what they did. Ask for details and accountability, make them uncomfortable. When there are company business or recreation trips, women in the office should get together and stick together. Be sure to go along with the men in all their adventures, use your other female colleagues as support. Whatever you do, let them know that their actions will be seen and held accountable. Silently remind them that whether they like it or not, you are their equals and if they don't like your companionship they should rethink their venues and dated customs

To get back to Thailand, this is how I think it is all related. There is a permissiveness by the women and the culture in general to let "men be men, because that is their nature." Of course, anyone who has spend much time in Japan has probably noticed the absence of physical confrontation. Most Japanese men don't fight but many other cultures would argue physical violence to be in men's nature as well. Here violence goes against cemented modern day moresand is largely mitigated as a result. In contrast, what is seen is a selective permissiveness on some issues and strict rules binding other social mores. But here is what I think, by allowing men freedom to act like this, you do get more infidelity, you do get more adult oriented business, you do get more shallow relationships between husband and wives, you do get a big demand in SE Asia to cater to Japanese and other Asian men (the biggest market for the sex industry there) and you encourage the inequality of the sexes that exists here. Yes, the men need to change, but if there is no pressure put on them to do so and they see their fathers doing acting accordingly, they simply don't see anything to change. If no foul is called, players see no error in their actions.


Okay, I went over time about 4 minutes and didn't edit, at least it's written.



This post first appeared on .:bikes, Beats & Policy:., please read the originial post: here

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