Beyond Common Sense: Sexuality and Gender in Contemporary Japan by Wim Marinus Lunsing

Author:Wim Marinus Lunsing [Lunsing, Wim Marinus]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780710305930
Goodreads: 3423142
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 1997-04-15T00:00:00+00:00

Work

The civil service is one of the career options in which women can be sure to receive a decent income which is not lower than that received by men. This interviewee even thought that she was better off than a man with wife and children doing the same job, for whom life was more difficult financially, and that she was better off than female friends who work for companies, where initial wages may be higher but pay rises for women lag behind and pressure to retire early may soon mount (Saso 1990: 37, 80). She feels that the mortgage binds her to her job. While during the interview she felt free to criticize sexism at her workplace and discrimination against singles, homosexual people and single mothers by the bureaucratic system because I promised her anonymity, she felt bound by the mortgage to remain silent about this in other contexts because criticizing the system might cause her to lose her job. Since civil servants are legally bound to refrain from political activities related to their work and may not criticize the system,1 she felt that buying an apartment forced her to continue to apply regulations she thinks are wrong. For this reason Satō Bunmei resigned from his job at the population registration department of the ward office of Shinjuku in Tokyo when he found that it was impossible to criticize, let alone change, the system from within.

Those who choose positively to live outside marriage rather than just not finding a partner to marry, can live as they please, apart from economic constraints like having to have a job in order to earn a living. Income, however, does not have to be all that high, as was pointed out by many informants, if only one forsakes the idea of having to live up to standards many Japanese take for granted. If, for example, one waits to buy new brand named clothes until prices go down in the sales one can save enormous amounts of money and still have the same clothes. Further, not having children is a great economic asset because it saves many millions of yen one might otherwise feel compelled to spend on their education and such. Indeed, the financial burden is prominent among the reasons the Japanese give when asked why they believe the birth rate has declined lately, closely followed by a supposed shortage of child-minding facilities (Keizai Kikakuchō ed. 1993: 26).

It is also important to find the right job. If one does not wish to marry, it is better to avoid working for a conservative company. Some progressive companies for instance nowadays have gay men who came out as gay in their jobs, which does not appear to influence their position in any way. These companies interfere very little in the personal lives of their employees, who as a result enjoy much freedom. A man working for the international telephone company ITJ said that there were no problems related to being openly gay there and the same

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