Session 5 (10/24) - The Recovery and Challenges of Success in Japan

[Betsy Telle]

I like the idea of having students comparing the two constitutions and trying to find the influence from the Americans in Japan’s constitution. I would love to hear why students think that the U.S. constitution did not include equal rights for Women. And why they think that Japan did allow equal rights. It would also be interesting to discuss why just having equal rights does not equate to equal treatment in society.

[Jaclyn Wall]

When Professor Faison brought up the Tokugawa Confucianism relatinship break downs, I have to admit, I wasn't very surprised. When you start out with the Ruler/Subject, it brings me back to slavery and how women would be subjected into basically doing whatever their "ruler" wanted them to do. When it comes to Parent/Child, the male in the family would more than likely be head of household so the woman would be at home with their children. In turn, she would then take on the "ruler" position and her children would have to abide by what she told and enstilled in them until their father came home. For Elder/Younger sibling this made me think about my own upbringing where my older sister constantly felt the need to tell me what to do. This turned into her being a guiding light for me as we got older, but as the elder sister she did feel like she held the power in most situations. For Husband/Wife, it goes back to the Parent/Child. The husband is the male, alpha dog, elite if you will, and held power over his wife in multiple situations. The wife, being a woman, would then cater to whatever her husband needed as he was the head honcho and head of the household. Finally Friend/Friend, women viewed this as a unilateral relationship and had the most comfort here. It wasn't a situation of "I have more power than you do" but more so "We're equal" which was an uplifting thought in these times. 

 

I'd love to explain these relationships to my students and break them into groups assigned each one a specific relationship. From there, they would make a skit showing how the relationship would have played out in Japanese during the assigned era. We would then have a discussion about if this were to happen in the United States in 2020 how would they compare or contrast?

[Jaclyn Wall]

Being virtual, I try to keep my class as engaged as possible. When I saw Professor Faison's slide on High Economic Growth, I instantly had a lesson idea pop into my head. Name the Gibberish - Japanese version! Normally, we would play Name the Gibberish where I would make up random words that when you say them together really fast it would name a commonly known item. We do this with Disney movie titles, holiday sayings, etc. When Professor Faison told us to "Close our eyes" as she stated those words I thought this would be a such a fun activity to try with my class. 

 

I put the words onto Google Slides and rather than having my students guess the word, I told them to try and guess the meaning. It was easiest ith the 3 C's, but by the end of the lesson they were begging to try and guess more Japanese words. I took this as an opportunity to feature one of my EL students from China. He sent me Chinese words that had similar sounding words to English words and we played it the next class. It was a great way to get my students involved and appeaciated both Japanese and Chinese cultutres.

[Jaclyn Wall]

Hi Maria! I agree with you on so many points regarding this article and relae to it personally as well. If the Japanese Prime Minsiter Shinzo Abe wants to use "abenomics" to create change in the workplace and boost productivity, why is he allowing gender inequality to still exist. Women are expected to stay in the household while men are the bread winners; however, wouldn't it be a nice thought if women could go to work without having to worry about childcare? Mayeb a woman could start a day care business to allow other women to utilize their knowledge and skills to be successful in the workplace. That's not a barbaric idea, yet it seems to have been lost in Japanese translation. 

I can relate to waiting to get married until I got my career established and head on straight. I moved to California in 2012 and worked as an entertainment publicist for 5 years. I hated my job, but the money was great so I stuck with it. Eventually, I went back to obtain my Masters in Education and transitioned into becoming a teacher. I now have more job satisfaction than a lot of people my age, am successful, and ready for the next step at 31. Had I not prospered through my career endeavors first, who knows if I'd be in the right mindset to be married at a younger age.

[Jaclyn Wall]

I agree with Serece on a lot of what was said about the Fancy Dress Ball was shocking to me. Only if you were an elite member of society were you allowed to be seen dancing with your husband and/or wife; otherwise it was frowned upon. Why should the elite be the only ones who get to show interest in their partner in a public fashion? It was dancing, not a public display of affection in an inappropriate manner, yet only the elite are allowed to show this? Disturbing. 

 

To Serece's point, the fashion made this event fancy by all means. With the women in gowns and the men in tuxedo's with tails; therefore, the name fits the attire. I am curious to know what else made this such a fancy affair? Was it just because it was an elite event? Did they have a particular cuisine which wasn't often served? I would love to do more research on it.

[Jaclyn Wall]

As I read through this article I continuously scrolled up to check the year it was written. With August 2007 being under the article heading, and October 2020 being at the top, I wasn't sure if the original article had some amendments or if was an article from 2007. Either way, the article itself was insightful into how lucky and privliged women are in the United States. We are currently fighting our own battles of equality, with equal pay, equal opportunities, etc; but in the grand scheme of things we have it so lucky compared to those in Japan. 

 

When reading about the daughter who's son became the successor of her father's company had my jaw drop. She ended up taking over after her father's death, but I cannot imagine her pain and agony going into the workplace every day feeling like you have to prove yourself more so than the day before in an office filled with ego-centric men. But alas, it happens more often than it should. 

 

I would explain this to my students in a math lesson. I would use bar graphs and line graphs and compare salaries of women to men. To make it more relatable I would start out comparing male and female actors in the states for blockbuster films, then I would bring in the Japanese aspect of women vs. men in the workplace. I think seeing a side by side comparison would be eye opening to students and hopefully sit with them as a lesson they wouldn't forget anytime soon.

[Jaclyn Wall]

Like you Betsy, I wasn't surprised that the Japanese throne is only passed down to males. In the article "Prince Under Pressure" it states how a teenager is the new heir to the throne, but questions if he is being trained or groomed properly to withstand the power of it. He has older relatives which are capable, but alas, since he is male he is the chosen one. This is so similar to the royal family in Englad, and how because Camila is Charles' second wife she will never be recognized as the next queen. While that is a female comparison, and technically apples to oranges, it does make me question why Japan is still so far behind in gender equality.

[Jaclyn Wall]

During Professor Faison's presentation, she stated that most women can only make no more than $9,000 per year with a part time job. This kept women out of the workplace because they didn't want to be taxed if they made any more than that. This structure is to keep the male as the primary breadwinner and discourage women from being in the workplace by enstilling the fear of taxes upon them. This in my opinion is so morally wrong and injust. It is 2020 and women have been fighting back for decades to not be known as the "June Cleaver" stay at home mom making the picture perfect household. Tax stipulations such as this one put limitations not only on a family wanting to better provide for themselves and their future, but also for spousal/women rights.

[Guadalupe Moreno]

As I read the "Womenomics" article I was extremely suprised to find out that Japan has a really lowrate of women in the workforce. I know Japan has a high workingforce and even outsource from different countires. What was even more suprising is that the United states was 23 out of a 135 coutnires. Regardless, many experts and analysts are suggesting decreasing the gap in the workforce to revitalize the economy. They believe it would also help with fertility within the counrty. The population is diminishing and it is believed that many countrie with a larger female workfroce have a high leve of fertility. Continuing to shock me, the article mentioned that this arguement has been introduced since 1999 and yet the gap continues. 

[Guadalupe Moreno]

I love everyone bouncing off ideas and I would like to share a bit off mine. I think it would be an amazing opportunity for students to compared two situation revolving around equal rights for women. Apart from exploring the inclusions of equal rights in either constitution, I think it would be benefical for students to establish how long it took for society to allow these laws to take play as well as if those rights are actually taken into consideation today. For example, in one of the articles provided, it mentions the low ratio of women in the workforce. It can be an opportunity for students to wonder if it is due to equality like it does in the United States. 

[Guadalupe Moreno]

I too find these articles interesting. In a different article, it to mentioned how a greater amount of women in the workforce can increase te firtilyt of women. What other research pertains to this question? From my understanding being within the workforce plus lack of support for possible mothers actually affects the fertility due to stress and other factors. It is especially interesting for this to be a concept of thought when women have a glass window to face within the workforce. 

[Guadalupe Moreno]

I love the idea that we are learning about women in a culture. I feel like most of the time we learn about historical movements within that counrty or historical figures which the majortiy of are male. Being able to learn how women within another country is valuable, especially when comparing to how we ourselves live. It is saddening that till this day there is still a lack of equality for women in both Japan and the U.S.. Connecting equality in both countries, it is suprising to found out that the modern Constitution of Japan was written by the Americans, with gender equality explicitly stated. Mostly, because we still have equality issues till this day. 

[Guadalupe Moreno]

This is very interesting point of view! I did not think of this at all but now that it has been pointed out, I do notice that the most contact I have had from is women. The mothers, aunts, and grandmas are the ones who have been the point of contact when communicating with me about my students. Only one gaurdian so far has been a male. It is a bit disheartning that women, as you mentioned are the ones who take the most impact from economic failures. 

[Maria Cardenas]

I like how you are bringing the topic of equality to the present time. Students can also compare and contrast the ratio of women in politics in the United States and Japan. Students can use the article that talked about women in politics in Japan from this course and they can use the article "Women and Leadership 2018" by Juliana Menasce Horowitz, Ruth Igielnik and Kim Parker  to compare the numbers with United States. 

https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2018/09/20/women-and-leadership-2018/

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