Apparently in Japan the manners aren’t always as good as you might expect.
[Tokyo] City assembly member Ayaka Shiomura, 35, was talking about measures to support child raising and boost fertility during a session on Thursday when male lawmakers interrupted her with cries of “Go and get married” and “Can’t you give birth?”
She later said most of the calls came from the direction of seats where majority assembly members, including those from Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party, were sitting.
What’s the thinking here? That if you talk about measures to increase something it then becomes your responsibility to increase it yourself, right then and there, or face heckling? Or is it just crude “Hur hur why are you talking woman go squeeze out a baby hur hur”?
The heckling prompted a flood of complaints to the government of Japan’s capital, which will host the Summer Olympic Games in 2020.
Abe has long vowed to take steps to mobilize the working power of women to revitalize the economy and offset a big, looming labor shortage.
His economic reform plan, due out next week, calls for raising the proportion of women corporate managers to 30 percent by 2020 from last year’s 7.5 percent as well as creating 400,000 new day care places to enable women to raise children and work.
But women in Japan are often encouraged to leave their jobs after having children. Many working women face menial demands such as serving tea to male colleagues.
Or making them some sushi?
No, only men get to be sushi chefs. That’s prestigious. And they probably don’t trust the women to be able to handle sharp knives.
Oh, really? I did not know that.
sigh
not where I eat
It’s still pretty rare: Pioneering sushi women
Well we don’t know where you eat, chigau! That could be perfectly compatible with its being male-only in Japan.
Anybody know what the percentage of female corporate mangers is here in the USA? I’d guess higher than Japan’s 7.5% but less than the 30% goal.
Heckling a female official, how clever, original, and courageous. As if one woman surrendering her career to have children would reverse an entire nation’s population decline.
Does anybody have an idea what the general public’s sentiment to these comments has been in Japan?
This incident is obviously terrible behavior that should never happen. But I’m not sure this is the reason why. Because last week when we were doing this same thing to Pope Francis, I thought it was funny.
Some differences that spring to mind are the long history of women being treated as reproductive slaves and excluded from policy making and the pope’s track record of hypocrisy. So I’m not equating these two incidents. But it shows that the implied negative answer to the rhetorical question isn’t a broadly applicable principle. If someone, say, advocates reducing water consumption by not watering lawns, it is reasonable to heckle them about their lush lawn. The reason the heckling in the OP is inappropriate, and would be inappropriate even if the speaker being heckled were a man, is because reproductive decisions are deeply personal. Also because it is perfectly logical to advocate policies that support or encourage people to do a thing with public benefits even if you yourself do not plan to do that thing.
I should say that the last two sentences are reasons why the pope-bashing was inappropriate. And I actually think I agree with myself that it was inappropriate, even though it struck me then as funny. Not remotely close to the levels of inappropriateness of the incident discussed in the OP, of course.
Another difference is that the pope was just making a recommendation whereas Ayaka Shiomura was advocating for incentivizing/supporting people who have children.
it’s always more polite to say “how can I help you do X” than it is to say “hey, why aren’t y’all taking care of X for me like you always have? get to work!”
Shinzo Abe is a racist and a sexist. No surprise then that his party behave like drunken frat boys.
dmcclean
I am not aware that we stormed a mass and interrupted him
As Giliell points out, responding and interrupting are two very different things. If the other representatives had simply replied, perhaps criticizing her proposals or suggesting alternative solutions, we’d never have heard of this incident.
Moreover, there’s the difference between saying what you’re going to do and telling other people what they should do. The representative was working as part of a decision-making body, suggesting what solutions they (a group including herself) might implement. Frankie was working as a sectarian representative, telling policy makers what they (a group not including himself) should do.
A better comparison would be if the pope had said “we’ve got a problem, so here’s what the church is going to do to help.” That would be within his sphere of authority in the same way that public policy is within the sphere of authority of a city council member.
So, even before we get to the issue of sexism, these situations are miles apart.
Great point about the difference between responding and interrupting.
I also agree with LykeX @13 and with myself @10 about the difference between trying to help and (it’s really the best word) pontificating.
There’s no doubt that the situations are miles apart. There’s still a commonality, which illustrates that the implied message behind Ophelia’s rhetorical question “What’s the thinking here? That if you talk about measures to increase something it then becomes your responsibility to increase it yourself, right then and there, or face heckling?” is off base. That’s not high on the list of reasons why the hecklers were being assholes.
Regarding sushi chefs…
A friend of mine was recently in Seattle at one of the better Japanese restaurants. (He’s a bit of a connoisseur of sake, and this place had a reputation for getting in good stuff.) He said that the owner of the place had recently posted a message on the restaurant’s web page reminding people that all the people making and serving sushi at his place had been personally trained by himself, and they were all at the top of their craft.
The reason for this notice became apparent once my friend actually arrived and sat down: one of the sushi chefs there was… a white woman, so two strikes against her. The Japanese businessman that was sitting just down the counter from my friend refused to talk to this woman at all, barely acknowledging her existence if forced, and would only talk to the owner.
So, yeah,,, businessman so convinced that a woman could not actually do sushi right that he was indirectly insulting the owner’s teaching and hiring capabilities, not that he’d ever have actually admitted that.
Oh, gross – that is so rude. I hate that kind of thing.
I will be in my car the second I hear of a local sushi restaurant employing a female chef. It’s such a large injustice for a food that is so popular.
And has anybody figured out where chigau eats?