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 Posted: Mon Sep 18, 2006 2:14 pm
Being completely obsessed with the lyrics and beat to Injection of Love, I decided to look up the singer's info(in this case, Sanae Shintani). In her website's bio, it said that in addition to being a singer, she holds down a job as an office lady. The first thing that crossed my mind was, "What in the world is an Office Lady?" So I looked it up on Wikipedia, which lead me to this article on The Office Ladies of Japan. As I read, it really gave me an insight on how much progress equal rights in Japan still has to make, and the womans role in the country. What do ya'll think of this, and the whole concept of an Office Lady? What does make you think of, when the subject of equal rights comes to mind? Can, or should there be a change to how the office world works?
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Posted: Tue Sep 19, 2006 3:38 pm
The idea of the Office Lady is similar, note, to Secretaries (typically female) in american business... With one major difference.
In American business, being the secretary to a boss is having a strangehold on their work. It might not seem so on the surface, but the secretary is like a bouncer for who sees the boss, what mail the boss really needs to see... Let me put it this way. The Secretaries do all the menial work, yes, but they also enable the boss towards efficiency - and can just as easily generate as much work as they save him, or cause him great harm. Much like ordinary domestic life, there are subtle lines that women can push to dominate in small ways in even the most chauvanist businesses.
The thing is... In Japan this was different. The woman serves the man. This is the natural way of things. Dominant women are the realm of fantasy and in traditional myth viewed as evil. You don't see as many demon men in anime fantasy as the more traditional sort, notice. This extends to the Office Lady stereotype and/or reality versus the law; the woman serves, that's the reality, period. In this way, forces that might be viewed as enabling for women can be twisted into forces for male dominance. Office Ladies do only the menial tasks, with none of the responsibilities of the men. They look good and do basic helping, and that is it. Until they leave the job, they ae servility incarnated at a basic level, waiting to find someone to marry. Once they marry, that's it; two-worker households would only get in the way of the man (of course the idea of the MAN being the domestic isn't very well heard of!). Education becomes something that makes you more desirable as a wife, rather than as a worker.
Is this right by Western standards? Probably not. But then again, they're a central crutch for the luxury goods industry with all that disposable income in the meanwhile, and we're basing off incarnately different moralities. Even as Japan becomes more and more western in many things, I really don't expect that we'll see the Office Lady situation to change much in the coming years. Subtleties, perhaps, but nothing like what we've experienced on this side of the Pacific over the past 'x' years. Changes are incremental.
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Posted: Tue Apr 22, 2008 1:34 am
..'Kay. I wonder how I missed this thread, but I GOT to be the Devil's Advocate here.
[sarcasm]
Getting paid well for just making tea, smiling and looking pretty? Making enough money to have a home and dump money into economic goods? Having your boss hook you up with potential people who'll want to have sex with you?
..Damn. So...Some women would prefer to bust their butts and be paid less then stand around, support her co-workers and her boss, and be paid a rediculous amount of money. Sounds to me that a working woman or two is jealous~ wink
Geez, I never thought I'd have to look at a complaint over getting paid well to do practically nothing until someone gets married. I mean, yeah, I've seen a lot of complaints to 'dark ages' and 'male dominated societies'. But y'know, it's how things have been for millenia more or less. Men make the rules, and the bitches fall in line. If they step out of line, pressure them. If they get out of control, call blasphemy on them and the church (Which wields as much power as men do, because it's an awesome male-dominated religion) will take care of the rest. It's a case of "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."
[/sarcasm]Acting like people nowadays are any less prone to stupidity is like saying "Evolution is a theory; it'll never be proven."[sarcasm] We can act like we aren't a part of the natural order, but we always will be. It's the man's place to rule countries, take responsibility for things, and be better then women in every way so that they can rely on us. It's the woman's place to cause Original Sin, to stay off my internet, and to stay in the kitchen where they belong.
[/sarcasm] I'm just playing, ladies, you know I love you. wink
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