Japan

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I’ve been working for almost 10 years in academia, in a variety of countries, along a variety of cultures and ways of thinking, which I happen to love. I am now in a researcher at a top Japanese University. Although I have a passion for many things Japanese, slowly, I’ve been becoming more and more aware that Japan is a highly conservative and sexist society. Loving this culture makes it hurts more when situations like this happen in contexts where the thinking should be more evolved. Unfortunately I have to share an office with a professor that is one of those “in your face sexist” older japanese men. In a casual conversation, he told me with a big smile that he believes women are genetically different from men because they tend not to challenge established ideas. This men has several students and subordinate female academic staff working with him. He also worked some years in the West, but clearly did nothing to his way of thinking about women. In another occasion he told me it was my responsability to clean the office we share. He also told me after I didn’t immediately pick up a delivery from my boss, because I didn’t know it had arrived, he told me off by saying that I should improve my communication with my boss. As soon as I started my position, he made sure to tell me I was only in his office because he allowed me to. The examples go on and on. I am just thankful I don’t work with him directly and my are of research is nowhere near his area of research, but it makes me angry people like this can still do whatever they want with women in 2020.

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After telling my boss about a string of several sexist, boderline racist and innapropriate “casual consversations” with an older male professor that shares my office twice a month, she shrugged it off by saying “oh he will never change his ways, better to avoid him”. So I now have in my diary the days he is scheduled to come in so I work from home on those days. I might have to change office in the next few months as well.

Guys’ “attractiveness” assessment

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Almost for 10 years, in and out of Tokyo where we met, I, as a woman who was “secretly evaluated” as someone who wasn’t as pretty or attractive enough to sleep with a man who is even now, leading the “assessment” by openly stalking and spreading disgusting stories about me to people around me privately and business wise. In this conservative country, even my mother is totally supportive to the guy who could sleep with me and continue with his harassment effort to “exclude me from the business scene for being too disgusting thus need to try to be liked by him”. It started in 2007. I was yelled, shouted, scolded for not acting as if I loved him. I then was labelled as a woman any man should never date with or like. Here the feminism is half a century behind and women have to act in the certain way to be accepted by men. If you are independent and liked by Westners, you are thought to be good but not pretty because pretty ones are less intelligent and good at attracting Japanese men. I might sound too radical but it’s kind of like that. So here I am being skint under the Japanese men pressure to make me less attractive. I got neurosis and had to spend about 5 years for mental treatment. There should be no such thing.

Mary

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I taught English in Japan a few years ago and I was really excellent at it. Also, I adore Japanese culture. As a reward of sorts, my boss scheduled a photo shoot for me wearing his wife’s kimono (she was there too). It was a really fantastic time for me, especially because Ive never been confident having my picture taken. But, the photos were beautiful. Fast forward a few months and my company ws hosting two American girls for a month and I had to make lesson plans for them, etc. After a week, I took them to a local bar to celebrate one week completed. They said they saw the picture of me in the kimono and said I was so pretty they thought I’d be a total bitch. Absolutely the worst way to say thank you ever.