When people talk about the unequal social status of men and women, it’s not difficult to come up with a group of people such as Thai and Japanese. In fact, I haven’t realized that Japanese are that traditional till I read some chapters of Japan and Singapore – A multidisciplinary approach, which is the textbook of SSA2205 (Japan and Singapore). When I talk about traditional, I am referring to the long-term developed social norms that most Asians share, such as respecting old people and difference between man and women.
It’s very interesting to find out that male expatriates take up a great percentage of the people who come from Japan to Singapore. Most of them are sent by the main companies to be in charge of the ‘daughter companies’ (kogaisha). As dealing with managerial work, these men are strongly encouraged to marry early in their careers as a sign of maturity and responsibility. Hence, when they come overseas, many of them will bring their wives and children to Singapore. Their wives, however, who may be active career women in Japan, give up their jobs and come to Singapore to support their husbands and bring up their children. Although this phenomenon is related with the strict migration policy of the Singapore government, which makes it hard for other types of migrants to find work here, we can still learn about the different power that Japanese men and women have due to their traditional norms or social structure.
Another point I would like to raise here and I think it’s very debatable. It’s known that Japanese pay very much attention to the nature. For example, Japanese kindergarten in Singapore follows the exact system and schedule as those in Japan. Although Singapore has only one season, those kids are still taught to remember the seasons and their corresponding festivals in Singapore. Also, though Singapore is famous for delicious food, that doesn’t seem attractive enough to hook Japanese people. Many prefer their own food; simply because Japanese food is so bland that they can easily taste the food itself. This reminds me of the huge power gap between men and women in Japan. Do Japanese structure their society in this unequal way just because they respect nature? Or could we say men are naturally more powerful than women? I don’t deny that there are few excellent women who become the top leaders of the world. But could I make an assumption that even if we, women try our whole best become the dominate group, we still cannot reverse the situation because we are born to be powerless?
