Exploration of Women's Role in Japanese Patriarchal Society

Japan is often brought up as an example when we talk about patriarchy or patriarchal society. Gender inequality in Japan has been the subject of research by many researchers and it is obvious in many aspects why Japan is considered to be extremely patriarchal but the origin of the belief and its effects are not often discussed. The patriarchal social values are mostly influenced by the Buddhism and Confucianism from the history and it still has effects on modern society in many dimensions such as limited roles in workforce and women’s perceptions towards her role in the society which continue to have a butterfly effects in many situations. There are still many disputes around women's role in patriarchal society, so the aim of the essay is to present what impact has Japanese patriarchal values on women in their society. 

The Origin of Patriarchal Values

Religion has been the main reason that influence such ideology since the beginning of history. Shinto was a indigenous religion in Japan and its social values at the time appeared initially in the classical chronicles of Japanese history from the early 8th century, the Kojiki (An Account of Ancient Matters) and Nihon Shoki (The Chronicles of Japan). These chronicles not only recorded the myths, early legends, oral tradition, or genealogies but also the perspectives toward women in general. The Shintoism back then made Japanese people think highly of women and treated them equally because of the story of Amaterasu in Nihon Shoki. Amaterasu is the Sun Goddess, she is the primary divine being in Shinto religion whose feminine qualities are admired and worshiped because it’s said that the world was created from her tears. Amaterasu’s femininity based on the mythology resulted in a respectable attitude towards women. Moreover, there were 1st century Chinese documents shown that women were both allowed and encouraged to be rulers due to a confidence in them to bring peace and order to the country. Both Chinese history records and the Shinto mythology indicate the same perception on women which can be implied that the women social status was similar to that of men. Unfortunately, this equal values only lasted until 6th century.

In 552 A.D the Buddhism was introduced to Japan and it impacted the perception of women in Japan ever since. The concept of enlightenment was limited to only men was one of it. In Buddhism, women were represented as an evil nature. Therefore, positive attitudes towards women that had been established by Shintoism had gradually been regressed. Amidism (Pure land Buddhism) was one of Buddhism branches, it was considered to be the most well known concept in 7th century.

The Amida Buddha’s 35th vow stated that “any women determined to reach enlightenment must first receive a male body and only then be able to enter the Pure land of Amida Buddha”. What the teaching tried to say was a woman’s body is impure so that can not reach enlightenment by it own. This misogynist teachings induced such a strong sense of sexism and severe discrimination against women in that era.

After that the introduction of Confucianism happened the midst of 6th century from Korea. Confucianism was a philosophy rather than a religion, it brought strong ideas that caused a turning point on Japanese social values. Hierarchies of human relationships: three bonds and five relations. The three fundamental bonds refer to primary pairings: ruler and minister, father and son, and husband and wife. The five relations focus more on bigger scope of relationships: loyalty between ruler and subject, filiality between father and son, harmony between husband and wife, precedence between elder and younger sibling, and trust between friends. Prince Shook Taishi was interested and he published a moral code about the confucian concepts called Seventeen Article Constitution of 604 to everyone in the country. Women were taught Confucian ethics through books called Jokunsho in Tokugawa Ieyasu period. Women were instructed to live according to the kafucho system or patriarch system which based on five constant values of Confucianism: benevolence, justice, politeness, wisdom, and fidelity. Additionally, there were an advocacy stated submissive wife and mother are the most honorable place of women in home. In Nara and Heian period, Ritsuryo law was enforced base on Confucian beliefs. There was a policy regarding expected behaviors in families: obedient grandchildren, righteous husbands, and virtuous wives.

The Image of Marriage and Motherhood in Such Society

Marriage is one thing that used to ensure the continuation of blood lines or even political alliances. It was common for daughters to get married into other families as a confirmation of relationships between two clans. Arranged married was normal at that time because they valued their clans’ name and reputation. Due to that, the heirs must go on to continue saving the clans. Onna daigaku (A text book in school) shown that education in early Japan also focused on preparing women for marriage. Marriage came with certain obligations, after marriage women are expected to bear a child not, also to look after of husband’s parents, and if a child was a boy, the mother must respect the son and raise him with fully care while if a child was a girl, she will not need to look after her that much unlike what she must do to a boy. The motherhood role in Japanese society endorsed women to believe that their complete devotion to their child is the greatest duty one woman must achieve in their life. Hence, they could bear any hardships just to caring a birth of their children. One of the hardships was Matahara or maternity harassment when a woman being fired. They will be convicted to leave their jobs if they get pregnant because it is believed that they will perform poorly in their work. Comes to think of it, women in patriarchal society do not even have lives of their own, they are expected to take a good care of everyone, to be virtuous, silent, good-mannered, and obedient.

The Role of Women in Workforce

Many of Japanese women are both expected by the society and themselves not to work and be stay-at-home mothers instead. Furthermore, they must deal with sexist mindsets resulted in limited career choices. The research illustrates that approximately 70% of Japanese women leave their works after the first child to take care them at home and fully become housewives. For that reasons, many employers tend to hire women into low-paying part time jobs where positions can be replaced easily if employees withdraw from the spots. There is female leadership glass ceiling in Japanese organizations. The organizational culture in Japanese is often described as “a man’s world”, and society’s aspects of a leader is based on this idea.

Historically, Perception of work performance in Japanese society have been based on genders, it is thought that women can not be a leader because they are less logical compare to men thus most of organizations do not trust women to be in charge of any high management system. Japan has a very low rate of female in higher management positions despite the high rate of educational female attenders. The Japan institute of Labour Policy and Training shows the unbalanced numbers of participation between men and women in leadership roles. Existing management structure also be a part of this problem because the system require employee’s full commitment to the company which mean the durations of work will likely to be taken in to consideration than good work performance. The system that they must spend years of working in order to get promoted is a obstacle to women because it’s against the social values that they are expected be mothers of her children. When women get pregnant, most of the company don’t have a leaving policy where they can pause their works, stay at home, then come back. Apparently, when social values are against practical practices in modern life, women lose a lot of opportunities in their careers.

Women's Perception on Androcentrism

Despite the obvious unfairness in workforce participations, women in Japan are mostly unaware of it because the long existing androcentric values for instance, woman can not be a good wife or mother if she focuses on her career, man are responsible to be breadwinners of the family only, women are not as good as men in managing careers, and if women want to be successful then she must develop a masculine style of working. have been internalized into Japanese women’s mindsets already. Japanese women tend to think of men as being better suited for any leading roles and they, feminine identity, are better be submissive and follow along. Such belief has engraved into their thoughts and they become embedded with unconscious biases. When biases get embedded for a long time by a person’s beliefs, it’s almost impossible for them to notice it which make it even harder for them to overcome those beliefs. Moreover, if there was a woman who is aware of it, it’s still hard for them to speak up against those unfairness because patriarchal society has long given the blame on women rather than the systems or doers itself thus they are likely to tolerate it than get into a fight which they know exactly that they can not win.

Conclusion

It can be understood that despite the modernization and idea of gender equality that happened in many places around the world, Japanese society still continues to endorse and maintain many traditional principles as present social values. In order to achieve higher level of gender quality and change the existing cultural attitudes, the change can happen from a small action in micro level as in domestic level. A family does not have fixed roles on members, all responsibilities can be distributed to everyone. Father can be the one who cook, mother can be the one who works, and children can talk with their parents intimately and share their concerns without fearing to be disrespectful. Furthermore, if the structure can be altered, it will encourage social norms to change as well and it can be done by the government support on promoting the ideas in media platforms which now are influential because it’s a soft power. Japanese patriarchal culture has shaped many aspects on women’s lives and thoughts and the change can be consider as a threat to cultural identity. Even though it is hard to change people mindsets, especially one that has been existed for long time, changes will eventually happen. In modern world, the only permanent thing in the world is a constant change. Nothing can resist a wave of change, it will take time to replace the patriarchy but change will come at long last as long as the influence from modernization still happen.

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