Women

As a side note, I now have a work-related blog to place many of the articles and relevant thoughts that come across my desk.  It's mostly US-Japan related topics of course, but with a global perspective, many other factors inevitably come into play.

Most recently, this topic of women in the workplace.  It's one of the main topics our organization has been tackling, and there is actually a group of women affiliated with, or a part of, our organization, that are dedicating to researching and collaborating on this, figuring out how to work with Japanese women, how it affects both the US and Japan, strategizing, planning, etc.

But what frustrated me, mainly today, was a report I received via email regarding the trends that are affecting Japanese women today.  These trends, no doubt, are affecting women, but the kinds of things that are attributed to women are so surface level, and not really delving into the real issues that cause women to bear social hardship, particularly in the workplace.

There's even a comparison drawn to "Eat Pray Love," and, admittedly, because of all the race-gender-class perspectives I read about on that movie, it made me think that we can't really talk about women without addressing the rest of those lenses.

Within the organization as it pertains to this topic, there are discussions on how corporations are helping women advance by taking into consideration their diverse backgrounds and needs, "challenging" the status quo, encouraging a progressive working environment....

Although at face value, and probably to most people, it sounds great and exciting and effective, when we really take it apart, it's not challenging anything.  Sure, working within the system is great, especially for big corporations like Deloitte, but to say they're challenging the status quo especially is a longshot.  Corporations are, inherently, not only a part of, but upholding status quo.  This, of course, should go without saying.

So really when I see things like this "report" - which, it is worth noting, was put together by Japanese businesswomen and researchers but is being distributed and presented by a man - it's frustrating.  Where is the real work to address these women, and why isn't our organization questioning these things?

Of course, as a nonpartisan nonprofit organization I suppose that would complicate things too much. It would offend our membership, our corporate sponsors (we even have defense corps donating major funds), and all those other important people who benefit the most from the status quo.  Challenge the system?  Are you kidding? It just goes to show how a non-progressive organization can sometimes just prove...well, ineffective for people like me.