I’d say YES too! well , even though generalizing would be inappropriate!!
I can relate Heather’s interpretation, but that “manga-readers working bees” is a lil bit , let’s say, awkward!

I don’t really understand Japanese women’s perceptions of manga. I had read that everyone grows up with manga and has happy memories of it, but it seems that the modern, young Japanese woman looks down her nose at it. Or at least, that’s the case for the ones I’ve met (which is not a whole lot, sadly). Maybe they think it’s something from childhood, and that men who still read it into adulthood haven’t grown up? I don’t know.

Regardless, it would appear that men who read manga and men who do nothing but work are unattractive to Iida.

Heather, manga for women sell just fine here. They may not take up quite as much rack space as those for men, but the numbers are substantial. Subjects range from bodice rippers to family issues to comedy to outright porn. You are right to suspect that your acquaintances’ distaste for manga is not representative of the whole.

My prejudiced view is that ANYONE who reads them has some growing up to do. But maybe that’s because I’m such a snob I never read them, so I don’t know what I’m missing. There are those who advocate reading them to learn colloquial Japanese, but I’ve always found you can do that on the street.

I think in many respects if the prince hadn’t been born, a change in the law would have been a bit of a red-herring. It would only be worth anything if reformists took the argument directly on and won it. Winning by default won’t do anything.

overoften, the point is that the “victory” wouldn’t really mean much and would give people a false sense of security. A lot of foreign advocates of reforming the law really were just doing it to “get one over the oyaji-san”. They weren’t really interested in women’s rights.

Now, from one of the previous topics here, polls showing support for reform seem to have strengthened after the birth, not weakened. So the birth may actually spark MORE debate about women in Japan, rather than smother it. There is a real opportunity to push for change now, if activists will only take it up.

On the matter of the succession, to be honest even if it had been another girl the conservatives could have still pushed for the law to simply be reformed to allow women to sit on the throne “as an emergency”. Again, that would not have changed very much. Now the debate is actually firmly about whether or not women should sit on the throne as of right of birth or not, given the eldest child of the monarch has a child himself – so why should the first child of the second son take precedence? If this question is repeatedly asked, it could cause more trouble for the conservatives than before the birth.

In societies where women have job opportunities, access to education and purchasing power, the birth rate always declines. It’s a first world phenonmenon, and not just in Japan.

I take it she’s being ironic, that the “advances” she lists aren’t really all that much and aren’t really indicative of women being able to act as powerful agents in their own rights. Or something like that.

Raj seems to have interpreted this passage as I did.

Kaishin, thanks for posting and taking the lead on this discussion.

You’re right Marie, the writer appears to have been being ironic, and trying to stimulate some badly needed open debate on the issue. And to “anonymous:” “old-hat feminism” is hardly an appropriate term in light of the condition of women in Japan. I’m not even a feminist; I just believe in equal rights/equal opportunity. We’re still a long way from that here. It isn’t a “feminist” issue, it’s an issue of fundamental importance to everyone in Japan. Without reforming the system to better recognize and allow, and reward, women’s contribution, we cannot depend on them to contribute effectively, and that, perhaps surprisingly, will keep the birth rate down. I would contend that the First World phenomenon of declining birth rate as women acquire more education and opportunity is an intermediate stage, that the birth rate will come back once all the kinks are worked out. It’s a big project, and since no one has gone through it before, except maybe the Etruscans or some Pacific Island cultures, there are a lot of unknowns that have to be met and dealt with as they arrive. That says to me, the sooner a society starts, the sooner it will be better off.

I’ve seen two articles recently about how supposedly ambitious career women in the US are dropping out of their high powered jobs. That is not just a few, as it was a couple of years ago, but lots of them. Hard to believe, but they are saying things such as the work isn’t fulfilling enouhg, they’d rather have children and a family. It seems a very new phenomenon, because they are dropping all the way out to have kids and family, not trying to string multiple lifestyles together. That is the kind of thing I was referring to.

I fully agree with you, Ghoti, Japan, and Japanese women, would be better off not emulating what has happened in the West, but dare I say it? The cows are out of the barn now. We’ll just have to go through the same cycle here, or some uniquely Japanese version. (Uniquely said with tongue in cheek.)

It’s true, Rick, the articles about women choosing family over career have started to appear in the US. Speaking from my own anecdotal experience, I’ve seen many women make this choice. In some cases, women who made more money than men prior to starting their families were willing to give up their jobs–with no small amount of personal wrestling.

But the more that I read, the more that I realize Japan and the US aren’t the same (duh). I hadn’t realized, for example, that the percentage of single women, or women choosing to remain single, is much higher in Japan than the US. The expectations are different and seem to be culturally based. Broadly speaking, there are so many services in place to support women in Japan to actually live single lives (those condos, the no-grope train cars, etc.) And, once a woman gets married in Japan, the expectations are clear; go have a kid and preferably a boy. The same pressure doesn’t really exist here in the US.

Your comments, therefore, are tremendously insightful. Thank you for posting.