IT’S 3000 YEARS OLD

listen to the boss and try to understand their role in the scheme. I can’t just be docile. I have to under- stand. I was once told that a manager complained to their superior about me. _ They think that because I studied in the States for a year that I have been contaminated by the American way of think- ing.”

Hagiwara wants to stay in the. workforce because she wants economic indepen- dence. She is doing well at Nissan, and is in line for promotion, but she says she

would prefer to be manager of a smaller company,

“J found it very diffi- cult at first. I was seri- ously thinking of giving up after two years. The job is very hard, very demanding and you have to be feminine at the same time to get ev- erybody’s acceptance, and to make people comfortable.”

“Women are not pro- moted at the same pace We are not ex- pected to follow a_ career path and unless you really show the boss you are inter- ested, they don’t take you se- riously. You have to appear to be very dedicated and in- terested, even moreso than a man. I get very irritated when I see a dumb man who

as men.

is not very interested, get- ting promoted just because he is a man.”

Japanese attitudes to- ward working women are changing but traditional val- ues are still holding women back, and are evident in atti- tudes toward women working outside the home. Thirty-six Per cent of men and 45 per cent of women responding to 8 1984 Prime Minister’s Of- fice survey said that women Should work, but when they marry or have children they should stay at home until their children have grown up.

Women fill only 0.9 per cent of the managerial po- sitions in Japan’s workforce. And those who do advance to senior positions are reluctant

n has b

to claim any victory for the women’s movement.

Naoe Wakita is Senior Vice President of Dentsu Eye Inc., an all- woman market- ing company in Tokyo.

“T have never regarded myself as a feminist,” says Wakita. “I have just been doing the best I can do with what I have. Other people consider me a feminist, but actually, I like men”

Dentsu Eye Inc. mar-

kets products used mainly by women. It was launched by its

aoterbly: intérested tereotyping. Part of ecome an affluent

parent company Dentsu un- der the premise that women could better market certain products — letries, appliances — because women use them. Wakita says she enjoys working with other women and that her company is

cosmetics, toi-

more success-

ful than Dentsu’s other mar- ,

keting outfits, which employ mainly men.

“There is competition and we always beat the men’s teams. Japanese women are very eager to work. Men are usually more satisfied with the status quo,” she says.

In a society where moth- erhood and family are sacro- sanct, where local women are ignored and foreign women revered, where the women speak in a different and hum- bler dialect than the men, the feminist movement is alive and growing.

The women’s movement in Japan was spear-headed almost single- handedly by Fusae Ichikawa, a feminist and one of the most popu- lar politicians in the history of Japan. Fusae lobbied for the right to vote for Japanese women, which they won in 1945. She was elected for five different terms to the Diet (Japanese parliament) and devoted her life to the political education of women.

Ichikawa founded a cen- ter for women’s issues and activities in 1962 and today the Fusae Ichikawa Memo- rial Association, so named af-