Considering Gender Equality
In recent years, we hear that there are few women Diet members, that Japan has few women corporate executives, and that there are few women in certain universities (faculties).
In fact, some companies are increasing the number of women on their boards of directors based on the ratio of the number of people on the board.
In such a claim of equality, some things should be taken into consideration.
– Should the opportunities be equal ?
– Should the number of outcomes be equal ?
We feel that the above claim is saying that “the number of outcomes should be equal”.
Is this really equality between men and women?
Should the opportunities be equal ?
We believe this equality is very important. There are ‘rights granted to the biological sex’ that we mentioned in another post, and I believe that opportunities should be equal except for those rights. (*Example of rights given to biological sex – toilets, bathrooms, changing rooms, sports, etc.)
There was a time in Japan when companies also had separate recruitment requirements for how many men, how many women, etc. This was probably to define the types of jobs that men and women could work in separately. Currently, all occupations and job categories are recruiting without making distinctions between men and women.
Nurses were also written under different names, with women being described as women nurses and men as men nurses, but now, they are written as nurses with no distinction between men and women due to political correctness recommendations. Indeed, the number of men nurses is increasing.
However, for the purpose of intentionally creating equality of opportunity, forcing people to do something they do not want to do should never be done!
Artificially creating equality should be forbidden. This is not equality, but coercion.
The right to equality of opportunity must be individual.
It is said that there is the tradition (no one has clearly explained this tradition) in sumo, the national sport, that “women are not allowed in the sumo ring.”
For this reason, a staff member involved in Japan Sumo Association kept telling a woman who was responding to a life-saving emergency that “women should get out of the sumo ring,” and the then Chief Cabinet Secretary Mayumi Moriyama wanted to hold a ceremony to award the Prime Minister’s Cup for Grand Sumo, but the Japan Sumo Association refused, on the ground of the tradition “women are not allowed in the sumo ring.”
I think it is time for the Japan Sumo Association to seriously consider this matter.
For example, the awarding ceremony could be conducted with the entire sumo ring covered, regardless of the gender of those participating.
Should the number of outcomes be equal ?
Even if the number of outcomes is the same, we believe there is no problem as long as they are selected by people who were given the same opportunity and based on the same criteria.
However, if there is an intentionality in the selection process in order to equalize the number of outcomes, isn’t this inequality ?
In other words, this case is a very artificial result, a submarine discrimination made to match the number of outcomes.
It is an extreme case, but in order to equalize the number of people who are the outcome, it is even possible to pass people who scored hundreds of points lower on the admission exam.
Some people claim that there is still gender discrimination in Japan because the ratio of women Diet members is small. What are they expecting ?
Are they suggesting that a vote for a woman senator is gender discrimination if it is not treated as 10 votes ?
Are they saying the results of the votes should be ignored and just adjust the number of winners?
If so, we believe there is no need for elections.
It is missing the point to make the issue the outcome of the vote. There is equality of opportunity, and there is no problem with women standing for election, but we believe that the problem is that there are not enough women who want to become council members. We should not force women to stand for election, but shouldn’t we discuss why there are so few women standing for election ?
We believe this issue is similar to the above-mentioned tradition of the Japan Sumo Association toward women.
Reference: BBC NEWS (2024/02/11)
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-43652428
Reference: the japantimes (2024/02/11)
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2018/04/30/national/social-issues/banning-women-sumo-ring-sexism-centuries-old-cultural-tradition/
Thanks.
2024/02/11