By Cherry Norton in Tokyo
25 March 2001
For the past decade, Yuko Suzuki, 34, has worked for 14 hours a day and taken less than half her annual holiday entitlement. She is one of a growing number of "salarywomen" who are choosing careers over family life and slowly changing the landscape of corporate Japan.
The price Ms Suzuki pays for her attempt to be on an equal footing with male counterparts is high. She has to devote her life to the company and says she and her husband will probably remain childless because of the lack of concessions made to mothers in the workplace.
She gets to work at 7am and generally does not leave until 9pm. Her dedication and loyalty to her job as a sales manager in a medium-sized Japanese company are unfailing but she is very concerned that if the economic crisis worsens, she will lose her job.
"Everyone is on edge," she said. "Women are more vulnerable to economic downturns because there is still an attitude that men are the main breadwinners."
The number of women in the workforce has risen in the past 25 years to about 23 million, 41 per cent of the workforce. However, the recession that has plagued Japan has affected women more than men. The number of working women peaked in 1997 and has declined by some 300,000 in the past three years.
Modern career women such as Ms Suzuki are trying to shrug off the legacy of the "office ladies", often highly educated women obliged to do menial jobs such as making tea, photocopying and typing for males. Unsatisfied with their lot, many gave up work as soon as they married.
The Equal Opportunity Law passed in 1986 enabled women for the first time to benefit from sogo shoku or professional status. Sogo shoku is a job category for women seeking positions of responsibility equal to men, and women began to be employed on that basis. Laws passed in 1999 banned gender-specific job descriptions in adverts as well as sexual discrimination in employment, promotion and job training.
Change has been slow. The latest government figures show that women directors or general managers represented only 2 per cent of the total, department heads 3 per cent and section managers 8 per cent. Many women complain of being overlooked for promotion and sexist attitudes persist.
A recent government survey found that nearly two-thirds of working women claim to have experienced at least one act of sexual harassment. "Japanese business culture is very male-chauvinistic and women are not treated well," said Chieko Kantani, a university lecturer and founder of the Women's Initiative for Advancement in Japan. "Japanese women are highly educated but still often forced to work in subordinate and junior positions.
"We must learn how to increase the power of women at work. Japanese businesses can and must learn how to treat women better."
Some career women seek a second profession. Some start small business from home and a few even become hostesses in bars and clubs to supplement their income.
Hisako Nakahana is a geiko or traditional geisha in Kyoto. In her "day job" she paints her face white and entertains men with traditional Japanese singing, dancing and the tea ceremony. But her powerful voice has given her a second career as an R&B singer.
She is now recording her debut CD with the top guitarist Kenny Kitajima. She wants her singing career to be a mixture of pop, R&B, jazz and rock, but as it took five years to train to become a geisha she has no plans to give it up.
"It's tough," she has said. "Being a geiko takes up a lot of time; doing both means I've got twice as much to do." The launch of her CD in June will at least give this 21st-century geisha a very modern image.