Nov 25, 2019 (Nikkei) - For a country with so few high-profile senior women in any sphere, it is especially meaningful to have Empress Masako as a vibrant symbol of modern Japanese women -- but earlier in her life she faced the same challenges as many women of her cohort.
In her net four years at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where she was admitted as one of the three women out of 28 fledging career diplomats, she was known to burn midnight oil. Highlights included a high-profile role, such as assisting conversation between the then Secretary of State James Baker and Japanese ministers as interpreter.
Still, the social expectation remained that women took care of family. Women therefore were confronted with the binary choice of family or work. Many, despite having an ambitious career straight out of university, had to opt out of the mainstream once they married. This is what happened to Princess Masako, perhaps inevitably as she became a member of the imperial family. Her decision closed the door on her future as career diplomat.
Her story resonates with many women of her generation. In a 2019 survey of 5,000 women in their forties and fifties, a third recounted the original desire to have both career and family without any breaks, and of those less than a third claimed to have achieved both. A majority had to give up one or the other, often career, against their will.
While working mothers have become the norm, many women constantly fight to juggle family and career. It is not only a question of time management, but an emotional fight to balance compliance with social expectations and fulfilling individual ambitions.
This explains the mysterious lack of senior-ranking women in Japanese society after 30 some years of legally having equal opportunities, even as women now make up 45% of the workforce in Japan. While the on-the-ground acceptance of gender equality has dramatically improved in the recent years, the lack of senior role models continues to be a challenge.
