Top Story: 15.February 2006
UNI SEX
It was late thursday evening when I wandered into one of those corner restaurants just next to Ueno railwaystation. I was about to meet my female associate. Once I went to the restroom and sat down in my thoughts, it struck me to hear womens voices in the washroom. "Gosh", I thought, I must have mistaken this to womens restroom. But no, I was in the right place. The toilet they had, was a unisex toilet. Just like in planes. The room where you can wash your hands, was shared, while women and men had their separate toilet rooms. The women cheerfully fixed their makeups and brushed their hair, when men checked their ties. Nothing strange there, as if it had been all natural for centuries!
In Japan you sometimes feel that there is invisible plexiglass between our genders. When men sleep casually in the railwaystations after missing their last trains, women tiptoe to hail a cab in their glittering evening dresses. It seems as if through history, men and women are locked in their own cabins. Now, there are clear signs that this is finally changing.
Male-female relationships began to change already in Edo period. Some say that it was Confucianism that suggested the idea "women inside, men outside". Men were supposed to go out for work and get income for family and women were supposed to stay inside their homes and take care of the kids and the house. Those women who wanted to hang out with their friends or were generally too active, were considered "loose women".
On the surface men have had a power to control women. Expressing the term of husband, Japanese wives often use the word shujin, which literally means "the main person". But at the same time, when wives talk about their home, they say "my house" instead of "our house". Afterall, wives have been the ones that literally run the family, and take care of family's economy as well.
But the change that started in Edo period has took a new course now. Young women are also interested about having a career and independent finance - which also has a nasty little effect for birthrates, the fact about which even Koizumi is worried about. The baby boom generation is getting old too, while the stage is free for younger generation to take over. Now its interesting to see what happens.
Otoko-masari has a meaning of woman who is superior to men both physically and intellectually. Although the term has nothing negative literally, it is considered as a negative term for Japanese, because it suggest that such women lack femininity. Otenba instead, means healthy and active young girl, but is also used in negative meaning as "reckless daughter" or daughter out of control. Daughters in Japan are expected to behave modestly from the time they become adult. This has only made the plexiglass stronger, since men's model is very different.
Throughout the years women have had hard time being treated equally in work and career life, but during recent decades there have been large changes even in level of constitution. Old feodal idea that "women gives and man takes" has finally collapsed. But it has not been easy road for women.
Sadly, however, the feminists act which has helped women to reach their equality has sometimes only made the separating plexiglass stronger. It appears that most feminists are against of such unisex toilets I encountered in Ueno. They claim that such toilets are dangerous for women and such restaurants are breaking the law since they don't provide women their necessary facilities. But in airplanes men and women use the same uncomfortable toilets, talk together while waiting their turn in same narrow spaces and nobody has complained.
But perhaps, most men and women eventually wish the same, more open and free communication between our genders, where both men and women could wander together in the paradise of harmony, like Adam and Eve did. Afterall we must accept that we are no longer living Edo-era. Women and men are doing same jobs.
But sexual discrimination is still not entirely uncommon in Japan even nowadays. And there are occasional scandals by company executives who buy sexy underwear for their women subordinates in valentines day. Almost every women in Japan has experienced something similar to this.
We are worried that these individuals may slow down the trend of allowing more open discussion between genders. We want to foresee the unisex toilets getting more popular in the future in Japan, as the the iron curtain crumbles down between our sexes.
Welcome to discuss about this topic in our discussion forum.
