| From The Newspaper (27) Gender (3) |
March 23, 2023
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| He easily could say that the main reasons why Japan was No.28 and No.116 were wage issues related to female workers, fewer female executives and bosses in companies, as well as fewer female representatives in public sectors like assembly members of municipalities and the Diet, mayors, governors, and ministers. For him, it looked unfair that by only those reasons Japan was treated as one of the worst gender equality countries. If he were the organizer of those rankings, he would use, more severer categories for women like the rate of sexual harassment, domestic violence, stalkers, molesters, even the numbers of women who were killed by men. Maybe these types of things in this country are fewer than the countries which were ranked in better positions than Japan. He thought that these things, like fewer women in higher positions, were related to the fewer number of crimes toward women. It was because of the effect of Confucianism. The Tokugawa Shogunate ended in 1868, about 150 years ago. The Edo era, samurai era, lasted for about 300 years ~twice of  after Tokugawa. It was a peaceful era although this country's people don't look upon the era favorably because it was the feudal era ~people didn't have freedom, ruled by samurai. But even now, we use 'Samurai Japan' for the team/players of this country in the World Baseball Championship. People knew that samurai weren't rich, sometimes poorer than some merchants, even farmers. Samurai were modest, reserved, and polite. The Tokugawa Shogunate recommended samurai reading 'Analects of Confucius' because it taught about the good relationship of the ruler and subjects. Samurai studied this philosophy more, and many citizens also studied this. Analects of Confucius's core idea is this : 'Go-rin' ~ five relations between people to be respected ・Father and Children : Affection for children is important ・Ruler and Subjects : Taking care of subjects with affection is important ・Husband and Wife : a husband and a wife has own roles respectively ・Older and Younger : the younger have to respect the older ・Friends : for friends trusting each other is the most important 'Go-jyo' ~ five ethics ・Jin : To love and to be considerate of others ・Gi : Not to be a slave of profits and desire ・Rei : To be humble and polite ・Chi : To have broad knowledge and wisdom, to be reasonable, to judge right or wrong correctively ・Shin : Not to deceive, to keep a promise, not to tell a lie, to be sincere Maybe in the society of these ideas, fathers were not just superiors, they were protectors of family members against the harsh society. Maybe husbands worked outside because working outside is competitive, and sometimes hard-work is demanded, so wives kept households and raised children safely. And the world has been changing. Equality is important. Equality of opportunities, equality between men and women, etc. Recently he read a novel which was set in WWⅡ, the protagonist was a female Russian sniper. The story was fiction, but the author, who is Japanese, seemed to have well-researched this history. In the story, the protagonist's family members were killed and she became a sniper. She and other women were trained hard and sent to the battlefields. There was a scene in which she talked to one of her fellow snipers about why only her country had female snipers and the meaning of it. Now there has been a war between Russia and Ukraine, and in both countries, only male soldiers were fighting on the battlefields. They, especially Ukrainian soldiers, said that they were fighting in order to protect their families, wives, children, parents, relatives, friends, fiancees, acquaintances, and people in their counties. Even Russian troops don't have female soldiers on the battlefields anymore. Maybe nobody in the world thinks that women should fight equally with men on the battlefield. Why? He thought like the female sniper protagonist. If men and women have different roles, is it not so different from Confucius' teachings? (To be continued) |
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No. 514
*molester :痴漢
*Confucianism :儒教
*favorably :好ましく
*feudal :封建制の、領地の
*Analects of Confucius :論語
*ethics :倫理
*considerate :思いやりがある
*wisdom :知恵
*sincere :誠実
*fellow :仲間の