Papa wa Doko?: The Absence of Japanese Fathers and Their Gender Role Expectations
Document Type
Panel Presentation
Keywords
Japan, Gender, childcare
Biography
Caralee Casto is a Japanese and International Affairs double major and will be graduating in May 2020. She spent the 2018-2019 academic year studying abroad at Kansai Gaidai University in Osaka, Japan. There, she spent both semesters studying gender, sexuality, and minorities in Japanese society. Caralee is the former president of Japan Club, an RA at the WV Honor’s Academy, and a cellist. Following graduation from Marshall, Caralee intends to look for a job position in which she can improve her Japanese skills before applying to graduate programs in the future.
Major
Japanese and International Affairs
Advisor for this project
Natsuki Anderson
Abstract
Despite movement as a nation into the contemporary age of feminism, thus expanding the capability of women, Japan continues to fall behind in the inclusivity of men in different spheres of life. Specifically, the amount of men raising children and participating in the housework, or taking care of the home-sphere, is exponentially lesser than the number of women. While this makes sense in a society that maintains rigid gender roles of women being homemakers and men being breadwinners, the shift into the present has since allowed women to move into the labor market with force. Even though this shift has been excruciating, leaving the labor market riddled with sexism and sexual assault issues, women are still now making up a large amount of the workforce of Japan. Yet the expansion of men’s role has been slower, leaving them in high positions of power but still restricted by expectational roles. It is of no question that Japan’s gender role models have aided in this restriction and lack of fluidity; thus, I seek to address what specific characteristics that are still prominent in Japan’s gender role ideology are aiding to the segregation of men from the home-sphere.
Papa wa Doko?: The Absence of Japanese Fathers and Their Gender Role Expectations
Despite movement as a nation into the contemporary age of feminism, thus expanding the capability of women, Japan continues to fall behind in the inclusivity of men in different spheres of life. Specifically, the amount of men raising children and participating in the housework, or taking care of the home-sphere, is exponentially lesser than the number of women. While this makes sense in a society that maintains rigid gender roles of women being homemakers and men being breadwinners, the shift into the present has since allowed women to move into the labor market with force. Even though this shift has been excruciating, leaving the labor market riddled with sexism and sexual assault issues, women are still now making up a large amount of the workforce of Japan. Yet the expansion of men’s role has been slower, leaving them in high positions of power but still restricted by expectational roles. It is of no question that Japan’s gender role models have aided in this restriction and lack of fluidity; thus, I seek to address what specific characteristics that are still prominent in Japan’s gender role ideology are aiding to the segregation of men from the home-sphere.
