Posted on 12/06/2004 9:12:18 AM PST by MississippiMasterpiece
TOKYO – The Japanese government wants women like Taeko Mizuguchi to get married and start doing something about the nation's plunging birthrate. But she's not interested.
At least, not if her prospective husband is Japanese.
A growing number of Japanese women are giving up on their male counterparts, and taking a gamble that looking abroad for love will bring them the qualities in a partner that seem rare at home. Mr. Right, as the hope goes, is often an American or European, a man appreciative of a wife's career and more of a partner in daily tasks.
"They treat you like equals, and they don't hesitate to express mutual feelings of respect - I think Western men are more adept [at such things] than Japanese men," says the 36-year-old Ms. Mizuguchi, who works at a top trading firm. "They don't act like women are maids - I think they view women as individuals."
Underscoring that Japanese women are losing hope with the local boys, dating agencies to help snag a Western husband have sprung up in Tokyo, some with branches in the US and Europe. Such companies rigorously vet their clients, screening for education, family background, occupation, and life goals.
The kind of women who sign up for such services include doctors, lawyers, and other professionals - women who have delayed marriage to concentrate on careers and who aren't keen to give up hard won gains to become a housewife, as many Japanese men expect.
Japanese women have come to consider traditional marriage roles as "disadvantageous in terms of time resources - they have to carry the burden of domestic chores as well as lose their free time," says Chizuko Ueno, a professor of sociology at Tokyo University.
Normally, married Japanese women have not only to look after their own parents during old age, but also to care for their parents-in-law. When it comes to raising kids, "they can't expect much cooperation from their partner" because of the long work hours required at many Japanese corporations and because of established gender roles that assume that the woman does the child-rearing, Ms. Ueno adds.
A generation of women who are now entering their 30s don't want to give up single life unless prospective partners are willing to break from traditional gender roles.
Government polls conducted to find out why women have put off marriage until well after 25 years of age - known as a woman's " 'best before' date" - show that economic independence is key to the change. As most Japanese women have their own income, marriage is no longer a financial necessity and women want to find companionship in a husband.
That is where Japanese men have come up short. There is "a wide gap in men's and women's attitudes and expectations toward marriage" vis-à-vis traditional gender roles, says Sumiko Iwao, professor of social psychology at Musashi Institute of Technology in Yokohama. For instance, coming home later than your Japanese husband is a no-no.
Having ruled out an old-fashioned Japanese husband, many women here think the solution is a Western man. Indeed, some seem so enthralled with the idea that they are willing to spend thousands of dollars to inspect the wares personally. Of the more than 2,000 women on the books at one large matchmaking agency, about 200 travel to the US or Europe each month to meet prospects.
Sentimental projections have recently been extended to Korean men also, due to romantic Korean soap operas.
In 2003, Japanese women marrying American or British men outnumbered Japanese men marrying American or British women by 8 to 1. The total proportion of Japanese marrying foreigners each year has crept up from around 3.5 percent in 1995 to just over 5 percent. Japanese men are actually more than three times as likely as the women to take a foreign spouse, but this is mostly rural men marrying less well-off Chinese and Filipino women. "Such cases are elderly farmers not popular among young Japanese women," says Yuriko Hashimoto, a local government employee in the remote northern prefecture of Iwate.
To be fair, not all the blame for female angst here can be laid on Japanese men. The government has been slow to enforce equal opportunity laws, and both pay and the glass ceiling in most Japanese corporations remain low for women. Recession has hampered longer maternity leave and other family-friendly policies.
As Japan's fertility rate drops to new lows - at last count it was 1.29, well below levels required for population replacement - the ruling Liberal Democratic Party is anxiously drawing up plans to make it easier for young couples to raise children, through such measures as the provision of cheap public housing.
Mixed marriages in Japan
Japanese men marry: Chinese 10,242 Filipinos 7,794 Koreans 2,235 Americans 156 British 65
Japanese women marry: Koreans 5,318 Americans 1,529 Chinese 890 British 334 Filipinos 117
Source: 2003 Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare
Like I said darlin',
TMI is not what I gave then, nor now going to give now. You have a good marriage and a happy life, great! You have something special, rare and to be treasured.
It doesn't work that way for everyone. Things happen behind closed doors that no one else sees. A giving heart can be destroyed and just the right amount of pain can turn love into horror. And one day, it is like you wake up to what incredible sadness life has become.
As for God and religion, lets just say I went into the marriage seeing it one way and coming out of the other side seeing it another. If I find my way back to god, it won't be through marriage or church. It will be (yes, here comes the Me, I, Mys) On my own and by myself.
You are right, it is not 2 to 1. But the population is woman majority. I had not recently checked the figures. I stand corrected and bow down to your mighty male brain. (snicker)
APPRECIATE??? Oh, pulleze. Yeah I really appreciated the bozo who refused to work, sat out in the garage and drank beer all day, partied with the boys until he was well into his forties, googled other women, and now refuses to pay child support. Yeah, boy I didn't appreciate him. Yessir. Got a couple friends standing around the keyboard who'd like to tell you how much they didn't appreciate their hubbys too. When they're done laughing.
Sounds to us like someone had some trouble scoring with American women. Yep. Vote taken. 6-0.
No, "on the whole," or "taken as a whole," don't have to mean a majority, the phrases refer to a generalization about the whole group, and generalizations can be moved by a minority.
As to your "name me a time when women were more ungrateful than today", that's just silly.
No, because the current population of American men are, on the whole, more attentive to a greater variety of women's needs than men in any other country, at any other time, yet the current population of American women, on the whole, have higher expectations than any other group of women.
Thanks for my smile. I needed it.
By the way, you never answered my question. For what, exactly, are we suppose to be grateful for?
The ones who seek foreign women as a class of brides, who understand the definition of "wife" only in terms of HER duties in HIS life, yes, they tend to be. They seem to have the kind of personality who doesn't want a whole lot of interference from her, once he's been fed and bedded. Guys who really want to love and be loved, bring up traits they appreciate beyond nationality and their likelihood for being grateful and subservient.
OK, concentrate: was I talking about you specifically, or making a generalization?
LOL...LOL...LOL
"For what, exactly, are we suppose to be grateful for?"
Just the fact that they said "I do" in the first place... LOL...
American men either want a lot of free milk or an Asian or both.
I've been doing a lot of reading on a lifetime of Biblical chastity.
It doesn't work that way for everyone. Things happen behind closed doors that no one else sees. A giving heart can be destroyed and just the right amount of pain can turn love into horror. And one day, it is like you wake up to what incredible sadness life has become.
And everyone who's ever been married knows that feeling, and dreads it. Solution? You get up and resolve to fix the problem a little at a time. If it can't be fixed, you work on understanding how you got there in the first place, and fixing those mistakes.
If I find my way back to god, it won't be through marriage or church. It will be (yes, here comes the Me, I, Mys) On my own and by myself.
Nope. It will be because God calls you.
Are you prepared to make that generalization about all American men who take foreign brides, or even a majority?
Guys who really want to love and be loved, bring up traits they appreciate beyond nationality and their likelihood for being grateful and subservient.
Why can't that be true of men who take foreign brides, who are wedding women they "appreciate beyond nationality?"
Also, do you really associate being grateful with being subservient?
"American men either want a lot of free milk or an Asian or both."
Some cookies would go well with that milk. But, I don't want to seem greedy.
LOL... :o)
Yeah, I keep those around. I've changed many hundreds.
I can only reply from personal experience...somewhat like you.
I can't believe I'm responding to this, but here goes. A friend of mine worked for a condom maker. The rumor may not be true BUT her company manufactured and sold different sizes to the Asian market. That being said, the only size that really matters is the size of a man's heart!
Are you GRATEFUL for it??? HAHAHAahahhhaa.a....
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