What Japanese Women Want: A Western Husband

The Christian Science Monitor ^ | December 6, 2004 | Bennett Richardson

[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

[Sam Cree]

Fishing is an excellent bad habit to acquire, you are in a fabulous location to pursue it, people fly in from all over the world to fish the Keys.

[RosieCotton]

If I was home right now, I'd crack open a beer, pop some popcorn, sit back and watch the thread. :D

Heh...and if I were home, I'd be happy to get popcorn and beer for some of the guys here!

Shocking, isn't it? For an AMERICAN gal, that is.

Gosh, I'm behind here! Go to a meeting for a few minutes and it's taken off!

[najida]

I'm not. I'm just getting worried that there's not enough pics on this thread.

Is this what you mean? Or do you want a Boy-drool poster?

[elmer fudd]

It's an overall approach to life that can encompass all those things. Just because a woman likes football and target shooting doesn't make her masculine, although those are certainly masculine traits. At some point though you do cross the line. I think we have all encountered the stereotypical bulldyke at some point in our lives.

[najida]

Mebby he was her brother? ~sigh~ I was such an idiot then!

[Cogadh na Sith]

And a man that wants to control a woman is a waste of time as well. It means he is weak and pathetic.

I dunno.... I was always very nice to women and treated them well. What a disaster!

After being burned badly a couple of times (and 10's of thousands of dollars in debt from a spendthrift ex-wife), I pretty much hate women. I admit it: I hold women in contempt.

I started treating women I meet like idiot children--retarded children who like to be treated badly.

I never realized how much women love to be treated badly. I had no idea!

I'm mean to them and they love it (and me)!

I don't get it. I'm going with it 'cuz it works, but I still don't understand it.....

I've learned to be a bastard--and now it's all good....

[RosieCotton]

Conservative : votes Republican, LIKES being a woman, like being feminine, not afraid to help with the housework. If she stays home, will pick up the majority of it. Emotionally supports her man. Hates communism

And you haven't met any at all?

You need to get out more.

[workerbee]

What you seem to want is an acknowledgement that American women have been "allowed" more freedoms than other cultures have traditionally allowed theirs. And that the majority of women, in your opinion, aren't properly grateful for this. I, and other women here, have told you what we expect in a man and what we feel is given in return. The fact that foreign woman want to marry American men does nothing to prove your assertion that American women are "ungrateful", nor does it tell anyone how you are defining the term "ungrateful" and by what criteria.

[Hi Heels]

Good luck with that.

*sprays monitor with lysol*

[processing please hold]

I've never watched either one of those shows. I didn't know they portrayed men as weak.

If it had been named, "Sex in the Rural Areas," I might have watched it though.

[Campion]

But it is another thing to realize you have married someone mentally unstable, insanely manipulative and very dangerous. Evil isn't over the top here. That isn't 'fixable'.

Agreed. But that's not "marriage" or "men" that's at fault, is it? That's called "picking an evil nutcase loser". So, stay the heck away from evil nutcase losers. Don't marry them. Don't date them. Don't even smile at them. :-0

[RandallFlagg]

CRAP! You ARE reading my mind!!

I watch Bruce Lee every night with my Sons.

(He's American, BTW)

[RandallFlagg]

Mebby he was her brother? ~sigh~ I was such an idiot then!

Nope. She was the only nutcase in that family. They all loved, welcomed and accepted me.

[processing please hold]

Now, if someone wants to throw up a Mel Gibson picture in Braveheart, I wouldn't complain.

[najida]

I've learned to be a bastard--and now it's all good....

Great.
Wunnerful.
But can you dig a new line to my septic tank?

Jees askin', that's the kind of man I need right now....next month it will be floor tile.

[Hi Heels]

Yes he is. I knew one of his distant cousins who sold us Group Health insurance. I asked him once how to say something in Japanese (we were having an ethnic lunch). He said, "how the hell would I know? I was born in N. Dakota."

From then on I called him Nanook of the North.

[elmer fudd]

What you say is true, but there are still cultural differences regarding gender roles and Japanese women tend to be more traditional in that regard than American women. They are much less likely to embrace ideas like single motherhood for example.

[RandallFlagg]

LOL!

[Chieftain]

"Master Mind" was that movie or TV show or video game or what?

[najida]

OK darlin? Got some good Russell Crowes, Sparky Bartelomeos, Andrew Dan-Jumbos etc.

~sigh~So many men, so few hard drives.