Black, White, Black-tailed White and Mottled Japanese chicks
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
Most of the men seem to think an Asian bride is going to be the compliant, get my slippers hun, keep the house clean type of bride.
Not so most of the time.
That little Asian honey is going to have you doing your share of the household chores. While it's true it may be the chores that you don't mind doing to begin with you will STILL be doing chores.
If you bring her back to the US to live, she will become Americanized to some degree over the years unless you keep her in strict seclusion in the wilds of Oregon somewhere.
This is not necessarily a bad thing. The same way a little hot sauce in the chili is not a bad thing. As long as it doesn't get overdone it adds a little zing.
Most women seem to think that if a man has to look overseas, other than Europe, for a wife that there must be something wrong with the man.
While this may be true in some cases, it's not necessarily a fact.
A lot of men have been scared off by feminist, man eating (get a grip guys, not that kind), you OWE me types.
They've not had the chance to meet a sweet, wholesome, my mom taught me that couples share, types of American women.
Shoot, I'm a MAN and my Mom taught me that.
Now for it. I married an Asian (South Sea Islander).
I didn't marry her for her money (she didn't have much), I didn't marry her because she was compliant (she took me down with a leg sweep while we were dating, and NOT in play), I married her because I loved her.
We were married in the Philippines while I was in the Navy. If you think there was nothing to it, you should have tried it. We waited two years after I asked her to marry me to be married due to Navy backround checks and paperwork.
We've been married almost 22 years and there has NEVER been a day that she has bowed to my will JUST because I was a man, American or not.
We've shared household chores whether one, or both, were working. We've made decisions...TOGETHER.
Men, don't go looking overseas for the compliant type, you can find those in the states also.
Women, don't go dissing the men because they look overseas for a wife, they may just not be lucky enough to have met you before you were married.
Black, White, Black-tailed White and Mottled Japanese chicks
Sounds materialistic to me. There's more to life than just social standing.
I have a friend who did that and they both are very happy for many years now. (but she was not from Japan.)
Its not so easy to find an american born woman who wants to be an intelligent housewife.
I don't hang out with college girls or the audience from Oprah, try again.
I question the mental health of your friend who would marry said whackjob.
Michelle is definitely Filipina! (The word ends in 'a' when describing the female gender.
Don't forget washing the skid marks out of their underwear and having a hot meal waiting on the table for them when they get home from work.
"Because (IN GENERAL), American men treat women FAR better then other men"
It gets WORSE???!!?!? Stop the planet, please. I'd like to get off.....
The Madame Butterfly syndrome. LOL.
But in any event, they're not to my taste.
Yeah, dang college educated women. Disgusting! They should go back to the kitchen where they belong...
You are the kind of woman I married 16 years ago, and am still married to.
I wouldn't have it any other way.
I have zero time for people who can't or won't stand up for themselves as human beings.
That's all I'm saying, but some don't want to hear it.
Can you say "Green Card", I knew you could.
That is the only thing losers who have to look overseas for a woman have to offer, and it is all the women over there are interested in.
So9
Well, my Asian wife (South Korean) is anything but submissive. LOL!
American women on the whole have never been as ungrateful and as hard to please as they are right now, and the problem is likely to get much worse.
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You weren't just talking about college girls and Oprah audiences, you were very specific with your "American women on the whole".
You try again.
I wonder what's Michelle Malkin's opinion on that! hehe
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Wonder where that desire came from?
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