What Japanese Women Want: A Western Husband

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.

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.

"If a woman does a guy thing (hunt, fish etc) she is viewed as sexy. But if a guy does a woman thing (dance, shop) then he must be gay? Why izzit?"

I think it's only certain woman things that make guys look gay. Like wanting to be a male stewardess on an airplane, for instance.

Guys like shopping OK, just it's usually like at the Bass Pro Shop or something, instead of Macy's. However, Dad enjoyed shopping with Mom pretty much, at least for certain things, anyway.

I read in a Clavell book that the samurai warriors were into poetry, not considered masculine by Western standards.

My wife and I take dance lessons from a guy, I have to tell you that even though this fellow's whole life is dancing, he gives off anything but a gay impression. I think he's not gay. Bush voter too. Still dancers are often gay, aren't they?

My wife is very much a traditional feminine type, while 22 year old daughter is something of a tomboy. Both are sexy.

I'm starting to get the idea that I'm not making too much sense here, all of a sudden.

This may be something really indicative to explain the phenomenon. This shows just how truly love-starved it would appear that many Japanese women are, in their 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s. Many of them 'victims' of arranged marriages rather than thru choice and pure love/compatability...living out their lives with no romance nor dream nor hope. The young Japanese women in their teens and twenties, who have yet to marry, see that and say "um oh, not ME." And become attracted to the greener grass on the other side of the river (Americans and other foreign men). Really, this is a news article out just today in Japan about the phenomenon of a South Korean singer Bae Yong Jun visiting Japan...and the mass psyche effected by it. Really, nearly 10 Japanese women were run down and slightly injured in their rush to get a glimpse of this guy, before returning to their 'nasakenai' dreary, hopeless lives. Truly instructive of some deeper societal and gender problems in Japan. It may be that many Japanese women despise Japanese men more than they love American or foreign men, for what they (think they) offer in 'rescuing' contrast to Japanese men:

Article: "Beatlemania and all the other fads that have followed in the decades since the Fab Four have got nothing on the passion Japan's middle-aged and elderly women have displayed in being the leading force behind the worshiping of Korean actor Bae Young Jun. Squeals of delight, fainting, swoons and crying from hysterical fans were the norm when Yong-sama, or Lord Young, breezed through Japan on tour last week -- all perfectly normal behavior among teenage fans, but the vast majority of the thousands of besotted women were closer to their pensions than puberty. "Yong-sama is the rare type who seems to symbolize so much about pure love for middle-aged and elderly Japanese women," psychologist Takashi Tomita tells Shukan Bunshun (12/9), adding that pure love usually has appeal for two types of women -- those who've never been in love before and others who feel they'll never fall in love again. "The Yong-sama phenomenon clearly falls into the second category. They're involved in settled relationships that have gone on for a long time, but their husbands don't treat them like women anymore. They have little realistic chance of love now or any time in the future. They have these beautified images of past love conjured up from their memories and this fills them with a satisfaction and superiority that allows them to escape from their mundane reality. With ever-smiling Yong-sama always appearing soft, kind and gentlemanly, he's exactly what these women are imagining pure love to be." Non-fiction writer Yuki Ishikawa, who frequently pens pieces about Japan's housewives, says that middle-aged women's lusting after Young comes from the same source that makes them so formidable while shopping or trying to snare a seat in a packed train carriage. "Most Japanese housewives have been married for a long time and gone through a lot of disappointment and betrayal at the hands of men. Yong-sama is the polar opposite of the men who have put them through this as he gives them hope and the belief that he would make their life pleasurable, which is what inspires even generally inactive biddies to act like groupies," Ishikawa tells Shukan Bunshun. "What's happening now is not far away from earlier reactions to (foreign) people like (actor Leonardo) DiCaprio or (soccer player David) Beckham. And because the women have no guarantee of ever feeling for somebody more deeply than they do Yong-sama, they go after him with even more verve than they show when swarming department stores at bargain sale time because they think, 'If I don't grab this chance now, I'll never get another shot at it again.'" Shrink Tomita notes that other acts, like the all-girl Takurazuka dance troupe and heartthrob enka singer Kiyoshi Hikawa, also attract older women groupies, but there's a difference when it comes to chasing after Young. "They are acting as women and there's not a hint of maternal instinct behind their actions," he tells Shukan Bunshun. "If these Japanese women are so caught up in an imaginary world, it's proof of just how they're incapable of dealing with their reality. If their relations with the opposite sex aren't particularly good, they're bound to chase after an ideal that appears before their eyes. It's the same mechanism that triggers the fascination male geeks have for little girls. I think it's fair to say that the sheer number of women chasing around after Yong-sama and the deep passion they show for him is a barometer of how little men have been treating their wives as women." "

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