In my previous posting, I commented on ‘fear or prejudice against women’ in Japanese companies seen in the event of globalization. However, such feelings against woman empowerment are shared largely in Japan as I have often pointed out in this web-site. Please search within this site for keywords such as ‘women’, ‘men and women’, ‘gender empowerment’, etc.
One reason for this is that men, especially those in higher rank of social ladder, oppose mentally to changes of a men-centered chauvinistic social structure. Don’t they have enough confidence in themselves for being compared to women?
However, it is a fact that more than 50% of the economy and buying power belong to women. Besides, given the fact that Japan’s population is shrinking, we cannot miss the opportunity of inviting women’s participation and their power in society just as we do with senior people’s power. From my point of view it is just prejudice to say that doing so will turn the country to ordinary ‘domestic oriented’ thinking where economic and business growth will be hindered.
Kathy Matsui proposes on‘Womanomics’ a detailed analysis of relations between women participation in the workforce and economic growth. The most important element is change in social structure, i.e. social innovation, conducive to gender empower..
I would also like to point out that basically men and women have different views and values. With more women in the workforce, what would this world be like? Certainly it would change to a different society compared to historical men-centered one. Like it or not, this is a world trend and it is not only bad as some of you may think otherwise. Many good examples are also known.
In global enterprises, outstanding female CEOs are increasing;K. Nooyi of Pepsi is one example. At Xerox Ms Mulcahy who led a major change retired as chairman, and the succeeding CEO is again female; Ms U Burns. And Avon and so on. These companies all appear to be in good shape. Female participation in social workforce is expected to expand in Middle East as well.
By the way, in relation to my recent 4 postings on the victory of Korea in the bidding of nuclear power plants in Abu Dhabi, Ann Leuvergeon (Ref.1), the CEO of Areva, a French company which was the strongest candidate, is also woman.
In Japan, although the number of female senators have increased after the recent election of the House of Representatives - that ended in the victory of Democratic Party of Japan - its proportion is still less then 15% of the whole.
Japan, a country of ‘soshokukei danshi’ or "herbivorous men" and ‘nikushokukei joshi’ or "carnivorous women" with high ability who are being hindered from working actively…. I wonder where this country is headed to…
