Typical meetings in Japan

重要会議？Big conference in Japan?
Only men get together to sit there as if
everyone were a king.
This isn't 50 years ago.
The photo is from last week in Tokyo.

.. and still talk about the " better future "?男ばかり。
話にならない。

( 50年前の写真じゃありません。 先週、東京にて )

　　○●　読者から　○●

こんな無駄をたくさんやっていますね。

　　　＝＝　From a Reader　＝＝


Regarding your "Typical Meeting in Japan" article,
I must say that it was interesting to me as a foreign
observer how women walk behind men in public...
I mostly noted this with school boys and girls,
walking together in groups, yet separate.

Our Webster class was allowed to visit and
participate in a class at Kansai University in Osaka
and we all found the seating arrangement
interesting upon walking in.
There were two circles of chairs, one on the inside
and one on the outside of the other.
All chairs were facing the center.
Upon questioning, the teacher said that the
students had chosen the seats themselves and
they were not assigned.

In the inner circle sat all the young men as well as
3 female foreign exchange students from Europe.
In the outter circle (behind the men) sat all of the
Japanese female students.
We mentioned this to them as peculiar and the
European exchange students seemed to feel the
same way yet to the Japanese students they
seemed to only realize it once we
mentioned it.

Little things like that that are so ingraned in one's
behavior really say something about a culture.
I truly hope that someday in the near future,
gender equality is better established in Japan as
well as all over the world, as there are few places
(even in so-called "free" countries like the US)
where gender rights are truly equal.