It's a man's country...or is it?

A few days ago one of my Japanese professor friends (a woman) said to me, "Japan looks like a man's country, but it's the women who know how to enjoy it." 

And, I had to think about this for a little while.  It is true. Japan really does look like a man's country.  Japanese men can be quite bossy with women.  When interviewing, all Japanese women wear the same outfit--black skirt or pants, white shirt, black jacket, and the same black bag.  Interviewing women cannot have their hair colored in any way other than natural (they simply won't be hired--so they all die their hair black before they begin interviewing). Yet, despite this, I am assured that attractive women are often hired over what might be more qualified candidates.  And, only in the last few years have women begun to work after getting married or having a baby.  It really does look like a man's country.

But, maybe my friend is right--it is the women who know how to enjoy it.  Riding the subways here and there and everywhere, I see a lot of the habits of a wide spectrum of the Japanese.  And, I notice that most of the men I encounter are scurrying to or from work. They are on the way to work at 7:40 when I take Sam, still on the way to work at 8:30 when I head home and then when I go out to other places at 7 or 8 in the evening, they are returning home from work.  While the government has passed an 8 hour law, it's common knowledge that many workplaces require their employees to work from 9 to 8.  But, what I notice is that even women in work clothes seem to enjoy the niceties of life that are passing the men by. 

I see the men, cramming their faces with "fast food" at lunchtime. They eat standing up and then hurry back to the trains or offices.  Not so with the women. Tea rooms and places like the 4 Season's (where I was treated to a very pricey lunch) are filled with women. Seriously, only women.  Well, women and sometimes Sid. Sid and Sam went for cake and tea one afternoon to find the place packed--they squeezed into the last small table and when Sid looked around there wasn't a single other man in the whole place. 

Japanese men work, work, work.  And Japanese women, well, they work and then go enjoy themselves.  And, on the surface the Japanese men have most of the power, but it's sort of like the story Sid tells of a Japanese friend he had in Gifu. Sid went to her house to have dinner with her and her husband. At work the woman was just normal acting--like an American, not necessarily submissive.  At her house, she fed her husband his dinner, using chopsticks to feed him, and got him beer when he said, "Oy, Biru (Hey you, get me a beer).  But, when the husband exited the room for a moment, the woman turned to Sid, winked, and said, "Sometimes he likes me to treat him like a dog."  So, who was the master and who the mastered? Hard to say.  Maybe it's a man's country, but maybe it's the women who enjoy it.