Too Few Women at the Top: The Persistence of Inequality in Japan

292 Pages·0.987 MB·English

by  Kumiko Nemoto

TOO FEW WOMEN
AT THE TOP

TOO FEW
WOMEN AT
THE TOP
The Persistence of Inequality
in Japan
Kumiko Nemoto
ILR PRESS
AN IMPRINT OF
CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS
ITHACA AND LONDON
Copyright © 2016 by Cornell University
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts
thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from
the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House,
512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850.
First published 2016 by Cornell University Press
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Nemoto, Kumiko, 1970– author.
Title: Too few women at the top : the persistence of inequality in Japan /
Kumiko Nemoto.
Description: Ithaca : ILR Press, an imprint of Cornell University Press, 2016. |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016010766 | ISBN 9781501702488 (cloth : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Sex discrimination in employment—Japan. | Sex role in the work
environment—Japan. | Sex discrimination against women—Japan. | Women—
Employment—Japan.
Classification: LCC HD6060.5.J3 N46 2016 | DDC 331.4/1330952—dc23
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2016010766
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Cover photograph © Yagi Studio/iStock/Getty Images.
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
1. Sex Segregation in Japanese Business 1
2. The Japanese Way of Change: Recasting Institutional
Coordination, Sustaining Gender Inequality 29
3. Sex Segregation in Five Japanese Companies 71
4. Women as Cheap Labor: Salaries, Promotions, Ghettos,
and the Culture of Woman Blaming 98
5. Production and Navigation of Gender Bias: Heroic
Masculinity, Female Misogyny, and Queen Bees 129
6. Thwarted Ambitions and Sympathy: Long Working
Hours, Sex Segregation, and the Price of Masculinity 163
7. Obligatory Femininity and Sexual Harassment 201
Conclusion 218
Notes 231
Bibliography 257
Index 275
v

Acknowledgments
For this book, I interviewed a large number of people at five Japanese companies.
I am grateful to the many people who helped to coordinate my interviews and
also to those who took time to talk with me about their various experiences in the
companies. I would like to thank all of those individuals who kindly and gener-
ously assisted me in my fieldwork.
T he research I conducted for the book was supported by funding from many
sources. I was able to spend 2010 to 2011 in Tokyo as a Japan Society for the Pro-
motion of Science postdoctoral fellow at Hitotsubashi University. Colleagues and
staff helped make my time in Tokyo productive. I would like to express my sincere
thanks to the following faculty members at Hitotsubashi University—Tetsuro
Kato, Kimiko Kimoto, Daiji Kawaguchi—for their warm support and valuable
suggestions. I also received a Japan Center for Economic Research Grant in 2011.
The Japan Studies Grant of the Association for Asian Studies enabled me to con-
duct research on court cases on sex discrimination in Japan. I thank the members
of the Working Women’s Network in Japan for providing me with many oppor-
tunities to attend lectures and various events regarding sex-discrimination court
cases. I would like to thank Tak Ozaki and the excellent staff at the Social Science
Research Council Abe Fellowship, who offered me helpful suggestions and an
opportunity to speak at the Tokyo office. I am also grateful to those who extended
opportunities for me to speak at Florida International University; Temple Uni-
versity, Japan Campus; and the University of California, Berkeley. Research fund-
ing from Western Kentucky University made possible my research trips from fall
2007 to spring 2014. In particular, I would like to thank Doug Smith, the chair of
the Department of Sociology, for his generous support of this research and his
offer of course reductions. I thank Vicki Armstrong, who took care of the count-
less receipts from the trips between Tokyo and Bowling Green. I also thank Kyoto
University of Foreign Studies for its generous and kind support.
I express sincere thanks to my mentor, Christine Williams, for consistently
taking time to provide inspiring suggestions and generous help to facilitate my
research and writing. I have learned much from her critical and constructive
comments on my work. I also thank Paula England, who took time to read some
parts of this book early on and provided insightful and helpful comments. I am
indebted to Heidi Gottfried for her kind reading of the entire manuscript and
vii
viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
for offering constructive and important comments for the revisions. I am very
grateful to my editor at ILR Press, Fran Benson, for her patience and encourage-
ment. I thank the anonymous reviewer who took time to read the manuscript
and provided me with important suggestions. In addition, Lynne Chapman and
Sandra Spicher provided wonderful editorial assistance with the manuscript.
I would also like to thank the following colleagues and friends for their warm
help, encouragement, and insightful suggestions: Yoko Yamamoto, Sanae Ono,
Hiroyuki Matsushita, Yoko Matsukawa, Miwako Mogi, Keiko Kaizuma, Matthew
Marr, Naoko Komura, Susan Holloway, Ayumi Ito, Arthur Sakamoto, Karen Pyke,
Tadayuki Murasato, Tatsuhiro Shimada, Naoko Shimada, and Makiko Nakayama.
Two tables in chapter 3 and some parts of chapter 6 previously appeared in my
article “Long Work Hours and the Corporate Gender Divide in Japan” in Gender,
Work and Organization 25 (2013) from John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Chapter 7 was
previously published in substantially similar form as “Sexual Harassment and
Gendered Organizational Culture in Japanese Firms” in Gender and Sexuality
in the Workplace (Research in the Sociology of Work 20), 2010, Emerald Group
Publishing Ltd. I acknowledge the permission granted by the publishers.
Finally, I would like to thank my mother for her love and support. Our chats
over meals in Tokyo have always been a great source of enjoyment for me, and
her humor, courage, and insights have given me a tremendous sense of support
in my life.
TOO FEW WOMEN
AT THE TOP