You think Japanese women being strong of mind and having agency is “some weird thing that I am asserting?”

Everything is influenced by outside forces. Family situations, neighbors, teachers, everything. So of course this is influenced by outside forces.

“Society’s expectations” is a meaningless concept. We understand that if we are talking about the US, but for some reason people don’t seem to get that the Japanese have the same diversity of thought and motivation as Americans do.

Not every single woman gives up their careers, but there are definitely cultural standards that women in Japan face that men don’t.

I’m not claiming my experiences are the end of the discussion, either! But there is a narrative that says “Japanese culture says women are expected to end their careers and become housewives when they get married and start a family”, which is too reductive, and fairly ridiculous. My whole point of providing my…

Statistics for what? Exactly what are you expecting to be measured here? You can see the numbers of how many working women there are in the Japanese work force. The number is low. The reasons for that are not easily explained by statistics, and the reasons women drop out of the workforce are many, not easily reducible…

“Culture” is not that monolithic, neither in the US nor in Japan. For some that is indeed the expectation, for others having a career after starting a family is perfectly normal. It all depends on the family situation.

What else am I to go by but my own experience? There are women I know and have worked with, they are smart women with advanced degrees, the company wanted them to stay on the project but they left after their maternity leave on their own volition to stay home and raise their family. It was their choice.

All those guys are in their 20s, I’d say.

There is Hooters in Japan, too.

Don’t prepare too much or overthink things, just go with the flow. You’ll find plenty of interesting things to see and do, getting around is a snap.

Interestingly enough, the problem is not that women in Japan strictly can’t have careers after getting married and having kids, but that so many just don’t want to. I have several coworkers with advanced degrees who have quit to become housewives after having kids. It was their choice, and what they wanted to do for…

I’ve found Bing works fine in English, but when I switch to Japanese the results are terrible, unusable.

No, that’s a great take. If you have a pitcher pitching great, why not have the pen ready but leave him in? It’s what I would do. Hard to fault Collins.

That these islands are not designed to be inhabited for hundreds of years without any maintenance or upgrading?

None whatsoever.

ONE Grantland staffer said - that’s also in the article. One angry person, someone who might have just lost their job, said it. Doesn’t make it the truth, or at least the whole truth.

Exactly, right? Why use these euphemisms like “uneducated”, we all know what is really being said.

Don’t be rude. Smily faces don’t make it less rude.

Your average profffesional athlete sounds less educated