In Japan, a viable and popular career for women is an "office flower" or "office lady". "Women serve a mere ornamental role in the labor force as "office flowers" (Harvard Women's Law Journal) and have no significant job in the office and are there to brighten the atmosphere, in a sense. These women take these jobs as "office flowers" and work until they marry and then they would settle down and raise thier family.
I found this really interesting because not only does it set gender roles but it is also implies a male superiority that we as Americans are thought to have been destroyed in America. It also draws jarring parallels to the way the American office dynamic works. In one of the arguably greatest American novels "The Great Gatsby" there is repeated images connecting women with flowers and brightness or gold, like in the following quote:
"Her face was sad and lovely with bright things in it, bright eyes and a bright passionate mouth" (9)
In this quote the narrator, Nick Carraway, says that her (Daisy Buchanan) is filled with "bright things", he doesn't attribute any deeper qualities to her character other than being "bright". According to the College Times "Four in ten businesses worldwide have no women in senior management" and in America, "Women earn less than men in 99% of all occupations". We believe that in America women have equal treatment and rights however statistically that is not true. We look at the Japanese "office flowers" and we are appalled but isn't that similar to the career paths most women in America have?
How do you this the American office dynamic is different? Do you think the majority of women in America follow the same career path as the "office flowers"?
Even though we may not be quite as sexist as the "office flower" culture of Japan, we are on a similar track. We may have more women earning degrees and in the workforce than we did fifty years ago but sexism is still there. Even in "high ranking" positions, like politics, women cannot escape century-long socialization to over-sexualize women and treat them as less than men. Look at Sarah Palin during the 2008 presidential campaign. Instead of politics being her primary attention-receiver, it was her looks. Palin is a controversial example, and I am neither supporting nor condoning her, but would her time in the public eye have faired any differently had she been a man?
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