Let's Talk about Masculunity

Let's Talk about Masculunity

Monday, 3 September 2018

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Gender norms suck for EVERYBODY. 

As someone who identifies as female I can attest pretty well to the negative effects gender norms have on women. I mean I've lived it after all. But to talk about the impact they have had on men, well that's a bit outside my realm of experience. So today I decided to sit down with ~a real human boy~ and ask some questions about gender, masculinity, and the impact of cultural norms on identity. The result, I think, is pretty interesting. 

Below is a series of questions I asked and the responses I got. Overall, it was an interesting interview and it's pretty clear that gender norms affect us all. It's time we start advocating for boys to be feminine (along with girls being masculine) and dispel with these hegemonic gendered narratives!!!! These answers are fraught, and they are real. I don't always agree with the thinking behind them, but that's the point of having these discussion. Anyways, I'm really interested to know how you feel about some of these questions, wether you are male or female (and there is no right answer!). 

Q:  How do you define gender ?

A: That’s a really difficult question. Gender isn't something you are born with, I feel like it is something each individual person learns throughout there life and reflects. 

Q: How do you define masculinity ?

A: Muscle. hahaha. Um, but yah physical and mental strength, I guess? That's also difficult. I don't think about this a lot.  

Q: Is feeling masculine key to your identity ?

A: Yes and no.

Q: Is it important to you that others view you as masculine ?

A: Yes, really important.

Q: Do you think you conform to gender roles on a daily basis ?

A: Yes and no. It depends where I am, when I go out at night or am with my friends I act more manly 

but when I’m alone on the train I'm not trying to act male or female I'm just existing and being human.

Q: Have you ever been discouraged from buying something because it said  “for women” ?

A: Haha you know that I buy women’s jeans and I don’t care also my toner is technically "for women". But I don't really care about the marketing I care about the product. 

Q: Who was your primary care giver growing up ?

A: My Dad. 

Q: Do you think society puts pressure on men in an unhealthy way ?

A: 100% they expect men to be strong and expect men to sacrifice themselves through work. like you have to work, you can't stay home it's just what is expected. I mean society is changing a bit with paternity leave and stuff but um, at this moment there is still pressure.

Q:What are some things you worry about on a daily basis? 

A: Um I care a lot about my style and hair line, also if I have muscles.

Q: Has a male ever cried infront of you for personal reasons?

A: No- oh wait-Yes. 

Q: Have you ever cried in front of a male friend (for personal reasons)?

A: Yes –HelloOOOO I'm a human being.

Q: Do you feel comfortable talking to your male friends about your emotions, fears, and struggles ?

A: Yah 100% , I tell them how I fear you all the time. (Me: rolling my eyes)

Q:Do you think crying makes you weak ?

A: Sometimes it's ok, it depends I guess. 

Q: Are there any advantages to being a man ?

A: I'm physically stronger so I don't have to worry about the threats as much  And I don't really worry about how getting pregnant would affect my career, but actually I don't think there are that many advantages.

Q: Are there any disadvantages ? 

A: You loose hair. lol, but um,too many things. There is the pressure to be strong. And in cases of divorce it is a lot harder for father to gain custody. But I'm actually really happy to be a man. 

Q: Are there disadvantages to being female ?

A: Yes and they are way worse. 

Q: Has the #metoo movement had any impact on your behaviour ?

A: No the movement hasn't been very strong in Japan. 

Q: Is it important for you to pay on the first date – why? 

A: Yes I care a lot because girls are expecting it and it’s kinda embarrassing for guys if you don't. Also I don’t want to seem like a bad guy. I just feel like it is something I should do.

Q: Do you feel like you need to fulfill a certain role in a romantic relationship (provider/ protector) ?

A: Not a fixed role. It depends on the relationship like if she has a really strong personality then my role changes and I can adapt. 

Q: How did you learn about consent ?

A:I learned about it informally, like not really at school or directly from my parents but it was always obvious.

Q: How do you gauge consent in a relationship ?

A: Every situation is different. 

Q: Do you think men and women are treated equally ?

A: Obviously no, but I’m not saying men are always treated better, just that they are treated different. It depends on the context. In a lot of cases men are even treated worse. 

Q: Do you think there is too little focus on the pressures guys face ?

A: Yes 100%. 

Q: Do you think feminism does anything for you as a male ?

A: yes and no. You're really feminist and when I'm with you I don't feel that societal pressure. Like I don’t need to worry about my hair or clothes or acting macho. I can just kinda ignore that. But um I think from like society I don't feel like feminism is doing anything to help with these pressures. Feminism is really new in Japan and so far it just feels like it's about women. 

. 

Spillin' The Tea: Foreign Aid and Women's Empowerment

Spillin' The Tea: Foreign Aid and Women's Empowerment

Wednesday, 15 August 2018

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Let's get real. Aid isn't helping empower women in developing countries.

 In fact in a lot of ways it is perpetuating the existing inequalities of society. Have you ever come across a charity which aims to lift women out of poverty by selling their hand made goods, or providing artisanal jobs to a community? It is more than likely that you know exactly what I'm talking about. Charming bracelets, or hand woven goods like diaries, blankets or purses. All these consumable goods aim to achieve two things. The first being to provide women with a livelihood. The second objective is often narrated as a protection or even cultivation of the local art and culture. While this is noble, its not effective. 

Why? 

Traditional gender roles are still dominant in the Global South, where men are viewed as breadwinners and women continue to be relegated to the sphere of domesticity. This has very obvious consequences. Among them is the simply dependent status of women. Projects aimed at empowering women through economic independence hope to alleviate this dependency. Yet, these activities focus on livelihoods with limited transferable skills. Aid projects which focus on creating and selling artisanal goods keep women in a sphere with limited upward mobility. Maybe I am being cynical but really, how much economic power can an individual accumulate from making small goods. And what  skills do these "jobs" equip women with. I'm not referring to the artistic skills, rather I mean broader skills of negotiation, literacy, problem solving. These skills can help women in all aspects of their lives not simply their jobs and they are not being cultivated through artisanal jobs. Also, in no way am I trying to negate the importance of cultural craft and traditions. Every society needs artists, but not everywomen needs to be one. I am simply pointing out that the very aim of empowering women is unmet by these programs. If NGO's want to make a real impact and empower women beyond an extended domestic sphere, I believe it is necessary to focus on training skills which are transferable like computer literacy, Public speaking, leadership skills, among others. This is significant because it would provide woman with the opportunity to have careers- not just jobs. This gap in NGO activity is also indicative of how aid is distributed between the genders. Men often receive practical skills training in developing countries, the impact of which is tangible. Opportunities for economic advancement is presented to those with higher skills, that's just a fact. So why do NGO's continue to keep women in a marginalized position while claiming to be empowering?

& thats the tea, 

F. 

Working Women in Japan

Working Women in Japan

Sunday, 25 March 2018

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Japan ranks 101^st on the World Economic Forums Gender Equality Index, it has one of the lowest rankings in the developed world.  It’s fair to assume then that working in a Japanese company would mirror this statistic, or at least serve to illuminate why the inequality exists in the first place.  What I learned was much more complex than I anticipated. I’m incredibly fortunate to have interned at a place that clearly valued women’s participation and their issues, but that’s not to say that concerns don’t exist and that we shouldn’t attempt to address them. In this post I wanted to explore some of the themes that emerged when I was able to interview various different women working at the company in different positions and age brackets. 

Things Are Changing:

There was a time (really not that long ago) when even the idea of having a family and working was impossible. One female employee felt that promotions were unattainable unless you were willing to sacrifice your family life.  As a female Senior Executive bluntly pointed out, when she was young very few women worked in the company and they most certainly didn’t keep working after marriage. To an extent this culture still exists in practice, I mean there is only 1 female executive with a child, and although the trend of women returning to work after starting a family is changing it is still in its infancy. What’s different today however is the open-mindedness of management to these concerns. Every one of the women I interviewed brought up concerns about balancing private life and work and feeling like they had to choose between the two. While this notion is heavily internalized by female employees, it doesn’t represent the reality they face. Two women noted that after speaking to their managers about their concerns they were surprised at how accommodating their seniors were. The attitude of management isn’t the same as it was 20years ago, and they are supporting women in pursuing all their goals (personal and professional). This goes for male and female executives alike. The senior female executive noted that her position provided her with the unique (and important position) to advocate for the maternity needs of women amongst her male colleagues. But this push isn’t just happening from women. Male managers are being more active and asking their female employees about their personal goals in order to help facilitate a system that works for everyone. 

Work / Life balance isn’t just about women though, and a lot of the time that seems to be the focus. In Japanese society domestic duties are still highly feminized, which means it can often be seen as the women’s responsibility to run the household, and there for men don’t require the same accommodations. In reality, promoting a balance has to include both genders partaking in household management. In the workplace that means accommodating flexible schedules for all employees; not just women. The senior executive (who attributes a lot of the ease in her role to her husband’s support for her work) noted that the young married man who returns home early is an example for his peers and is improving everyone’s understanding in the role men and women need to play to achieve this balance. 

Not everything’s perfect:

As one would expect there are still many concerns surrounding women in the work force. While Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s hallmark “Womenomics” policy has increased the visibility of women in the workforce it hasn’t addressed a lot of the issues that women in most companies still face. Because there’s a lot of concerns and because I was fortunate enough to intern at a company that is incredibly progressive (and therefor I don’t have firsthand knowledge about many of the issues) I want to focus on just two main themes. 

Nomikai Culture:

The first of which is Nomikai Culture. Those who aren’t familiar with Japan may not be versed on what the Nomikai is, or how it can present a uniquely Japanese challenge for working women. So a brief intro before I continue. Nomikai’s are Japanese drinking parties that are embedded into work place culture. They occupy a weird space between the formal and informal and are slightly akin to a drinking meeting. So while most women agree that mistreatment at the office is rare and unspeakable, there seems to be more ambiguity around what is acceptable treatment of women at a Nomikai. In these situations the treatment of women can seem demeaning. Especially since entertaining is a large part of the female employee’s role at a Nomikai. The younger female employees I interviewed spoke about the necessity to look and act cute while also managing the table (serving drinks, handing out cutlery, etc.). The older Executive also agreed that women had a specific entertaining purpose at Nomikai’s, particularly when she was young. Back then the youngest female employee would sit next to the most superior male and be responsible for entertaining him. Because Nomikai’s are always exclusive to your team, and can include clients and other project members there is also a clash in the progressiveness of those individuals within the company and those outside it. One female employ pointed to a case where harassment from a client at a Nomikai motivated her to remover herself from a project. The blurred line between formal and informal at Nomikai’s seem to make all of this behaviour slightly more tolerable than would even be thinkable in the office setting. From the little time I have spent in a Japanese company and the limited interviews I did, Nomikai’s are one of the most fascinating and troubling aspects to me. 

Lack of Confidence: 

Not every aspect of women’s inequality is a result of active male oppression, and that’s evidenced by one of the most pressing issues I noticed for Japanese working women. A lot of what is holding women back is internalized. If we return briefly to the question of work/life balance a major theme among the female employees I spoke to was their own belief that both things were not simultaneously achievable. It wasn’t until discussing their concerns with superiors that they were aware of the support they could receive.  The result of these discussions was often a surprise to the female employees, who if not pushed would likely have been too shy to assert their goals for balance between both. If you lack the confidence to say what you are aiming for the proper support cannot be cultivated. 

 When I asked the female senior executive what she thought the biggest change in corporate culture is that facilitated increased participation of women she responded (quite surprisingly) that the change did come as much from the company as it came from herself. She noted that as she aged her confidence and self-esteem increased, meaning she was no longer embarrassed to ask for what she desired or pursue any goals she had set. If I compare this lack of confidence into the young women in the West I think it’s quite a different scenario. Yes the question of work / life balance still exists but the confidence to voice those concerns isn’t as marginalized as it is in Japan. 

The Future:

I am a bit surprised and extremely grateful of the incredible strides that this company has made to improve women’s experience in the workplace. I think discussions, not just among the women of the company but among all branches of employees will help to drive progress forward, and in a company where management is so open minded I don’t think that such discussions are a stretch or overly idealistic. That being said there is a lot of room for improvement and there needs to be discussions around topics like childcare, equality of pay, and so much more that I was unable to cover. But the future for Japanese working women is one that I (as a potential future working women in Japan ;) ) am incredibly invested in. I’ll end this post with the advice that a senior female executive gave. Her words ring true for young male and female employees alike, and they are not particularly restricted to a Japanese context. In essence her words were “be ambitious and be clear about your ambitious”. If you have goals, personal and professional, and you can articulate them both your superiors will be invested in helping you achieve them.


Till next time,

F.

Period Positivity

Period Positivity

Sunday, 4 March 2018

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yup those are tampons I'm wearing as earrings !!!

Last year on International Women’s Day I made a blogpost outlining some goals for the coming year. One year later and two of these goals have some tangible results. My first goal was to simply be more vocal about feminism and the inequalities that face women. If you ask anyone who knows me they can probably tell you that I’m extremely outspoken about women’s rights. The second goal was to increase my awareness on specific issues that women around the world face, and guys there’s LOTS of them. But over the past year one specific topic kept coming up, and that was related to period positivity. In this blogpost I want to really briefly highlight three sections of period positivity that I have learned more about over the past year. 

The Tampon Tax: 

Often referred to as “the pink tax” or the “period tax” the tax on tampons is a significant issue in countless countries around the world. This includes most of the 50 states in the U.S.A, the U.K., and other E.U states. It’s a big deal because it illustrates the fundamental inequality and injustice women face for their simple biological functions. Because tampons aren’t considered a basic necessity they fall under the “luxury” (rolls-eyes-heavily) category and are subject to VAT. So while this hygiene product is considered a luxury, Jaffa Cakes (an orange & chocolate biscuit) is considered an essential and is exempt from tax in the U.K. And Jaffa Cakes aren’t the only ridiculous “essential” tax-fee item to scrutinize. Men’s razors and condoms (along with many other products) are tax-free. While shaving and sex are a choice, bleeding once a month is not. This tax is bigger than just the illogical nature of it. It also fortifies the economic inequality between genders. Women already make less than their male counterparts, and the tax only makes tampons inaccessible to those already on the low end of the wage gap. NEWSFLASH: Homeless women still menstruate and doing so in a dignified way is a basic human right that they are often denied because of the high prices of tampons and other menstrual hygiene products.  Last time I checked having my period didn’t leave me feeling a sense of luxurious bliss akin to a weeklong spa get away. It’s time for governments to the end the period tax, period. 

Menstrual Taboo’s:

The world surrounding menstruation has been taboo for as long as I can remember. Even upon getting my period for the first time the ins and outs of biology and how to use different products was heavily glossed over. It just wasn’t talked about. I remember being in school and shuffling through my bag to find tampons or pads discreetly kept in a special pouch, and then immediately sliding the product up my cardigan sleeve as to ensure that NOONE caught a glimpse. If anyone was talking about menstruation the words “gross” or “ew” were often circling in the air- particularly from young boys. And this isn’t just a personal narrative, menstruation is taboo in so many societies. As I’ve gotten older I found I’ve become quite open about my period, I don’t try to hide my sanitary products of associate bleeding with disgust anymore. Despite this personal growth I noticed that most of the world still functions in the realm of taboo. If you buy sanitary products in Japan they won’t just bag them like any ordinary product in a transparent white bag, instead your purchase will be “discretely” stuffed in an opaque black or brown bag to obscure its contents. Even though I thought I was over being ashamed of my period, this simple act left me feeling dirty and humiliated all in a matter of seconds. The taboo around menstruation is starting to crack, campaigns like the #padmanchallenge are helping to challenge the stigma, but there is still a long way to go before girls and boys everywhere start to embrace periods as a natural, healthy and positive thing. 

Menstrual Health Management: 

MHM is an issue in many developing countries, and it’s something I have been exposed to through my coursework. Over the past semester I was able to take a close look at the consequences of poor menstrual health management in rural India and their leading factors. MHM is incredibly important for overall hygiene and quality of health, but in countries were strong social stigmas and taboos around menstruation exist proper menstrual hygiene practices fail to be cultivated. Accurate education about menstrual hygiene is severely lacking, and young girls internalize the inaccurate cultural beliefs that surround periods. Additionally, access to clean and safe menstrual hygiene products are scarce, due to lack of demand and due to high social stigmas. Improving menstrual health is instrumental to achieving the health and sanitation Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). 

Although there is a lot to say about each of these areas and about period positivity in general I wanted to give a brief overview of some of the major issues that the world and women are still facing today. While the point has been to highlight a few areas that have really interested me recently, I hope it has sparked an interest in you to read more about these subjects or other subjects concerning women’s rights. I know this post was a bit of a longer read, but I really do think it’s necessary to have these conversations and to be open about them. Thanks for stopping by! 

xx,

F.

Photo Diary: Japan Adventures

Photo Diary: Japan Adventures

Saturday, 27 January 2018

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Its been a busy few weeks in Japan and although I've shared some snaps over on Instragram I wanted to round up a more comprehensive collection of pictures to look back on! I hope you enjoy this random selection of photos from my life here! 

Some cute little Buddha's on top of Mt. Omuro!

Deer friend at Nara Park  

Palm Trees lining the streets of Ito (yup I know it looks so L.A.)

Walking along the volcanic rock coast of Izu Peninsula ! 

More of the majestic sea!

Mt. Oruro lift ticket! (its an inactive volcano) 

A boy turned deer in snowy Sapporo!

 Chillin' in our Yukata's in the coolest Ryokan! 

Illuminations in Sapporo 

Romantic Otaru Canal! 

Mt. Fuji and the Chureito Pagoda!

Exploring Nara!

Enjoying the sea in Atami 

Another pic of the sea (sorry its so pretty!) 

Walking around the sea in Ito! 

Kinakuji Temple (the golden temple) in snowy Kyoto!

 Buddha in Atami 

look closely you can see the sea! 

The most serene view of the coast! 

Exploring the Japanese forests! 

I hope you've enjoyed this little collection of pictures from the past few weeks! I love this set of pics because it really shows off the more calm side of Japan. Its a whole different world from the bright and busy lights of Tokyo!

Till Next Time,

F. 

Eating My Way Around Japan

Eating My Way Around Japan

Monday, 8 January 2018

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Warning: This Post contains mouth watering imagery! 

Here's a little update on the past few weeks in Japan! Most of my life has been revolving around food lately so as a result here is an entire post dedicated to some nifty food pics I took (sorry for being so basic). 

OCTOPUS AT TSUKIJI FISH MARKET 

FISH AT NIJO MARKET IN SAPPORO

CRAB LEGS AT NJO MARKET IN SAPPORO 

 EEL ( UNAGI) SASHIMI IN SAPPORO 

CRAB MISO SOUP IN SAPPORO 

SOUP CURRY AT PICANTE IN SAPPORO 

TUNADONBURI IN SAPPORO 

 FRESH CORN IN OTARU

FOUND AT TSUKIJI FISH MARKET

SAKE ICECREAM IN OTARU

FRIED CHICKEN IN OTARU 

MINI SAPPORO AT THE SAPPORO BEER MUSEUM 

SEA URCHIN AT TSUKIJI FISH MARKET 

DRIED SARDINES AT TSUKIJI 

Tuna Bae 

I really hope you didn't read this post on an empty stomach.. Most of what I have been doing in japan is eating, so consider this an update on life here! 

Till Next Time,

F.