Confucianism Vs Traditionalism Essay

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Through analyzing the effective steps taken to achieve gender egalitarianism in the Nordic Countries, it becomes thoroughly apparent that the Japanese government seems indifferent, almost apprehensive, when it comes to whole-heartedly promoting gender equality. Changes have been made on superficial levels, but unlike the Nordic countries, valuable changes in the “work family reconciliation packages” or reforms in corporate structural constraints have not been implemented. However, if radical reform were all that was needed to create change it would have already happened. In closer analysis, the largest impediment hindering these implementations and changes in sentiment is the difference in the historical and cultural fabric between the …show more content…

Traditionalist ideals such as women “following three men” – father, husband, and son – throughout their lives, or the sentiment of incompetence regarding women strongly prevailed in Japanese society until as recently as 1945. Furthermore, at the core of the beliefs of traditionalist Confucianism, which still remains today, is the idea of the family unit being the backbone of the nation. Both men and women place a strong value on this and see it as a foundational tenet on which the future of Japan depends on. The family “is seen as the product of the wife’s investment of her adult life in her husband and children”. While from the western eye, the role of the female in this ideology may seem inherently patriarchal. However, in Japan this is viewed as a big and almost respected role to fulfill – namely the role of managing and producing a household for the nation. Nonetheless, it cannot be denied that such notions do further reinforce the traditional hegemonic, gender ideals. While change is possible, the relatively late legal reforms in gender equality, and the fear in resisting the “system” of women producing stable households, lies at the heart of Japan’s social lag in gender egalitarianism, providing an added complexity to the issue that was not seen in the scenario of the

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