There was also an article on the Internet a few
days ago about women who quit jobs to be dedicated homemakers but are now
wondering if the decisions were right.
Another interesting thing is that a couple
days later, a follow-up article
saying that “dedicated homemakers can also ‘SHINE,’” i.e., realize themselves
to the full extent, was posted.
It reminds Keiko of Sachiko. Sachiko has
recently solved an
old problem related to the definition of work. In brief, Sachiko’s mother,
who has been a dedicated homemaker through her life, said that she no longer needed
to do household chores as she “worked.” “Work” here means writing calligraphy
and holding calligraphy classes, to which she has dedicated herself, but which has
made no financial contribution to the household.
Keiko believes that the fundamental issue here
is the same. They confuse the meaning of two different things, i.e., activities
which need to be performed for biological necessities and activities which need
to be performed for self-realization.
Activities which need to be performed for
biological necessities, such as doing household chores and earning a certain
amount of money which supports one’s life, do not necessarily make them SHINE. They
are requisites and that’s it. In other words, hataraku or shigoto in
Japanese, when used to refer to these activities (or labor according to Hanna
Arendt’s theory) is not supposed to provide the joy of life.
Some perform such labor activities to
fulfill their biological necessities and by doing so, may be able to partially
or fully realize themselves and feel the joy of life while others perform such
activities only for money and may need to find such joy in other sphere.
So, Keiko believes that if Japanese women
want to SHINE or realize themselves, they need to know first what they want. The
thing is that what you want is sometimes different from what others want. But
convincing others that what you want should be right for others is waste of your time. People can lie to others, but cannot to themselves. If you figure out what you want, you just go ahead and never look back.
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