How Can Women SHINE?

There is an ongoing discussion in Japan of how to maximize women’s abilities in workplace while ensuring that they can raise children.

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.