Despite progress, Japanese women’s route to top corporate jobs has many obstacles
Tokyo
Special to The Globe and Mail
When Kaori Sasaki, one of the most influential businesswomen in Japan, started her first company in 1987, she faced truly uncharted territory for a female entrepreneur.
Four years after graduating from university, she founded Unicul International, a communications consultancy offering translation and interpretation in 70 languages. “There were no role models, no textbooks, no workshops or seminars,” Ms. Sasaki said. “All the journalists came to me asking why a woman in her 20s, being single, started [this] business.”
At that time, Ms. Sasaki recalled, it was common for unmarried women in their mid- to late-20s to be referred to as “Christmas cakes” – discounted after Dec. 25 or “past their prime” after the age of 25. When she had her first baby at 35, it was so remarkable that she was interviewed by The New York Times a few years later, when it was announced Japan’s crown princess was pregnant in her late 30s.
Ms. Sasaki went on to launch the largest conference for working women in Japan, now in its 24th year. Today, she says, while there is still much progress to be made around gender equality in the workplace, “people’s beliefs and way of thinking [are] dramatically changing … not only in Tokyo, but all over Japan.”
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