INTERVIEW: Rengo Head Urges Wide-Ranging Changes for Gender Equality

Tokyo, Feb. 4 (Jiji Press)–Changes must be made across a wide range of settings to overcome deeply rooted gender roles and achieve gender equality, Tomoko Yoshino, president of the Japanese Trade Union Confederation, the umbrella organization for labor unions in the country, said in a recent interview. “We need to take gender equality more seriously in the economic sector,” said Yoshino, who became the first female leader of the group, known as Rengo, in 2021. In Japan, the proportion of women in management positions is low and the number of women who rise through ranks to become board directors is small, Yoshino said. “It’s disappointing…despite an increase in dual-income families and women’s increased participation in the workforce.” “There is deep-rooted awareness and customs of gender roles in Japan, and women often bear responsibilities as a wife, daughter-in-law or daughter,” she said. “In the workplace, women often perform tasks such as making tea, doing miscellaneous tasks and providing support.” The Rengo head also pointed out that women are disproportionately forced to suspend their careers due to their spouses’ job relocations. “Women can’t play an active role as equal to men unless gender roles are removed not only in the workplace but also within the family and the whole community,” she said. Yoshino said she first became interested in gender issues when she participated in a conference of an international labor union body in the 1990s, where she encountered the phrase “gender mainstreaming,” or the integration of a gender equality perspective in policies and organizational management. “I was struck by the disparity between this and the situation in Japan,” she said, adding that she realized Japanese labor unions were predominantly male-oriented and lacked women’s viewpoints. “Illustrations on unions’ publications at the time depicted men at the average age of workers and women as young and wearing short skirts.” She expressed support for Japan introducing a selective dual surname system, which allows couples to choose between adopting a shared surname or retaining their original surnames after marriage. The matter was a human rights issue as family names represent people from their birth, and the system expands choices in how people live, she said. Yoshino said that many women suspend their careers by ceasing to work at the end of the year, in order to retain their status as dependents of their spouses. It is important to create an environment in which women can work sufficiently, by raising wages and scrapping systems that dissuade people from working more in order to maintain lighter tax and social security premium burdens, she said. “It’s a major step forward that many people have begun to be aware of gender issues, with Rengo member unions always including a gender perspective in the greetings,” Yoshino said. “We want to aim for a society in which each person is accepted and can respect one another.” END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]