Japanese company makes Harvard graduates serve tea
How Nomura Holdings treats its female employees (from the Wall Street Journal, via Foreign Policy):
Japanese brokerage firm Nomura Holdings Inc. kicked off a training session for new hires in April by separating the men and women. The women, including Harvard graduates hired by Lehman Brothers before it collapsed, were taught how to wear their hair, serve tea and choose their wardrobes according to the season, say executives who fielded a complaint about the session.
[...]
Asked about the training sessions for new hires, a Nomura spokeswoman said that both sexes were taught business etiquette, and the men and women were trained separately for logistical reasons.
Some Nomura managers interpreted strictly the company’s dress code for women. They told women joining from Lehman to remove highlights from their hair, to wear sleeves no shorter than midbicep and to avoid brightly colored clothing, according to several people who joined from Lehman. Several women were sent home from the trading floor for dressing “inappropriately,” these people say.
“I was sent home for wearing a short-sleeve dress, even though I was wearing a jacket,” says one woman who says she plans to leave as soon as she receives her final guaranteed bonus payment.
Nomura’s human-resources department changed some women’s email addresses to their married names, from their maiden names, without asking which names they used professionally, according to the people who joined from Lehman.
The article does not specify whether or not male employees were given instructions on how to wear their hair and how to serve tea.
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Well, of course. Who else is going to teach those uppity Harvard women how to serve tea with proper subservience?
Just kidding, of course. I had heard that OL jobs had become less demeaning in the past 10 years, but obviously I was mistaken.
That said, I don’t have a WSJ account so I shouldn’t judge before I learn about the full text of the article and get the context. Does it say anything about what jobs they had been hired for, or what training the men received in comparison?
There are many workplaces in Japan that do not have female employees serve tea and do copying all the time any more these days. My mother’s workplace only serves tea to really special clients and whoever is there is the one who serves it—gender is not an issue there.
That being said, as a female university student who will begin job-hunting later this year—if I’m put in that situation, I’d quit.
I think I’ll try foreign/’gaishikei’ companies, as they seem to be more better than traditional older Japanese companies in this respect.
Having worked as an intern in a foreign-based company in Japan, I can say that they also have OL’s serving tea and such. Maybe not as extreme as in a traditional company, but it happens there as well.
It saddens me to know that employees are still not treated equal. Not just in Japan, but everywhere. In many companies in Germany, women still receive less money for the same work. The gap grows smaller from year to year, but it’s still relatively wide.
When you say German women earn less money for the same work, do you mean they work exactly the same hours and put in exactly as much effort as men? Usually when someone says that women make less money for the same work it turns out that the women aren’t actually doing the same work.
How would you measure that? Yes, you can measure productivity to a certain extent, but only in some fields can it be compared one to one.
Apart from that, I meant “the same work ” as literal as it can be.
There are official statistics about this! They include overall comparison (where the gap is even wider because of low paying jobs where more women than men are working, like room cleaning, etc.) and comparison within the same fields.
So the fact that the women were Harvard grads makes it MORE demeaning? As if to imply…”Oh, it’s alright to make the poor women do it but not those HARVARD grads!” I mean, why even include that information? What difference does it make…it’s a pretty shitty thing to do regardless of where they graduated from.
Doesn’t a secretary serve coffee for her boss in the US?
Oh, sorry. I should have said, “Doesn’t a secretary serve coffee for his or her boss in the US?”
They may serve coffee for their bosses in some companies, but certainly none I’ve ever worked for.
No, they get it from Star$ucks themselves.
I’m a coffee fetcher, and a food fetcher. I was even asked to go on the internet and download a dog food coupon for the head boss. I had to data enter in all his pet information online. He paid me more per hour to get the coupon than he actually saved with it. Go figure.
Depending on where you live and what your situation is, you’d be surprised what people will do at their jobs just to keep them.
I agree with SayWhat? that it seems that the article/blog/rant/whatever really drew attention to itself by implying that because the women were Harvard graduates, the ‘humbling’ training of sort is particularly humiliating, and perhaps irrelevant if they graduated anywhere else.
While Japan most definitely still has its glass ceiling for women (a very thick one at that), and is still rather sexist, xenophobic, nationalist, and just about anything else you can think of, perhaps the “training” session given by Nomura Holdings has taught those “holier than thou” banker-lot that a bit more about what everyone else has to endure (in Japan at least).
Also, it’s probably good character building for those individuals who are at least, partially guilty for causing the global recession (especially Lehman Brothers which probably deserved to disappear).
I sincerely doubt that they were hired as OL, being harvard grads, many were probably in career track. Many Japanese companies still run on a sort of two-track system: career track and a non-career track into which women have traditionally been tossed (OLs fall into the second track, while the career track is essentially a management/administrative track).
Nomura has always been renowned as a particularly conservative company when it comes to the way they organize their employees, so news of this is not particularly surprising, except for the fact that most of the WSJ’s readers have probably never heard of such treatment. Hell, this sort of “training” still happens at a good number of large Japanese companies.
It is also a bit of superimposition of Western values on Japan as well… No?
No.
Definitely not.
Seriously, “Western Values” vs “”Eastern Values” or indeed just “Values” is a bunch of bullshit. It implies that these things are fixed and culturally bound, whereas you don’t in fact have to go too far back in Western history to find the same sort of concepts, or worse. In every culture there are the values of the rulers, and the values of the ruled, and any change is effected by the clash between them. Sometimes they mesh, sometimes one side adopts the other, and sometimes centuries of standoffs go by.
Bravo! very well put. Misogyny should never be a “value.”
Have some perspective – “misogyny” is a strong word – it does not necessarily equate with gender discrimination, which is what is on display here.
hmmm, I have a maid who graduated from Harvard, pls don’t hate me
In ‘traditional/conservative’ Japanese companies, “the nail that sticks up gets hammered back down”… in other words, we all conform.
Hence these instructions on serving tea, dress code for seasons and hair styles etc is simply ensuring that each employee is working to the same business culture.
In fact is it not GOOD THING that the future senior execs know those details of their business – even menial tasks such as tea? This gives them an understanding that all staff have jobs and roles and should be valued.
Staff of all levels in these type of Japanese are valued much more highly than in Western business. There is no (well… perhaps a little) culture of staff being ‘disposable’, retrenchments rarely happen.
Good on Nomura for reminding their staff that their business is built on the back OF ALL THEIR WORKERS.
It is certainly a good idea for the top execs to have experienced life at the bottom of the heap.
The point about this case is that the top execs are all men, and the people getting the training in life at the bottom are all women.
In the UK, the training would have become illegal the moment the men and women were separated. I know that Japan has much less strict discrimination laws.
they have laws – with no teeth. that is one of the big problems here.
OK, firstly I haven’t read the full WSJ article (as I need to subscribe, which I won’t), and the FP site has less detail.
From this amount of info, there is nothing to state that the men were treated any differently when separated. Perhaps they also received similar training.
I would be happy if the remainder of the article was posted to clarify (if it is at all mentioned).
Otherwise it still seems like a superimposition of Western (business) onto Japan.
I’ve edited the post with a link to the Google Cache of the full article. You should be able to read it now.
Thanks for the extra info James…
Still no details as to what the men were taught other than ‘business etiquette’, so suppositions of sexual discrimination are just that… suppositions.
What the women seem to have been instructed in is what I said earlier… “the nail that sticks up gets hammered back down”. That is, this is the way we do business, work our way or leave. Nothing overly wrong with that (assuming no other infractions of Japanese law).
Interesting that “one woman who says she plans to leave as soon as she receives her final guaranteed bonus payment”. So the principled stand against discrimination is OK, but I can suffer this if the money is OK… is that about right?
Even better
A Japanese company in America should respect American corporate and social etiquette, just as American companies in Japan should respect Japanese etiquette.
Who says they dont respect? If you possibly mean “adhere to”, thats different. Many western companies thrive in Japan and can overcome local competition (unless protection measures are in place) precisely because they dont adhere to local business norms.
I would say that the way Nomura is treating its employess, it’s neither respecting nor adhering to American corporate or business etiquette.
I’m sure American, or other foreign companies in Japan, don’t have policies that insult their Japanese employees or offend their cultural sensibilities.
A Japanese company in America should respect American corporate and social etiquette
Nomura should have studied the case in the U.S.
Perhapes Nomura should have also known how to play the game in the U.S
Perhaps is it better to take the emotional strain on couple’s marrige when firing male employees?
take the emotional strain on couple’s marriage into considerations
“Because there were no men in similar jobs”
Here is the key difference with Nomura in this case. Here there ARE men in similar jobs.
Firstly I really mean what is quoted. Nomura should have studied the U.S. cases.
Secondly, we don’t know much about the details about the cases..
Thirdly, I don’t know much about general practice of Japanese companies. Where I used to work (when I was much younger), I or a female coworker served tea to the boss;it didn’t matter which.
And what would the first case have shown? Your use of bold for “traditional” implies you think it means something, but no one would ever deny that sexism is not a traditional (as in old-fashioned, old-style, not as in something that is still done) part of Western society as well.
It means that the judge thinks it has been a long-established custom.And it also probably shows that though it has come to be considered as wrong or misguided, the practice still exists to some extent in the U.S. and that calls into question the assumption that the U.S is as “advanced” in this respect as some orientalists here wants to believe.
Firstly I really mean what is quoted. Nomura should have studied the U.S. cases.
How is something in the US relevant? And why would Nomura “study” it? Nomura’s US and EU offices operate reasonably well already to 21st century racial and gender diversity norms.
Secondly, we don’t know much about the details about the cases..
True, birthdates, phone numbers, and home address were suspiciously omitted. To you, there is perhaps never enough information in an article if you percive something “Japanese” to be on the defensive.
Thirdly, I don’t know much about general practice of Japanese companies.
LMAO – Are you fortunate enough to not have to work? Or do you live in a remote cave?
How can somebody claim “This is a fairly typical discriminatory and backwards Japanese office behavior without comparison?
A wrong guess. Stay on the topic. And if you want to talk about me, come to my blog. Here, all you need to do is to quote some sentences from the article to back up your claim.
Stupid and uncivilized question/statement.
How can somebody claim “This is a fairly typical discriminatory and backwards Japanese office behavior without comparison?
By reading article and noting similarities to own observations. As I stated clearly.
Stay on the topic.
Please consider taking your own advise occasionally. A US court case has nothing to do with this. Nor does Nomura have anything to specifically “study” or learn from the US. They are doing just fine in RoW outside japan.
Stupid and uncivilized question/statement.
….unfortunately the only reasonable response to one who feigns naiive ignorance of standard, often-discussed, much blogged about and debated office practices in their own home country.
Backward means behind others in progress or development:it presuppose others. When you said it, you were supposed to have a comparison in mind. So what did you have mind when you said “backward”?
And “typical” means of a representative specimen; characteristic or distinctive. You need to back up your “opinion”.
I stayed on the topic some orientalists started.
Back up your claim with sources. And don’t assume everyone share your orientalist assumption.
In any case, the fact remains that your response was stupid and uncivilized,
“It means that the judge thinks it has been a long-established custom.And it also probably shows that though it has come to be considered as wrong or misguided, the practice still exists to some extent in the U.S.”
This is your interpretation of what the judge thinks, right? Well, no doubt the judge is aware, as I noted earlier, that this is the earlier established custom. And it has come to be considered as “wrong or misguided,” which, if we can use a major company like Nomura as an example, is unlike the Japanese situation. And if the practice does exist in the US, it exists illegally and there are legal methods for dealing with it, and that are used for such. This is not to claim that every Japanese company does this, or that no company in the US would try to get away with it.
Backward means behind others in progress or development:it presuppose others. When you said it, you were supposed to have a comparison in mind. So what did you have mind when you said “backward”?
In this case, anyplace in rest of industrial world (RoIW) ex-Japan where Nomura maintains banking offices. Could Nomura pull same stunt in article in those offices without losing talent and business and/or incurring serious legal repercussions – plus of course igniting accusations of backwardness and anachronism? Answer: certainly not. Nor would Nomura be silly enough attempt such. They neednt “study” anything in the US (assuming your idea that something in the US is somehow relevant to this, which it is not).
I stayed on the topic some orientalists started.
Interesting that you commonly decry “arrogant” comments but you have the arrogance to assign obtuse, head-scratching labels to specific Japan Probe commenters without providing anything to back up your “opinion” (in your own words). What exactly is an “orientalist”? Is this a new cult in Japan? And which specific commenters above are the “orientalists” (whatever that means) do you feel the need to downplay on this topic – even though you claim you “don’t know much about general practice of Japanese companies”?
Back up your claim with sources.
I have already commented on closly related topics from my own personal observations and second hand info from friends + family members re this issue on earlier Japan Probe threads. Threads in which someone named “ponta” participated to generally downplay the veracity of such sources and comments thereabout. As noted by myself and several others on these threads, your constant repeated demand for “sources”, then subsequently dismissing the sources as “orientalist” propaganda or similar is tiresome and demonstrates non-seriousness.
And don’t assume everyone share your orientalist assumption.
Even allowing your use of “orientalist” to mean something other than “disagrees with ponta personally on japan topics” – I certainly would never assume that. In fact I assume the opposite.
The Overthinker
I agree. My argument is not that since it exists in the U.S. or in Japan it is justified.Rather my argument is directed toward an orientalist discourse.
leitmotiv
Here is your relevant comment you made.
Here you are making a sweep generalization on Japanese office behavior towards women and making a negative evaluation on it in comparison with others.
I am asking, in contrasting this “typical backward Japanese” behavior , which others do you have in mind?
Could you just specify which statement do you want me to back up?
I am sick and tired of your ad hominem attack, Do you want me to quote such comments of yours to back up the claim?
An orientalist is a person who specializes in oriental subjects, but in this particular context I mean a person who claims to know orientals, in this case, Japanese, without checking diversities,a person who engages in a discourse which reconstitutes the East, (in this case Japan) , using preconceptions and assumption, deforming people that actually exist. a person who make a superficial appropriation of multiple and distinctive others into the broad schema of the superior West pitted against the inferior East.
Of course I know some cases, perhaps I know much more cases than you know and I know the diversities, but I don’t know so much that I can say this is, or is not a typical instance.
Is that all despite your claim that this is “often-discussed, much blogged about and debated office practices”?
I don’t remember I dismissed the source as “orientalist” or similar. Could you quote some? Or are you just falsely claiming it to demonize me?
Hmmm,Interesting. After all you knew my usage of “orientalist” and still asked what it is? Or do you just assume the opposite of what you don’t know it means?
“Or are you just falsely claiming it to demonize me?”
Ponta, false claims to demonize others are your stock in trade. I’m not surprised to see your hypocrisy in levelling the accusation at others. Your bad faith is quite striking.
From the Japanese government:
始業時のお茶出しなど、従来はややもすれば女性職員に期待されることが多かった慣行、その他の男女役割固定化につながる慣行は廃止する。
This is the Ministry of the Environment’s own efforts to promote sexual equality.
Poking around for some figures, and not finding any, what strikes me most is how much there is about “my company wants to make me [a woman] serve the tea, but I don’t want to be treated that way” or mentions that it is the traditional method but is something that should be stopped in this age of gender equality. Not having the faintest idea how often visitors to US companies are served drinks, I cannot compare, but the key thing is that there is a definite change taking place. In other words, Japan may be behind the US in this area, but is changing.
These stats are a decade old, but:
(http://www.hindu.com/businessline/praxis/pr0204/02040060.htm)
…1998 Fortune 500 survey, which found that while women hold 40 per cent of all management positions in America
…women CEOs in Japan are still very rare. Women headed 60,593 firms in June 1999, just 5 per cent of the country’s 1.14 million companies.
Now, “management positions” and “headed” are perhaps not the same, so make of that what you will. However: “”Unlike female leaders on the career track in western nations, a majority of Japanese women are heading family-type firms,” a spokesman of the Teikoku Data Bank, Japan’s largest credit research agency, said.”
Here Japan rates 91st:
http://www.weforum.org/pdf/gendergap/rankings2007.pdf
The only countries below Japan, aside from Korea, are African and Arab countries.
Overthinker
As for the gender gap,we talked about it on
“Japan drops in global gender gap rankings: now 98th”
http://www.japanprobe.com/?p=7210
“Nightclub hostesses make more money than office ladies”
http://www.japanprobe.com/?p=6612
Harry
Harry , if you wanted to talk about me or if you just wanted to call names, I told you to come to my blog.
Every time I talked with you, I gave you an opportunity to make an rebuttal , but every time, you just left. Does that count as demonizing you?
http://www.japanprobe.com/?p=10840
ハリーさん、やにわに、ぴょこっと出てきて野次飛ばして、また去ってしまうようなことを繰り返していないで、しっかり、議論を尽くしましょう。
if you wanted to talk about me or if you just wanted to call names
You mean call names like “Japan hater” or “believer that, multilaterally, all things Japanese are self-evidently inferior” (aka “orientalist” by your definition)?
“Or are you just falsely claiming it to demonize me?”
Why would I even attempt such when you do such an unbeatable job of it yourself?
BTW – Our weekly Orientalist support group met earlier today and have asked me to request you to stop avoiding earlier direct question and specify which commenters on this very thread you accuse as being Orientalists when you “stayed on the topic some orientalists started.”(@2009-08-01 23:23:57)
I think they just want to see if they are good enough at orientalism to be on your list or not. Please let us know.
Sorry ponta – I honestly respect you in narrow sense for jamming here (mostly) in english, which is challenging. But you appear to have a serious japan-is-victim bee in your bonnet that is lending a farcical quality to your comments – which are often blatant obfuscations. I suggest developing some perspective and grow thicker skin. (But I appreciate you’re recent avoiding of irrelevant mention of a certain hokkaido resident….)
leitmotiv
No. leitmotiv
Illogical statement. To make this assertion,you need to show I do such a job and you don’t do such a job. Just quote some from my comments instead of keeping making baseless accusations. IMO, it is letimotive who are doing such a job.
You are wasting time, doing unbeatable jobs as mentioned above.
I told you if you wanted to talk about me, just come to my blog.
野次馬ハリーさんもよろしければどうぞ。
http://pontasmemorandum.blogspot.com/
You statement
coupled with statements such as ,
make me suspect you hold the orientalist attitude because you tend to ignore diversity, overgeneralize from your personal anecdote and pity your fictionalized typical uniform Japanese. Tell your Orientalist support group that that is your problem..
@ponta
No. leitmotiv
“No”? Just “no”? No supporting documentation or logic for whatever you are saying “no” to? Does it mean you dont call names? Unbelievable.
Illogical statement. To make this assertion,you need to show I do such a job and you don’t do such a job. Just quote some from my comments instead of keeping making baseless accusations. IMO, it is letimotive who are doing such a job.
My opinion is illogical? Please take a moment to look up the word “logical”/”illogical”. Moreover, I have to prove with “logic” my opinions, but you can just jot down “IMO” to support your opinions? Be sure to look up “hypocrite” while you have the dictionary open.
You are wasting time, doing unbeatable jobs as mentioned above. I told you if you wanted to talk about me, just come to my blog.
I note your blog has 1 (one) entry for all of 2009 – in April. A real raging party over there discussing “topics related to ponta”, eh? I’ve said it before, your real viral marketing value is driving click traffic to the blog of a certain Hokkaido resident (who will remain nameless). Maybe ask him to add a link to your site…?
make me suspect you hold the orientalist attitude because you tend to ignore diversity, overgeneralize from your personal anecdote and pity your fictionalized typical uniform Japanese.
“Suspect?” No you are 110% sure. Or are you backing off now? You were so convinced before with your name-calling and accusations that you fling on this thread and several previous. My personal observations that I have posted here on these specific topics have proven all of that to you. Deshou? But maybe you are right….Perhaps what I see day-to-day with my own eyes in several different japanese companies is merely “fictionalized” and cannot represent any portion of reality? Shall I have my eyesight checked perhaps? Shall I inform Japanese colleagues and family members, who also decry these “fictionalized” facets of work life in Japan (and initially pointed them out to me before I arrived in japan), that an omniscient being named ponta has determined them to be some sort of “Japan hater” or “Japan disliker” or, at least, “Assumer that all Japanese things are inferior”? i.e., your definition of an “orientalist”?
Wow, when you become prime minister, theres going to be some serious book-burning parties, huh?
I stongly suggest you reserve comments for when you have something meaningful to say, or perhaps for when the Japan Probe thread tag is something appropriate, like “surreal art” or “clowns”.
more @ ponta
Its really instructive that you make a career of telling others what must be substantiated, to what degree, and to “stay on-topic” – this while you simultaneously go on and on “off-topic” about a random court case in the US and whether its conceivable that some women dont have to serve tea in japanese offices. Meanwile, the actual topic – which is business strategy of Nomura apparently being stifled by inflexible anachronistic attitudes toward gender roles in Japan HQ (nothing to do with narrow topic of whether men also serve tea in some places, nothing to do with random US court case) goes on, where I and others have commented extensively with some context. Such comments may be right or wrong, but you have steadfastly ignored context comments in this case and opted to accusations, name-calling, and general attempts to refocus discussions onto narrow, irrelevant, and disconnected topics – with constant tedious demands for “evidence”, “proof”, or “logic” for those which dont accomodate your view. Please look this up…its called OBFUSCATION.
You missed the comment I made after that.
You are finally right, about my being right.
Perhaps your eyesight is okay, but your orientalist attitude is not.
I don’t deny there is such a facet just as you wouldn’t deny there is a facet in which sexist attitude exists at the office in the U.S. What I am calling into question is that such a facet represents Japanese office behavior or the U.S. office behavior.
Don’t put words in my mouth.
Hmmm。a very interesting reaction. (^_-)
I sort of like it when you get emotional.
Anyway I strongly suggest you to start dialouge with various Japanese in Japanese if you intend to keep living in Japanese society. Otherwise your complain will get you nowhere and you will just be the frog in the well as ever. (And as a side effect, perhaps some Japanese will realize that it is a myth that every oubeijin is educated to be a good debater.)
It is leitmotiv who went off the the topic and started stating typical backward Japanese office behavior.
And perhaps you are reading too much from your personal experiences into this article.
BTW say hello to your Hokkaido resident boss.(^_-)
“What I am calling into question is that such a facet represents Japanese office behavior or the U.S. office behavior.”
Right, if you two kiddies can stop the name-calling for two seconds, we can focus on this. The real question is, is the image of the Japanese female office worker as little more than decoration to serve tea and make photocopies just an out-of-date Western myth, or does it still have some basis in fact, and if so, to what extent?
Now, given that this image is not restricted to Western views of Japan, but is prevalent in Japanese views of Japan as well, I think it is fair to claim that this facet represents Japanese office behaviour at least to a greater extent than US office behaviour. Things may be changing, it may not be at every company, but so far there has been a lack of sources quoted and a lot of insults, mainly about who is being “Orientalist” in the Edward Said definition of the term. or something like it.
The peculiar definition offered above for that term has little in common with that of E. Said, who actually considered words he used. I dont know where it comes from honestly – best guess is its an amalgamation of wikipedia entries, right-wing literature, some sloppy Japanese-English dictionary usage, and topped with a hint of inferiority complex.
I don’t know, overthinker.
Do you think the Japanese female researchers in the companies are little more than decoration to serve tea and make photocopies?
The other day, after this topic popped up, I asked an women in her 60″s whether she was educated to serve tea at the company. She used to work at the clothing industry、She said no. Another women who used to work at JRA said she didn’t. They served tea themselves. I asked the same question to still other woman in her 30″s who works at JT . Her answer was also no. I don’t think female teachers are supposed to serve tea to the principal
My guess is that secretaries serve tea to the boss and the guests and there are some companies where the bosses are lucky enough to have tea served and documents copied by female workers. And it also depends on his/her status in the company rather than gender.
Now if the question is whether Japanese women are expected to pursue their career in the same way men do. by and large the answer is no. A lot of women quit job after they get married or after they gave birth. But nowadays, woman cannot be afford to be housewives, so many of them do part time job like a store clerk and a care worker. Are they expected to serve tea to the boss? No. The just do their job and leave to home.
Is there gender gap? —Obviously yes.
Is there sex discrimination in employment and in payment?—Unfortunately yes.
As for the use of the word, “orientalist” I think it fits to describe a person who tends to ignore diversities, generalize from his/her anecdote, using preconceptions, and describe it as “backward” in contrast with developed countries which are somehow another name for the West. If someone does not want to be so called, just be more careful. That is all there is to it.
leitmotiv
It mainly comes from the section on Said on the book called “understanding postcolonialism by Jane Hideleston.
So your guess is wrong—again.
“Do you think the Japanese female researchers in the companies”
Well, you see, that’s the problem. I find discussions based on “what we think” even less fruitful than those based on anecdotes. What are the stats? Hard facts are the only way this topic will ever get anywhere.
1. Do all women serve tea? (No) Do a statistically significant majority of them serve tea rather than men?
2. Do younger women / newly emploed women serve tea?
3. Do younger men / newly employed men serve tea?
4. What are the social and corporate pressures or expectations on young women in the workplace?
These are (some of) the questions that need to be given fact-based answers. Govt. stats and research papers must have some answers, but in the little I have looked, I have not found anything very useful. So while I may not be of much use in finding facts, hopefully I can try and steer this little conversation away from pure mud-slinging.
(It’s often said that arguing on the internet is like competing in the Special Olympics: even if you win, you’re still retarded. But in fact it’s even worse, as there are no judges and no prizes….)
The Overthinker
I agree.
And this is a very complex issue.
For instance, are young women pressured to quite job after marriage, or are they willing to quit job after the marriage, or do they just internalize the social norm and and act on it as if they acted on their own will, if so, is it justified? should we discourage women to pursue traditional roles? etc..
And if someone wants to claim Japan is backward in this respect, we need the stats of other countries as well and examined them from various perspectives.
But my opinion is that since it is a fact that there is sex discrimination in employment etc,. it is more productive to discuss how to prevent some companies and graduate schools from hesitating to employ talented women who want to pursue their career just as men.
In any case, in my view, most Japanese don’t really care whether women serve tea or not, though some people consider women who serve tea voluntarily as 気が利く(thoughtful)
Incidentally I looked up the word in a dictionary I’ve found the following.
To some extent, there are elements of the truth in the rest of her essay.
There are various cases and various opinions.
お茶くみは当然女性の仕事？
http://detail.chiebukuro.yahoo.co.jp/qa/question_detail/q1410344914
お茶くみはオンナの仕事？
http://www5.nkansai.ne.jp/users/drk/mayu/otya.html
There are various cases and various opinions.
I agree:
http://wrt-intertext.syr.edu/vi/forrest.html
But which ones can be described as typical? If one again and again sees and hears of situations that are consistent with OL scenario described in link – and sees and hears almost no cases refuting it – what should one think?
leitmotiv
The essay you linked does not say women are taught how to serve tea at the office. That is our topic, and that is the behavior you describe as typical and backward Japanese office behavior.
Let’s read what Japanese people say about serving tea at the office from my links.
Orientalists tend to ignore the voices of the natives.
Kimura observes that Japanese men go off and serve themselves.
Yahoo Answer.お茶くみは当然女性の仕事？
I used to serve tea to the customers, One day the boss said it is your job. Is serving tea a part of female worker’s job?
dontthinkjustfeelitさん says it depends on the customer. If the customer prefer a woman to a man then a woman should serve tea.
green_grossular_garnetさん says she goes off and serve tea to the customer but don’t serve tea to the boss and coworkers.
darudaru56さん says they discussed it and decided that men and women should serve tea, but looking at the clumsy way male workers serve tea, she decided to do it herself.
risecci220さん and ccrmmkさん says serving tea is a part of our job.
mamiho3001さん says there are workplaces where a subordinate, male or a female, serve tea and there are other places where women serve tea.
azu9212さん says it might be the boss feels happier when served tea by a woman rather than a man.
k_yoshi1952さん says if it is a part of your contract, it is your job. Might be better be served tea by a woman than by a man who are poor at serving tea.
o_p_andersonさん says if it is a part of your job, you should work on it just as other jobs.
kocauxoさん says serving tea, cleaning the office, photocopying a document are also parts of our job,especially when the company is small.
takuya_721113さん if the boss says it is your job, it is your job.
love_misatoさん says your boss is insensitive. At my office, subordinates, male or female, take turns to serve tea to the boss in the morning, That is the only time we server tea.
hijyosyudanさん says in Japan it is a custom for women to serve tea.
Is serving tea woman’s job?
お茶くみはオンナの仕事？
■ in a showroom for a new car, male workers serve tea.
At the office I used to work, we took turns, later it so happened that we make our own tea. Still later, the machine served tea.
◆It is odd that a women should serve tea. But many women share the idea.
■In my station there are two women. either of us serve tea. Male workers have to work at the holiday, We don’t. That is a good deal.
◆Every worker should make his/her own tea.
■At the other office I like, the boss hasn’t let women serve tea for 10 years..But he is hard on women as much as men.
etc.
leitmotiv,
I doubt if you can read Japanese.
Tell me, can you read Japanese?
And are you asking the question after reading these?
Now after all this comments by Japanese people, we still don’t know how it is working in practice in Japan and in U.S., do we?
Tell me which ones can be described as typical and on what facts you claimed it was backward.
You are exactly ignoring diversities, generalizing from your anecdote without checking facts, using preconceptions, describing it as backward.
It is safe to say you ARE an Orientalist.
Now let’s get back to the essay you gave.
The first part of Jean Forrest’s essay is a mostly speculation based on shallow understanding on history of Japanese women.
As the essay in my link says ”
the image of Yamato nadeshiko is not one that has existed since the beginning of Japanese history, but rather one that has been created in modern times.”
The rest of it says
(1)Young women showed no enthusiasm to move ahead, or to be in a position of more power and responsibility
(2)The pressure is intense to get married
(3) Not only do women who want to have a career have to fight the male dominated system, but she also has to contend with the majority of women who do not understand why she would choose a career instead of a family,
I think we can sum them up as saying social pressure from men as well as women exists for a woman to take a traditional female role. So far I can agree to some extent.
The author continues.
Do you remember I once introduced the book ”Japan made in Japan”on the thread under “Nightclub hostesses make more money than office ladies”, in which a journalist and a feminist and anthropologist and such discuss the distortions of Japanese by English media.
http://www.ezipangu.org/japanese/navigation_j/nihonjin/emedia.html
Did you read that?
Charles Burressm a journalist, writes
Matt Thorn, an anthropologist, says,
Some people seem to love using the word “backward” but I am not yet to see how they have measured it.
”Japan made in Japan ”→”Japan Made in U.S.A.”
@ ponta
The essay you linked does not say women are taught how to serve tea at the office. That is our topic…
There you go with obfuscation again. The narrow topic of “being taught tea serving” is not the issue. Nor is it the reason I posted the link above. The link above is a scenario (specifically for OLs) that is representative of the issues that I called typical discriminatory behavior in Japan workplace that I have seen personally, and too often. Her analysis on history of gender relations in JPN may or may not be shallow in your subjective opinion. I dont care, as this part is clearly irrelevant to discussion – which is your outrage at my observation.
For your own links about tea service to be relevant I would have written “Being taught to serve tea is a fairly typical discriminatory and backwards Japanese office behavior towards women.” But I did not. Nor do I believe such. Hell, I and my male colleagues also serve plenty of tea.
I understood your links just fine. But – to your apparent dissatisfaction – I did not reply “Thank you ponta – I have seen the error of my orientalist ways now because you have shown me YAHOO Answer comments and blogs of true native japanese peole’s opinion in their own language about tea service which I have – until now – ignored.” (Is that what you expect?) As noted above, the topic by itself is irrelevant and a straw man argument that is easy to refute. Moreover, I have mentioned already that my opinions, which I set forth (and which upset your “orientalism” sensibilities) have basis on my significant contact with Japanese people, including family members. I feel no need to reiterate it here – I just note your silliness in continuing to insist that I somehow “ignore voices of natives”. I do no such thing.
Try again.
Here, to help you, I’ll even spell out your target again – with less ambiguity so you can re-focus your righteous indignation. I noted that the Nomura article is not surprising in that it highlights (at Nomura’s cost) some entrenched assumptions of gender roles in Japan corporate workplace that are – IMO – (1) not commensurate (to astonishing extent) with 2009 global POV for advanced and wealthy nation like Japan and (2) not commensurate with 2009 POV of many Japanese (minimally, those of the plaintiffs in article). i.e., in large part, men are hired with the understanding of opportunities for management-track promotion; the majority of women are hired to serve tea, file documents, serve tea, make copies for the men, serve tea, endless photocopy, answer the phones, serve tea, and wash up the dishes from serving tea – with little or no expectation to advance in responsibility, regardless of ability. I say this because my own observations of many Japanese workplaces are almost exclusively consistent with the entrenched assumptions of gender role apparently on display in the article – as well as in the link describing one account of OL life I provided.
@ leitmotiv
That is the title of the thread, and that is what most people here are talking about.And this is the context where your comment 2009-07-30 18:41:27 was made.
Look at Sam 2009-07-30 15:33:19 /Karina 2009-07-30 15:58:36 Haf
2009-07-30 17:53:45/Stereo 2009-07-30 16:15:59/M
2009-07-31 03:06:17/Nor-Cal Nikkei2009-07-31 13:42:40/etc.,
They all mention serving tea.
DC 2009-07-31 12:33:34 mentioned American corporate and social etiquette, And I and overthinker have been talking about serving tea.
Vox24 2009-07-30 19:46:58 also talked about serving tea, And you responded to it.
leitmotiv 2009-07-31 17:18:08 says “There is obvious gender discrimination described in the article,” And the article says
“The women, ・・・・・ were taught how to wear their hair, serve tea and choose their wardrobes according to the season,
Now who is obfuscating?
So do you read Japanese?
Provided what the woman said is true and that male worker were not taught how to serve tea. I agree.
But we have no comment on them from Nomura’s side, that’s why I said you were reading too much into the article.
And that is not what you said.
You said, “This is a fairly typical discriminatory and backwards Japanese office behavior towards women.”Here it is natural to interpret it as comparing it with other countries, and your citing the essay, without a reservation , that says “It seems that Japan is 30 years behind in the Western feminist movement,” reinforces my interpretation.
Partially true but things are not so simple as you seem to assume.
There are cases where women are discriminated at the time of employment. I had a chat with a middle-aged businessman and asked if he hesitated to hire women and if so why. He said “yes” and explained that a maternity leave cost the company a lot. (BTW that was gaishikei company, and that is a gender discrimination.)
On the other hand, as I told you before, I know women with high rank in a company. They have no time to serve tea, make copies etc. And they are encouraged to do their job as men. They have male and female subordinates.
And some company hire women as a receptionist or a general clerk. Serving tea, and making copies are parts of their job.
FYI
雇用における男女差別
http://www.tuins.ac.jp/jm/kokusai/0502sotsuron/0502sotsuron/kaya04.htm
As for the promotion for business people who are assigned the same job, i suspect there are some discrimination.
But the facts are more complex than you seem to assume.
Traditionally, for instance, a nurse has been woman’s job. I think they get promoted equally as men. Probably the same goes for a flight attendant, a caregiver, etc and Civil-Service employees are relatively free from discrimination.
So it is inaccurate to say that “the majority of women are hired, with little or no expectation to advance in responsibility, regardless of ability”
But of course there are other types of companies which hire men and women.
One of the problems, as the author in the essay you linked says, is that there are women who think they are supposed to quit job or they show no enthusiasm to move ahead.
Some women are willing to quit job after they get married.
There is an even word for it.”寿退社”
http://oshiete1.goo.ne.jp/qa1937351.html
Others may quit because there are some sort of social pressure.
And I am sure there are women who are willing to keep working and get promoted as men but discriminated and consequently paid less.
FYI
男女間の賃金格差レポート
http://www.mhlw.go.jp/bunya/koyoukintou/seisaku09/pdf/01.pdf
To sum up,
You revised your orientalist comment so that you might escape criticism.(That is okay as long as you will be more careful in the future.) But even in the revised version, you leave out the diversities, and disregard historical and cultural conditions.
The development of Orientalism embodies a ‘textual attitude’、which means that the discourse of Orientalism relies on images of the East and its inhabitants that are not derived from empirical evidence or experience but from other books.(before you wrongly guess, it is from “Edward Said: A Critical Introduction by Valerie Kennedy”)
Besides, as I quoted before,” …cultures …appear unified only to the synoptic gaze of colonizer, tourist essentialist theorist.”You look at the cases through the prism of your prejudice and ” and you see uniformity, you pick up some anecdotes and jump to the conclusion and consider it “typical” and evaluate it as “backward” and “discriminatory”.
The revised version is better in this respect, though.
I sincerely hope men and women will be free from social prejudice and pressure so that they can choose whatever they want and evaluated on the basis of merit, not by gender. And more and more women are getting married late because they think the marriage somehow get in the way of their career.
English media tend to look on the getting married late as reflecting the declining appeal of marriage especially among women as if to say they were victims of Japanese male-dominated society, but that is not entirely true. The unmarried rate has increased more among men than among women, and 87% of men and 90 % of women have intention to marry. Men hesitate to marry because they don’t think they have sufficient enough income to support family .
http://www8.cao.go.jp/shoushi/whitepaper/w-2007/19pdfhonpen/pdf/j1010200.pdf
One of the solutions would be to provide inexpensive day-care centers so that married men and woman can work while leaving the child.
Things are changing.
But it is also true there are still women who want to get married and quit job and take a traditional role or a role that is consistent with a traditional role to adopt the changing economic, cultural situations. I think we can’t simply blame them, saying they are backward, they are victims of discrimination. We also should listen to their voices.
Things are changing.
At an embarrasingly slow pace for advanced and #2 ranked world economy, sure. I agree.
But it is also true there are still women who want to get married and quit job and take a traditional role or a role that is consistent with a traditional role to adopt the changing economic, cultural situations. I think we can’t simply blame them, saying they are backward, they are victims of discrimination. We also should listen to their voices.
I have never implied that such people are victims etc. Such people exist in US/EU/RoIW too. What would one learn from “listening to their voices” about lack of opportunities for other women who DO want more equality in workplace and have perhaps have more ambitions goals in workplace? Pls explain.
Some more orientalist propaganda for your analysis: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article6788036.ece
— One of the longest-running discrimination cases in Japan concerns six women graduates. They were forced to work as secretaries and watch as men who joined the company at the same time with the same backgrounds went on to become managers. The case has run for 14 years
— Shintaro Ishihara, the Governor of Tokyo, once told a women’s magazine that women who had lived beyond their ability to produce children were of no use to society
— There are no female chief executives of Japan’s largest 225 companies listed in the Nikkei Index
— In one case of workplace discrimination in Japan it was found that a woman would have to work for 32 years at the same company to earn the same as a man who had been there for six years — if the two did exactly the same job
— Only 9.4 per cent of parliamentary seats are held by women — ranking Japan 131st in political participation out of 189 countries
— Only 2.5 per cent of professorial posts in science departments across national universities were occupied by women
This is a fairly typical discriminatory and backwards Japanese office behavior towards women. I have seen variations of this too often. Sad to see in 2009.
In my office, the women – all of whom have degrees – have been called on to serve tea when the situation arises. Happens once a fortnight or so.
On the other hand, the men get the call at 11:00pm saying “we’re getting a lot of snow tonight, it’s your turn to come in at 6 and shovel, see you then”. We’re in Hokkaido, so it’s everyone’s turn once a week from December to April. Plus, the men tend to put in a lot more overtime, get sent on a lot more time-consuming calls to clients in neighboring towns, and are first against the wall when it comes time to hand out short notice transfers to other cities.
Don’t want to make the tea? Great. Lock up when you leave tonight, the snow shovels are in the shed ’round back, and don’t forget that the light over the bike rack needs replacing. Ladder is in the shed, bulbs are in the supply closet. Make sure you get that light bulb tonight, because we’ll need you to commute between here and Osaka for the next six months. You start Monday.
I’ll make the tea while you’re gone.
Fair call, but do the women get the choice? (Do the men?)
Choice?
Technically, yes. We all have the choice.
Theoretically.
But in reality, no. None of us do. I don’t have the choice to not go in and shovel snow because it’s outside my job description and so on, because it’s outside everyone’s job description.
If I can’t – or won’t – then someone else will have to pick up the slack. Which means doing double next week OR looking like a self-absorbed bastard who is content to stick everyone else with the dirty work.
So yes, I have a choice. Women in the office have a similar choice, ultimately with similar repercussions.
It’s a job that needs to be done. It’s a standard part of doing business in this country.
Don’t want to make the tea? Great. Lock up when you leave tonight, the snow shovels are in the shed ’round back, and don’t forget that the light over the bike rack needs replacing.
Or maybe there is a legitimate complaint in even in your specific case for your female (and male) colleagues and blame can be put squarely on your employer who is too cheap or too unenlightened to hire typical building maintainence services.
I asked him about that last winter, while we were shoveling together. He mentioned that despite the bad economy (we got hit pretty hard from November onward), we had enough cash banked to pay the end of year bonuses AND avoid laying anyone off.
Fair trade, as far as I’m concerned. Look after the company, and the company looks after you.
I’d rather shovel snow than pour tea, but I’m used to shoveling snow…
Well that may be your personal POV at a small-potatoes employer situated in some far-flung icy tundra. Is it possible that your personal observations about your female colleagues job description are therefor not terribly relevant to the complaint in the article – which is about gender discrimination in the workplace of a major international banking institution? My guess is Nomura would hire snow shovelers if needed but still expect tea service and married name email addresses of female financial professionals.
And they would expect 13-hour days from their young male recruits. A young man refusing to do unpaid overtime would suffer about the same fate as a young woman who refused to do those “demeaning” OL tasks. At least the OLs get to go home on time ahd have personal lives.
Do they really get to go home on time?
hl > OL type staff usually do NO zangyou at all, and nobody expect them to do some…
The comment about OLs belongs on some other thread. There is no mention of that issue in the article. It can be clearly inferred that they are mid-career financial professionals suffering gender discrimination. None of the above misguided bloviations about snow removal, nails being pounded, western culteral imperialism, or 13 hour days of office recruits can in any way disguise or excuse that fact.
What gender discrimination?
There is no detail in the article as to what the men were trained in to reference against the womens training. Maybe the men were also trained to ’serve tea’? (Which frequently happens when I visit clients across Japan).
WIthout that reference, it is ‘assumed’ gender discrimination.
Now you are just being willfully ignorant. There is obvious gender discrimination described in the article, a persistant type that is still on display widely in Japan workplaces. The article is an article not simply because of gender discrimination, but because of the irony of Nomura going to enormous efforts to retain the talent from Lehman acquisition, yet still being too inflexible to take an obvious and small steps towards harmonizing the workplace re female workers with the rest of the world. Note that this is the same Nomura that scores pretty well on these topics in their EU and US offices. Just not in their offices located in the time warp that is Japan. Considering that Nomura set aside ~$2B for pay packages specifically to retain Lehman workers from running, and Nomura’s boss at the time made a lot of loud statements about this acquisition “transforming” Nomura into a real global player, this seems a bit bone-headed.
But I’m sure none of that makes sense to you and you will keep you head stuck in the sand and murmuring to yourself about nails being pounded or evil western values or some other lame chestnut until you specifically read an article that male Lehman/Nomura financial professionals were specifically NOT instructed in tea service or some such.
Is she a Japanese?
how did their patrnts educate her?
How did they do when the guest came to her house?
they seeved Suntry Boss?
I found the WSJ article in its entirety printed here:
http://saltocean.blogspot.com/2009/07/wsj-nomura-stumbles-in-new-global-push.html
This link provides much more insight into the differences between Nomura and Lehman, but little to nothing about dicriminatory policies.
It highlights the differences in corporate culture and business practice…
“Lehman bankers encountered a different work culture at Nomura. One team of Nomura traders, for instance, sang a company song at morning meetings.”
… about fitting in to the team/business and working together. This is the same as not ‘dressing inapproprately’ and making people ‘feel uncomfortable’, rather than discriminatory
“Bankers from the Lehman side say they found the process of getting approval for deals in which Nomura put its capital at risk to service clients was slower and more difficult than it was at Lehman. ”
“Lehman used to categorize clients in large part according to the fees they paid. Nomura places more emphasis on other factors, such as length of the relationship.”
“Bankers from the Nomura side, on the other hand, say their new colleagues were too willing to dump loyal clients for a quick profit.”
… all the above points show a difference in business practice and perhaps point to Lehmans downfall.
“The pay packages diverged from Nomura’s usual practices. At Nomura, a division head might be paid $250,000 a year, while at Lehman, such a person might earn tens of millions of dollars”… “The pay differentials stirred resentment”.
… look discrimiantion IN FAVOUR of Lehman employees, both this and the guaranteed bonuses (wish I had one!)
I am sorry, but to me the article is more about culture clash than discimination (no mention al att about the male staffers training, so no reference point!).
What is highlighted is that Lehman staff were on a good thing (and perhaps a bit full of themselves) and ‘being taught to make tea’ was “beneath them”. What trite rubbish.
PS… James…sorry for the huge post!
This! All companies need to be like this, not just Japanese companies. Time for woman back to where they belong. LOL. I can only imagine the shit storm this would cause in America had a company tried to do this. Fucking feminists. Hahaha
Boring, sad troll is boring and sad.
Flame all you want but I’m American and even I think Japan should avoid taking on any of our ‘Western’ cultural standards that don’t mesh well with ‘traditional’ Japanese standards. If these people have a problem with the tasks they are given, maybe they shouldn’t be in Japan.
Everyone says it’s ‘backwards’, and it’s ‘discriminatory’…; No, it’s Japan and their system works. Change that system and before you know it Japan would be just like the west and, sorry folks, but that is just NOT a good thing.
If their system works so well, then why do so many Japanese want to change it? And the traditional Japanese standard is to take from outside whatever the hell works for them. These sorts of comments sound like someone with a fantasy of Exotic Japan that fails to recognise there are people living here – born and bred here – who might not be so happy with these quaint old ways. And after all the changes since 1868 (and before), just which traditions should be kept? You will find that many of the so-called “traditions” of Japan were invented to create a modern nation-state (first person to have a “traditional” Japanese marriage? Yoshihito, the future Emperor Taisho, barely a century ago).
And has anyone considered that these Harvard graduates might be Japanese Harvard graduates? Has any article actually mentioned their nationality?
Flame all you want but I’m American …..blah blah blah ….personal fantasy of exotic Japan … blah blah …..before you know it Japan would be just like the west and, sorry folks, but that is just NOT a good thing.
I’ll say it again….
HEALTH TIP: Four out of five doctors recommend Japan Probe threads for up to 110% of your recommended daily intake of self-loathing.
Note to ponta:
Is it possible that the brilliant post above
blah blah blah …Japan would be just like the west and, sorry folks, but that is just NOT a good thing.
is a commenter you might accuse of something called, by symmetrical application of your own definition, “occidentalism”? If so, is “occidentalism” also something you tirelessly hunt and extinguish in addition to “orientalism”? Just curious, and trying to be helpful.
Having to do “less qualified” job as a part of a training when entering a new company has always been common in big, traditional japanese companies. In the 80’s, young engineers entering a company like Toyota would first spend a couple of months working in a factory, doing administrative work etc. – to learn the “company spirit”, and to get familiar with the jobs of their coworkers, *yes, EVEN manual labor* – before starting to actually work as engineers.
Not sure that it would have saved GM or Chrysler, but in a human resources management point of view, I don’t think that this is a totally stupid idea. It might even teach to all these brilliants kids a little bit of humility, who knows?
I like the “she plans to leave as soon as she receives her final guaranteed bonus payment.” part, it’s deliciously cynical (but I guess that this is a normal way of thinking in the brokerage field).
Ditto RMK’s comment. My understanding is that all members of a traditional Japanese company, or any Japanese group for that matter, and particularly new members, are expected to take part in the drudgery as a matter of course. Yes, this includes Harvard graduates. The idea that the more elite newcomers should be spared the ‘demeaning’ tasks just creates more divisions in the company.
Just as Western companies in Japan have introduced business practices that have influenced modern Japanese companies, I don’t think that Nomura’s introduction of a Japanese ethic abroad is wrong.
The above comments seem misguided in that the article is not about newly recruited, inexperienced workers in the company.
Leit-
Doesn’t it say ‘training sessions for new hires’? ‘New hires’ may mean transfers from Lehman but still, they are entering a new company.
But technically, weren’t they experts in their field before being bought out by Nomura? It’s not like they’re some greenhorn newly-minted graduates. I’m assuming the women were perfectly capable of doing their jobs even while *gasp* showing a little arm or wearing their hair down.
This again might point to an old-fashioned corporate ethos in Nomura, where “new hires” usually ARE greenhorns.
I’m not sure they were ‘experts’ but they were experienced- just not in Nomura- so all new employees would get to know the Nomura ethos.
Let me rant for a second- this article (and the interviewees) seem to be trying very hard to present the “Japanese company imposes its sexist attitudes upon well-educated Americans” angle. So, the new employees were taught company etiquette, customer service (tea), and grooming. OK- You could make a statement for being too much of a nanny corporation and I personally would not respond well in such a company because I think I know how to present myself professionally. That’s a personal preference though, it’s not social or political. The implicit sexist angle seems to be grasping at straws.
In many Japanese organiztions the top brass will perform humble routines, the celebrated chef will start by dicing carrots in the kitchen with the rookies. There’s far less of that sense of entitlement involved. Not such a bad thing.
“Japanese company imposes its sexist attitudes upon well-educated Americans”
I have yet to see any evidence they were Americans. And the sexist angle is not that they were taught these things, but the very clear implication that they were separated from the men and taught these things: ie that the men were not. I agree that an arrogant sense of entitlement is a good thing to get kicked out of you, but it should be kicked out equally.
Mike you’re missing the point. Pls see my comments at 2009-07-31 17:18:08
Nomura is trying hard to retain Lehman talent following acquisition, to the point where they set aside lots of cash for incentives to that end. The professionals at Lehman were a generally a different type of banker than at Nomura, conducting a type of leveraging and risk taking business that Nomura apparently wants to do more of. It can be inferred that the plaintiffs in the article are exactly the type of professional assets that Nomura set out to acquire by purchasing the dried husk that was Lehman Asia/EU. (They didn’t do it solely for the toxic paper on their books.) They want to turn Nomura into a more serious international investment player than a conservative Japan banking services player. They shoot themselves in the foot by chasing the Lehman assets away after buying them by not taking some very simple steps to harmonizing the workplace re gender discrimination to the current century. Not even to the level of Nomura’s own offices in EU and US (which I understand do quite well in gender and racial diversity). The story here is Japan-based intractable old-boy hierarchies in Nomura HQ stifling progress (at great cost) by inability to understand post 1970s professional woman’s POV. “But This is Japan….” arguments do not apply here (or anywhere, generally).
leitmotiv, what are you talking about?
“They want to turn Nomura into a more serious international investment player than a conservative Japan banking services player.”
Nomura is not a bank. Can’t you get things straight?
“Nomura is trying hard to retain Lehman talent following acquisition”
Why should they? Those Lehman “talents” failed so miserably. What Nomura want is NOT those failed talents but their customer base. As soon as Nomura gets hold of the customers, it will kick out those good for nothing ex-Lehman employees.
Haven’t you experienced any corporate takeovers in financial industry?
Nomura is not a bank. Can’t you get things straight?
From 9 July The Economist “Nomura [has] has a huge distribution network in Japan, sees itself principally as an Asian version of Merrill Lynch. It funnels Japanese equity and debt to wealthy nationals, and does some M&A work.”
Is that precise enough for your exacting standards?
Why should they?
Um, because its the apparent intentions of Nomuras top management, as stated in the WSJ article?
“I was sent home for wearing a short-sleeve dress, even though I was wearing a jacket,” says one woman who says she plans to leave as soon as she receives her final guaranteed bonus payment.
Kind of sums them up really, “it’s so humiliating, but I’ll put up with it until I get that bonus that was in my contract.”
Money or self respect ? These people made that decision the day they opted for a job in the wonderfool world of finance, or “licking the crumbs that fall from Goldman’s table” as it is now called.
C’mon, let’s use the standard answer for everything illogical/ridiculous/stupid – ‘this is Japan’.
Leit-
I wonder how much of this might also be attributed to the fact that Nomura has weathered the financial storms reasonably well, and in fact took over the assets of some now-defunct U.S. financiers, while Lehman collapsed (in a very in-your-face way too). I can’t help but think that a “See what happens when you do it your way? Our way has proven to be more successful!” mentality might be the catalyst for this.
BTW- I assumed that this was taking place at a U.S. branch of Nomura but I may be assuming wrongly. As Overthinker overthinks, there are probably non-Americans among the staff questioning the training. And although it doesn’t mention what kind of training the men underwent, I wouldn’t be surprised to see dress and grooming among them. Tea? Who knows. I’ve had men serve me tea in Japan.
It never actually occured to me that this might NOT be Japan-based actually. I was [over]thinking this scenario:
People get expensive degrees from Harvard – these people may well be Japanese.
These people get jobs with Lehman Bros. Japan office (assuming they had one, come to think of it)
Lehman Bros collapses, chaos ensues, Hard grads et al get picked up by Nomura in Japan.
I think before we can go any further with this we really need some more actual facts.
@Mike – what you point out is valid, but the point is that Nomura set a strategy to aquire personnel precisely in order to do things (for at least part of their business) in a different, new way. AIB posted (2009-08-03 13:32:00) a link with a key comment from Nomuras boss, variations of which I have seen elsewhere in other newspapers.
According to a recent Nikkei interview with Nomura
President Kenichi Watanabe, the Nikkei concludes that
Nomura has “steered clear of Lehman’s risk-laden balance
sheet and focused instead on the financial services
company’s healthy assets — namely, its personnel.”
The point is that Nomura-Japan seems to be unable to carry out its own strategy (at great cost) to retain certain talent by not taking some simple and obvious gender equality measures that are commensurate with 2009. Even though Nomura-US and Nomura-EU apparently have no such issue.
@ Overthinker – True: the plaintiffs in the article are not expressedly mentioned to be at Japan-based offices. But the article location is “TOKYO” and its hard to imagine such events to have happened in the EU without some much more explosive outcry than a dry WSJ mention. I am reasonably confident that the gender issues in the article pertain primarily to Japan offices of Nomura.
Some Key Facts:
1. Nomura acquired Lehman’s international operations last September.
2. Nomura paid $225 million for Lehman’s Asian arm and just $2 for its European one. I assume that is two million dollars and not two dollars.
3. What Nomura bought, in large part, was 8,150 of Lehman’s employees.
4. In an effort to hang onto Lehman bankers, Nomura guaranteed their bonuses at top-of-the-market levels for up to two years. So these bonuses alone would probably pay for a house for normal folk. “Some ex-Lehman bankers say they are still nervous. The final installments of their guaranteed bonuses are due Oct. 1, and for a select few, again on March 1, 2010, they say. After that, they fear their bonuses will fall significantly.” I weep for these people, I really do. Imagine being forced to only buy the one Learjet.
5. Lehman bankers encountered a different work culture at Nomura. One team of Nomura traders, for instance, sang a company song at morning meetings.
6. Nomura Holdings Inc. has hired about 20 former Lehman bankers in New York but is laying off dozens in Tokyo.
7. In Japan, there is a large amount of overlap between Nomura and Lehman. Last month, Barclays hired about 100 former Lehman equity analysts and salespeople in Japan from Nomura.
8. Senior investment bankers from the Lehman side started to complain about their “shadows,” bankers from the Nomura side who would accompany them to client meetings and report back to other executives.
9. Nomura says that thing about email addresses was something that happened when shifting things over. Presumably it never occurred to them to ask.
Those are all the remotely pertinant facts I could get from the WSJ. The WSJ never actually came out and said where these hires were, but I am leaning at the moment to either a global or US-based (though there were only 20 in NY) hiring, despite the fact there were at least 100 former Lehmmings working for Nomura in Japan. I think if it was in Japan then that would also be mentioned.
Incidentally, if you want to read the whole article, do a search for “nomura hires lehman ” then click on the wsj link a couple down. For some reason that bypasses the login screen.
The Overthinker
It is 2 euro actually from memory, but that bought all the debt as well.
AIB: Fair enough. I have heard of such things before.
An interesting article at Japan Inc.
http://www.japaninc.com/tt488