Japan: When Being Equal Is No Fun

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Under Japan's old Confucian and Meiji codes, the role of the Japanese woman was well defined and faithfully followed: to obey her father, then her husband and finally, in old age, her sons. Even those women who make up roughly one- third of the Japanese work force have been treated as a species apart. They have been banned by law from working more than two hours of overtime in any day or, with a few exceptions, past 10 at night, and allowed monthly menstrual leave with full pay in certain strenuous jobs. All that changed last week when, after months of debate, the Diet, Japan's parliament, approved a bill providing equal employment opportunity for women.

Instead of winning acclaim, the legislation has been attacked by feminist groups protesting the relaxation of the overtime ban and limitation of the monthly days off. Even the areas of the bill that the women approve of are dismissed as unworkable because no penalties have been set for companies that violate the law. Feminists say they will try to get their views heard when the labor ministry draws up regulations for the administration of the law. Charges Tokyo Women's Rights Crusader Mitsue Yamada: "We don't gain anything whatsoever from the new law . . . from a woman's point of view, Japan is moving in the worst direction."