Friendship and Work Culture of Women Managers in Japan

Tokyo After Ten

Swee-Lin Ho

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN: 9781351597425
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Cultural & Social Anthropology
• Index: Social Sciences

Drawing on ethnographic data gathered from fieldwork spanning a 15-year period, this book offers new insights into understanding the lives and experiences of women managers in Japan. Based on empirical case studies, it explores the ways in which professional women in Tokyo creatively mobilize their friendships as a strategic site for mitigating the disappointments in their working lives, and conceptualizing new understandings of independence and equality. It analyses their use of language, time, space and money to negotiate new identities in an increasingly flexible work environment. In examining the challenges and opportunities faced by these corporate workers, this book also extends anthropological debates about the changing meaning and importance of work for women, as well as their relationship with money and separation from the realm of domesticity.

As a study of women's lives in and out of the workplace in Japan, this book will be of great interest to students and scholars of Japanese studies, Japanese culture and society, anthropology, sociology, gender and women's studies.

1 Demystifying the social world of Japanese women

When a man works and drinks, he is doing these for his family. When a woman works and drinks, she is selfish and irresponsible.

Kaneko, Wain-kurabu

Two groups of friends

The year 2015 was no less challenging than any other year for a group of 13 Japanese women with professional careers, who still refer to themselves as Wain-kurabu¹ (Wine Club) after one of them jokingly coined the name back in the 1980s. This is a group of close friends who have individually, and collectively, overcome myriads of difficulties in their working lives – especially after the demise of Japan’s bubble economy in the early 1990s – and managed to climb up the corporate ladder to become senior executives in companies of varying sizes, Japanese and foreign. Yet, despite their accomplishments, they are rarely complacent, nor would they dare take anything for granted in an increasingly flexible work environment where women’s position remains subordinate to that of men’s, and employees are being valued less for their skills or experiences, but more for being young and ‘cheap’. These women’s biggest and only hope is to be able to keep working till the statutory age of retirement at 65 years. This, however, has proved to be difficult, given that they are in their late forties and mid-fifties. Challenges and uncertainty continue to dominate their lives. The year 2015 was no different, and it was also a particularly painful one. Despite being accustomed to job-changing over the years, these women still find it disconcerting to learn that their friends have lost their jobs due to corporate restructuring, or that they have been made to accept a demotion in rank and salary reduction. Though several of these busy corporate executives have had brief periods of ill health, due to their long work hours and their stressful lifestyle, none had expected to lose a dear friend. The unexpected death of Hideko² to cancer in March that year had come as a shock to all her friends in Wain-kurabu.

Admired as a fearsome fighter who would not succumb easily to a challenge, Hideko was also known to her friends in Wain-kurabu as kind and generous. She had never turned down a request for help, and was a particularly caring mentor to the younger and less experienced women among them. Hideko’s personal struggles had inspired many. She had quit her job as assistant manager in a large Japanese firm to marry her high school sweetheart at 26 years of age, and became a sengyō shufu (full-time housewife). Her blissful marriage came to an end after Hideko had devoted four years of her life to caring for two children and attending to all household matters, leaving her high-ranking civil servant husband to assume the role of sole breadwinner. The decision to get a divorce was the result of endless fights she had had with her former husband over his repeated infidelity. She then became a divorced single parent, as her own mother also did after discovering Hideko’s father had had many lovers. Despite graduating from one of Japan’s most prestigious universities, Hideko had difficulty in finding a white-collar job with a reasonable salary. She had exited from the job market for a considerable period of time, and had returned during the economic recession in the 1990s. With four mouths to feed, Hideko quickly settled for a lowly paid, junior position as Accounts Assistant in a medium-sized American company where she worked for several years. Undaunted by a wide range of challenges, Hideko worked her way through numerous job changes to later become Senior Finance Manager in a multinational corporation. At the time of her death, she left each of her two children and her elderly mother a fully-paid apartment in Tokyo’s prime property districts.

The women in Wain-kurabu admired Hideko not only for her ability to establish a professional career or amass substantial wealth, but also for Hideko’s indomitable spirit, resoluteness and resilience. She was a role model for them, and was like them, all of whom have battled against many odds based on their own abilities, and carved out a meaningful jibunrashī seikatsu (lifestyle of one’s own choice). Hideko’s influence on keeping the bonds of the 13 friends strong over the decades made her departure acutely unbearable for the others. I was thus hardly surprised to see all 12 of these tough business executives shed tears during dinner at one of Hideko’s favourite izakayas (Japanese-style restaurants) during my visit to Tokyo in December 2015. That was the first time since I met the women in 2002 that I had ever seen them cry openly. They had – and still have – an implicit agreement among themselves to not cry in public, given the conventional view of women as emotionally weak. It would be construed as a sign of weakness, and unbecoming of independent and professional business executives as they are. Yet, despite their grief that evening, the women still exercised some restraint in expressing their sadness. Several had constantly wiped the tears that had rolled down their cheeks. A few kept apologizing each time they cried. Some others struggled to hold back their tears by cheering the others with recollections of humorous moments they had shared with Hideko. Several months had elapsed since their friend’s departure, but the atmosphere that evening had felt as though Hideko’s death had occurred days before. It was one of the most intense Wain-kurabu gatherings I had participated in, filled with vivid memories of hope, struggle and anxiety, as the women recalled how far they had come from the bubble decade in the 1980s, when they first entered the workforce and were proudly regarded as baburu no kodomotachi³ (children of the bubble), and how they had helped one another overcome a wide range of challenges to reach the upper echelons of Japanese and foreign corporations. These positive reflections were juxtaposed with regrets over the sacrifices they had made, and doubts too about whether their struggles had been worthwhile. Foremost on their minds was the question of whether Hideko could have lived longer if her life had been less intensely stressful. Knowing that some of them had had short bouts of illness due to over-exhaustion, the women were concerned that their demise would also be brought on by karoshi (death caused by overwork), as those of many Japanese white-collared workers’, and discussed a case earlier that year of a young woman’s suicide that had drawn the attention of the local media (Japan Times 2017).

The friends then recalled that evening how they had weathered many storms together over the past decades, since Wain-kurabu began in the 1980s when Toshiko, Kaneko and Mayumi were employees of a Japanese consumer electronics company. The bubble years were a time of abundance and excess, of job opportunities and money for consumption. White-collar workers – male and female – had played as hard as they had worked. None of the women could remember returning home early on weeknights. Most were out drinking and singing in karaoke bars till the wee hours of the morning, returning home for a brief nap, or to shower and change, before heading back to the office. The women managers were still out late almost every night in the early 1990s after the economic bubble had collapsed, but for a different reason. It was no longer for play, but for keeping their pay. The after-work drinking activities of the three women – Toshiko in business development, Kaneko in finance, and Mayumi in human resource management – had shifted in purpose and significance. Their informal gatherings were initially intended for the instrumental aim of relieving stress, but had gradually turned into a productive time for exchanging information about their employers’ impending insolvency, and also for sharing the extensive resources and contacts they had to help one another find a new job elsewhere.

Like Hideko, they had each graduated from a reputable university in Japan, and married a highly educated man. Unlike Hideko, the three women had continued working after marrying, or after giving birth. They had stopped briefly only for maternity leave, and could not bear the thought of becoming a sengyō shufu. To stay employed in an environment where there was a dearth of recruitment agencies, the three women decided to pool together their extensive networks and resources by meeting up regularly after work for dinner and drinks. They continued to meet regularly even after they had each moved to a different workplace. As each of them later introduced a co-worker or an acquaintance, the group gradually snowballed into a total of 13 women. No one could recall how or when the name Wain-kurabu was first coined, though everyone liked the idea of giving their group a nickname. Similarly, none of the women could remember who among them had first described them as a furendoshippu netowāku (friendship network). They grew to like the reference which seemed appropriate for them. They were a group of like-minded career women who had met through work to exchange social contacts and resources, and grown closer over time to become important friends who could offer one another the much-needed emotional support and practical advice to survive in Japan’s highly gendered work environment.

Despite several women’s fervent attempts at organizing gatherings, their ties had somewhat weakened in recent years due to their erratic work schedules and various commitments. While only three to five women would meet more frequently than the rest, all of them were in regular contact with one another via emails, text messages, Facebook and the occasional telephone calls. News of Hideko’s terminal illness had brought these friends closer again and restrengthened their bonds of friendship. Over a period of two months, each of the women in Wain-kurabu had taken turns to visit Hideko, at the hospital and in her home, on weeknights and weekends, individually and in small groups. Some spent time talking and reading to her, sharing hilarious tales about co-workers and trivial gossip about workplace politics. Many brought food, while several women who had cooked for Hideko had at times gone to great length to prepare ostentatious meals similar to those in posh, stylish restaurants. A few women had even brought musical instruments – a flute, guitar, saxophone, ukulele, violin and the Japanese samisen (a three-stringed instrument played with a plectrum called bachi) – to play and sing with Hideko. Comforting and yet chilling, these women could now have sweeter memories of their friend, and fonder reminders to appreciate the bonds of their friendship, even if the time they had shared with one another was brief.

It was a pensive evening, a meaningful bōnenkai (year-end party) gathering. All 12 women had dropped by the izakaya, despite having tight deadlines to rush at work, bōnenkai with colleagues and other friends to participate in, and preparations for the coming oshogatsu⁴ (the New Year) to attend to. As usual, several women made a quick stopover, sipping a glass or two while catching up with their friends, and leaving as briskly as they had come, back to their respective offices or homes. Though they had arrived at different times, many stayed till the last train home, while five – the author included – adjourned to two other different venues across Tokyo for nijikai (a second round), and later sanjikai (a third round), till the city’s public transportation system resumed its operations the following morning.

Two nights later, I was in the company of a separate group of 14 women managers in Tokyo who nicknamed themselves as Nomi-kai (drinking club, or drinking gathering). These business executives are not acquainted with anyone in Wain-kurabu, but they share similar experiences as women with professional careers. Though they did not lose a close friend, the year 2015 had not been a happy one either. Several women lost their jobs, prompting the others to declare 2015 a year of ‘career crisis’. The first among them was Kazumi. I remember being woken up very early one morning in February by a telephone call from Michiyo, asking if I had read an urgent email Kazumi had sent to every woman in Nomi-kai the same morning. The latter’s employer had just filed for bankruptcy, and all of the company’s several hundred employees would be jobless by the end of the month. The 51-year-old divorced single mother had implored her friends for suggestions, advice, and assistance, to help her secure a new job – permanent or temporary – as soon as possible. The sole breadwinner had to pay for the education of her child and two younger siblings, take care of her elderly mother’s medical bills, manage the mortgage of an apartment, and provide food on the table for the family of five. This was the first time the women in Nomi-kai had ever received a direct request from Kazumi. They could readily extend some financial assistance as a temporary measure until a job opportunity emerged for Kazumi, but none of them was prepared to initiate such an offer, fearing it would insult Kazumi and incur the anger of the others. As with the women in Wain-kurabu, the 14 friends in Nomi-kai have also guarded their relations with implicit rules and practices. Among these is the avoidance of material exchange, to avoid unnecessary indebtedness. They prefer instead the mutual sharing of resources, which they construe as key to maintaining egalitarian relations. Like the women in Wain-kurabu too, these intimate friends have insisted on warikan (paying an equal share) whenever they dine and drink together. Taking turns to pay for an entire evening’s expense may be widely practised in Japan as the basis for promoting long-term reciprocal relations, but these business executives interpret this conventional act of kashi kari (being indebted and repaying one’s debt) as burdensome, and as reinforcing hierarchical relations. I have seen my informants – in both Wain-kurabu and Nomi-kai – take turns to pay when they go out with co-workers, other circles of friends and acquaintances. In fact, many women would often foot the entire bill of an evening out drinking with subordinates. When in their respective groups, however, the women would insist on paying an equal share, which they perceive as a necessary, symbolic act of instilling and maintaining their relations based on equality.

Michiyo’s call was soon followed by an endless stream of email exchanges among the women in Nomi-kai. An ‘urgent video conference’ via Skype was arranged by Michiyo that evening. I learned from the lengthy conversation that Kazumi had in the 2000s turned down several of her friends’ offers of financial assistance following her divorce, and asked instead for their emotional support, advice on securing full-time employment, and information about possible positions and industries unfamiliar to her. The women agreed this time to not broach the topic of money, but to try their utmost to help their friend with the non-monetary assistance she needed. There was a flurry of activities in subsequent weeks. Emails and text messages were exchanged. Online chats and telephone calls were made, among several women, and with Kazumi. Intense discussions were held to review the usefulness of recruitment consultants and business contacts. Information was sought and shared about potential job openings. Analyses too were made on the suitability of Kazumi’s skills and experience to various vacant positions, and strategies she would need to perform well at interviews. Advice and warnings were also exchanged, about whether a workplace had unpleasant employees, difficult superiors, suitable scope of responsibilities, ample promotion prospects, or a fitting level of remuneration. Within a month, Kazumi had met with nine recruitment agents, attended more than 12 job interviews, and received two job offers. She decided on a two-year, full-time position as Finance Manager in a small European investment company. Several months later, when I visited Tokyo in December, Kazumi had moved to a large American firm to work as Financial Controller.

But the ‘career crisis’ was not limited to Kazumi’s experience alone. Weeks after receiving news about the divorced single mother’s situation, the women learned that Sumiko was also to be made redundant, along with several hundred colleagues, due to a massive downsizing of her employer’s operations across Asia. The 47-year-old was better prepared than Kazumi though, having anticipated this ahead of time, and discussed it with her friends in Nomi-kai. With the help of two women, Sumiko found herself a new job as Business Development and Strategy Manager a month after losing her old one. The new position was considerably inferior in comparison to her former title of Planning and Marketing Director, but Su...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright page
• Table of Contents
• List of illustrations
• Series editors’ preface
• Acknowledgements
• Note to the reader
• List of abbreviations
• 1 Demystifying the social world of Japanese women
• 2 Exceptional lives, extraordinary friends
• 3 Any time, any place
• 4 Strategic drinking as producers of money
• 5 Surviving without role models
• 6 A self-charted course
• Appendix A: Nomi-kai
• Appendix B: Wain-kurabu
• Appendix C: the subjects
• Appendix D: the fieldwork
• Glossary
• References
• Index