Annotated Bibliography 

First Step 1️⃣

Annotated Bibliography 

BBC News. (2023, March 8). How a Female Mayor in Tokyo Is Fighting Japan’s Sexist Attitudes. YouTube. http://youtu.be/iuhah9HzJJA?si=DIEcbk-jsEmaSTLI

Although this source mainly talks about women in politics, it touches on business, incorporates data, and reflects gender roles in business as the overall view on women is currently being challenged. The first female mayor of an area talks about her experience in politics and how she had a hard time because of her position as a woman but fights for equality. Her position as a politician is diminished because people don't see her as a leader due to her young age and gender. Apart from business, female representation in politics is said to be about 2%, which is low, impacting the potential of more women in business. This source is important to incorporate into my article because it gives insight into how politics can have an impact on businesses in Japan because of the low female representation. Because not even women can earn such a role or feel as though they can not earn it, it reflects into the business sector and how more women are not in positions of power. At the end of the video, it does talk about how a group of women are trying to speak up and fight against misogyny by talking about their experience with harassment, hopefully creating discussions. 

Belarmino, M., & Roberts, M. R. (2019, August). Japanese gender role expectations and attitudes: - proquest. Japanese Gender Role Expectations and Attitudes: A Qualitative Analysis of Gender Inequality . https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/japanese-gender-role-expectations-attitudes/docview/2292914119/se-2

This article incorporates multiple viewpoints on certain topics regarding gender roles in Japan (mainly women's roles). They performed interviews asking fourteen questions to participants regarding their thoughts as to being a Japanese woman if they had one role in society, and different roles as a woman in Japan. The interviews, spoken in Japanese and then translated into English, showed how women believe that their role and job is to care for and birth children as they are inferior to men. The results also were sectioned into different subjects such as Employment Expectations and Intimate Partner Expectations where much of the responses to the questions showed how women believe they need to act and dress a certain way to attain their gender role. This article works with my research paper as it has data from other women in Japanese society who give input to their beliefs on women's role in Japan. It helps put a perspective on how traditional gender roles still play a part in today's world and the workforce. 

Crabtree , C., & Muroga, K. (2021, November 8). Measuring gender role attitudes in Japan - sage journals. Measuring Gender Role Attitudes in Japan. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/23780231211057719

This article focuses on the quantitative data of women's role in Japan by asking 2,389 Japanese men and women their opinions on different aspects of women in society. Based on the results, both parties view women as having the traditional role but men have stronger traditional views. The majority of the questions had the average answer falling under the Agree category for questions like whether the happiness of a woman corresponds with their marital and family situation or whether they should focus on finding a partner rather than pursuing education.  This data pushes my thesis toward the gender roles in Japan and how everyone's perspective correlates to the public view on women in Business by the general preference for traditional roles. The overall agreement for each question goes to show that the shared belief would be enforced by society which would limit women's potential in the workforce because of their place in the hierarchy. 

FRANCE 24 English. (2020a, March 11). Gender equality: Japan Lagging behind other developed nations. YouTube. http://youtu.be/M01_71zJNaE?si=6Zo72IdnjuN9Luws

This video shows the unfortunate side of Japan in their inequality as well as the silence women feel as they have to endure with sexual harassment and even rape. Women come together to speak out about their past trauma from Men and talk about the gender roles and unfairness towards women in the business network and in general. The video also talks about the issue from the government of increasing female workers but, the unfair treatment of women is still going on making that harder. This video also connects with another source about how women have to prove that "they were unable to resist their attackers" (FRANCE, 2020) or else the government will dismiss their case. This article mentions the gender pay gap as well as the percentage of women in leadership positions in business. Furthermore, this video also shows a woman, Yuka Ogata, in politics attempting to represent mothers in business/politics but was kicked out by male authorities and colleagues. She is now a figure of women's rights. 

There has also been protesting against the strict dress codes for women in businesses as they are required to wear uncomfortable heels to the workplace rather than comfortable professional shoes. A movement called "#KUTOO" has been fighting against the requirement for wearing heels as they have to endure pain every day, as a result of the movement, they have had 32,000 signatures in their petition (based on FRANCE 24's data).

Khalil, S. (2023a, July 1). Japan ranks 116th in 2022 global gender gap report. nippon.com. http://www.nippon.com/en/japan-data/h01385/

This article provides data on the video from BBC News which shows the ranking of Japan showing how that can relate to the roles of gender in Japanese business. The rank shows that Japan is ranked 139th out of 146 countries just above Afghanistan which shows how far behind Japan is. This article connects with the other sources and supports their claims as the data shown proves that Japan is behind in inequality compared to the big countries in the world. As Japan just dropped from the third to now the fourth-ranked largest economy in the world (CNN, 2024) because of its declining economy rate (Kageyama, 2024), it can have a connection with the representation of women in business due to the idea that once starting a family, they need to quit their job (which also plays a part with the declining birth rate). This is because women in Japan believe that their role in society is to care for their children and family, so they would either not have kids to focus on their careers or they would quit their jobs, both affecting Japan's business and representation of women (Belarmino, M., & Roberts, 2019, Crabtree , C., & Muroga, 2021, Griffin, 2024)

Nemoto, Kumiko. (2016a). Too few women at the top. Google Books. http://books.google.com.ph/books?dq=Kairaku%2BShoten%2BBuro&hl=en&id=ie5IDwAAQBAJ&lpg=PA255&ots=np8nN8404U&pg=PA255&sa=X&sig=ACfU3U13vt__oWMlbVkRXLaI0amkGg4FxQ&ved=2ahUKEwisl42Kj-PmAhUKyosBHTDSAbEQ6AEwBHoECAoQAQ

This article relates to an answer from my interviewee about their experience in the workplace, being quiet and not voicing their opinions to males because they explain a similar situation as well as other inappropriate comments. In a professional setting, a male boss comments on a woman's appearance while the woman is said to have been quiet and smiling, similar to what my interviewee said. The women in the book say that they think that being mature as a woman means to keep quiet rather than say something, possibly causing a scene. This article pushes on how women are meant to look feminine and pretty while being obedient to males as they are not allowed to voice their opinions. Similarly, my paper ties into this from views on women and their position under men in society and the workplace which is why they are not to voice their thoughts even against disrespectful comments.