A Woman’s Place Now Is in the Sumo Ring

TOKYO —  Tokuko Saito will soon shove her way into a world that for more than 1,000 years has been the exclusive domain of Japan’s manliest men: She is training to be a sumo wrestler.

At 5 feet 3 inches, 154 pounds and 45 years of age, Saito hardly inspires comparison to male wrestlers, 300-pound-plus mountains of nearly naked flesh. Undeterred, she will strap on the wide sumo belt--over shorts and a leotard--and step into the ring later this month for the first All-Japan Women’s Sumo Competition.

“People who believe that women should all be ladylike and meek are just plain wrong,” Saito said.

About 40 women are joining her in the sumo ring, but a much larger and increasing number share her determination to break into fields where females either have been forbidden or consigned to “women’s jobs,” which are low-paying, short-term and menial.

Japanese women earn only 62% of the average male’s wage. Frustrated by the paltry paychecks and dead-end career paths of “office lady” jobs, more are turning to blue-collar work that offers better pay and, often, more nearly equal working conditions. The number of female laborers has risen almost 11% in the last decade, according to the Ministry of General Affairs, and women now account for nearly 30% of blue-collar workers.

Department stores still hire “elevator girls” who wear dainty white gloves and speak in the tiny, high-pitched voice that is the feminine ideal here. But now, Japan also has female carpenters and dump-truck drivers, female architects and boxers. The number of women driving taxis has jumped 56% in the last four years, to 7,200.

Experts say women have been invited into such jobs mainly because young men are thumbing their noses at “three K” work--kitsui, kitanai, kiken, meaning difficult, dirty or dangerous.

“Companies would prefer to hire men, but men don’t want those jobs, so they are hiring women and foreigners,” said Ikuro Takagi, professor of social policy at Japan Women’s University. Meanwhile, more white-collar women, bruised by encounters with the glass ceiling, are ditching Japan Inc. and going it alone as entrepreneurs or specialists.

In a symbolic first, a young woman last year made it onto the floor of the Tokyo Securities Exchange as a trader. Naomi Sakuma, 23, was not content to be a “counter lady” answering phones and pushing paper at a Japanese securities firm; she landed a job as a trader at Paribas Capital Markets Ltd., a French firm.

She learned in just two weeks the roughly 300 hand signals that floor traders use. A tougher problem was what to wear. In uniform-happy Japan, the 1,000 male traders must wear conservative navy blazers. Nonplused by the appearance of a woman, stock exchange officials told Paribas to choose a uniform for Sakuma. They ordered her a $3,200 suit from Chanel’s newest line--in drop-dead red.

The outfit makes it difficult for Sakuma to be ignored. But she finds it embarrassing. “If I make a mistake, everyone knows right away,” she said.

The arrival of a woman in Japan’s financial sanctum sanctorum was not entirely smooth.

“When I went to register, there were a few people who said that all the other traders would have to be on their guard and things wouldn’t go smoothly,” Sakuma said. Some traders said they feared being accused of sexual harassment, and the exchange held up her application for two weeks before voting her in.

Slow Progress

Japan’s 1986 Equal Employment Opportunity Law officially prevents companies from discriminating against women in hiring. But companies routinely skirt the rules by using a two-track hiring system in which about 98% of female employees are placed on a career path to lower-paying positions with little chance for promotion.

The law has, however, helped open blue-collar jobs to women by prompting the removal of rules that kept women from working overtime or night shifts in some jobs, Takagi said. But female employees still cannot work the night shift in most factories.

Recently, women have begun to win small but significant battles in the war against discrimination: In November, 12 female employees of the Shiba Credit Union were awarded $900,000 in back pay when a Tokyo court ruled that they had been systematically denied promotions. The women had spent as long as 40 years stuck serving tea while their male co-workers climbed to jobs in management within 15 years. The bank, whose management is 99% male, argued that promotions are based strictly on an objective exam system. The judge disagreed and, in a landmark decision, ordered the company to immediately promote 11 of the women still with the bank to management positions.

And early this year, a decade after the law was put in place, Japan’s Ministry of Labor plans to add teeth to current anti-discrimination legislation by bringing a list of proposed revisions before the Japanese Parliament. Recommendations include removing overtime and night restrictions for women in all jobs and giving the ministry punitive power over companies with unresolved sexual harassment cases.

While the revisions may be aimed at helping women gain equal footing in the white-collar world, experts say the changes, particularly allowing women to work night shifts, would also open more blue-collar jobs to women. That, in turn, would help combat the impending labor shortage in the nation’s aging society. By 2000, 16.3% of the population will be over 65.

“Companies can no longer be so choosy about who they will hire,” said Eiko Shinotsuka, associate professor of home economics at Ochanomizu University. Some firms even welcome older women, a group long barred from full-time work by unwritten policies against hiring women older than 30 or 40. The percentage of women over 40 who are employed jumped from 37% in 1975 to 51% in 1994.

Other companies are offering high salaries or making the workplace more female-friendly by adding ladies-only lounges and locker rooms, Shinotsuka said.

Women make up 41% of Japan’s work force, and more and more women want to work. The average age at which women marry rose from 24.7 in 1975 to 26.2 in 1994. In a 1995 government survey, nearly 40% of Japanese questioned thought women should quit work after children are born but return when they are grown. A third said mothers should continue to work--up from 20% a decade earlier.

Taking to the Streets

Kiyoko Hasegawa began job hunting five years ago after a divorce. She had been a homemaker for 20 years. At 44, she found most doors slammed shut. She was offered part-time work, but with a teenage daughter and elderly parents to care for, she needed a full-time income. Finally, she found a job as a taxi driver.

The hours are long. Hasegawa works an 18-hour shift, 11 to 13 days a month. But she works at her own pace, with no boss to make tea for. In Tokyo, where the number of women cabbies is up 75% since 1992, taxi drivers earn $2,700 to $3,600 per month.

“I can work on the same level as a man,” said Yoshiko Takamura, 49, an eight-year veteran of cab driving.

Although Hasegawa says she is mainly treated as an equal by her male co-workers, time spent at company headquarters is not always pleasant. “If a female driver gets a large fare, some male drivers will say that the customer chose a longer route because the driver was a woman,” she said. “If we don’t do well, they say it’s because we’re women.”

Customers are often at a loss when they realize their driver is female. “Some people are afraid to make us drive too far,” Hasegawa said. “But for us, far is better, because we make more money.”

Up From ‘Office Lady’

During Japan’s five-year recession, many companies tried to lower labor costs by slashing female clerical staff. Entry-level “office lady” jobs have become harder to find.

Only 61% of last year’s female college graduates have landed jobs, compared with 74% of males. Even as some recovering companies lift their hiring freezes, the unemployment rate for women continues to rise, from 2.2% in 1990 to an all-time postwar high of 3.7% in April.

And landing an “office lady” job does not improve a woman’s long-range career prospects. “In a Japanese company, even women who have worked for many years are asked, ‘When are you going to quit?’ and ‘When are you going to get married?’ ” Shinotsuka said. Tired of the pressure to quit work before they hit 30, some women are starting their own companies.

When Yukie Goto, 38, began studying architecture 18 years ago, she was one of few women in the field. Now, the Tokyo Architectural Assn. says more than a third of architecture students are women.

“Architecture is a job that a woman can do at any age, and that is rare among women’s work in Japan,” said Goto, who launched her own company five years ago.

Most large firms still prefer to hire male architects, which means big, institutional buildings are designed by men. Women, working for smaller companies or on their own, usually design homes and small structures.

Goto doesn’t mind. She says the woman of the house generally has the most contact with the architect, and she may find it easier to talk to another woman. Goto says female architects also have more experience in the kitchen and so are much better at designing them.

Women looking for lifelong careers also have begun to break into skilled trades, such as carpentry and cooking. These jobs have been closed to them because of Japan’s strict apprenticeship system, headed by male craftsmen who expected that female disciples would quit young and squander years of training.

Women have long had a place in Japan’s kitchens, but not as chefs in high-class, expensive restaurants. Four years ago, one of Japan’s most famous restaurants, Nadaman, broke with more than 100 years of tradition and began hiring women chefs.

Making Waves in Sushi

Female sushi chefs are also becoming more common; women have traditionally been barred in part by the belief that their bodies are warmer than men’s and would ruin the raw fish.

In April, Kyoko Shimura, dressed in the blue and white robes and tall, black hat of a 9th century nobleman, became the first woman in more than 1,000 years to perform the sacred Knife Ceremony at the Hashirimizu temple in Yokosuka. Using a heavy, 13-inch knife and long, metal chopsticks, Shimura sliced open and fileted a carp with strict precision, never touching the fish with her hands.

Before becoming a chef, she spent 15 years as an office clerk, but realized that she had no future in Japan’s female-unfriendly corporate system. “I am a woman, but I wanted to work all my life,” she said.

The owner of the traditional-style restaurant where Shimura has worked for six years said he was reluctant to hire her because other female apprentices had quit after a few months.

“I didn’t think she would stay very long either,” said Hakuzan Kurahashi. “The world of Japanese cooking has a reputation for being particularly strict and undemocratic.”

Aside from being a woman, Shimura also had another strike against her: She is left-handed in a country where knives for fileting fish are made only for right-handed people.

But Shimura has endured, and she now hopes to open her own restaurant someday. “If you have your own place,” she said, “you never have to retire.”