Geisha grrrls

Is there even a female equivalent for the Japanese word "salaryman"?

No. But then again, who wants to be a traditional salaryman? They work long, grueling hours and have little time to spend with their families.

Here's the classic Japanese situation: A salaryman puts in for his vacation, which he's entitled to. The dedicated thing to do is to show up at work on the first day he's supposed to be out. His supervisor sees him and says, "What are you doing here?! Aren't you supposed to be on vacation?" The salaryman replies, "I was, but I have too much work to do!" Another example: It's rare for salarymen to have a lunch hour or to go out for a big expense-account lunch. They usually take about 15 minutes to slurp noodles at the train station, or they eat quickly at their desks. At lunchtime, restaurants are all full of nicely dressed Japanese women -- no men.

How does the presence of modern women in the office affect the way men behave?

The women tend to take their vacations, and their sick days too. Men see their female co-workers taking advantage of their vacation time, and enjoying long, leisurely lunches, and they think, "Hey, the world didn't fall apart while they were gone. And besides, I'm entitled to this, too!" The men start taking their vacations; they start going out to a real lunch. Their world opens up a little.

The women you talked to didn't seem negative or bitter about their position, though. One woman even said that being an office lady can be empowering. What did she mean by that?

If a Japanese man leaves a company, it's not like here, where you can quit and find a new job at the same level or even higher. It's a huge risk. Even though the financial bubble has burst in Japan and lifetime employment there isn't what it used to be, the fact is that most people still spend their lives at one company. But so few women really have a chance within corporate Japan; they're not on the fast track at a major company, so they can afford to leave and start their own businesses, or to take a couple of years off from work to travel and study different languages.

If Japanese women aren't clawing their way to the top in the traditional sense, what are they doing instead?

There are more women entrepreneurs than men. They're exploring new paths to economic and personal fulfillment -- like Makiko Fujino, who ran for office after years of being a television chef and won a seat in the Diet, and Junko Asazuma, who became an internationally ranked snowboarder after spending years as a "freeter," or part-time worker.

What about working moms? You write that in Japan, maternity leave isn't that common, and neither are nannies or day-care centers. How on earth do Japanese women balance work and family?

You have to really love your job to go back to work after having a kid, and there aren't many women in corporate Japan who love their jobs. So, once they get married and pregnant, most women simply quit. The women who do make it to the upper levels at corporate companies tend not to have kids. For example, Masako Nara was divorced, and didn't have any children. It's not that there's a stigma against working women or mommy executives, it's just that there aren't that many of them. It will be the younger generation that will have to test that out.

What kinds of messages about work, family and home are young Japanese women getting from their mothers?

Out of the 75 women I interviewed, there were five, maybe 10, women whose moms were not housewives. If the family had a business or owned a farm, the mother might work, but for the most part, if you grew up in the '60s, '70s or '80s in Japan, your mom stayed at home. They're now telling their daughters, "I was trapped by the money. If I had the financial means now, if I knew what to do with myself, I'd get a divorce. Don't let yourself get into this situation."

Japanese women are delaying marriage and not having as many kids -- if any -- and it's because they got smart. They hear this stuff from their moms, And they're like, "Once you get married and have kids, you're locked into an 18-year job." If you can delay that, then you can travel, you can learn languages, you can make your own money, do your own thing. So there's actually this worldliness and sophistication that you see in young, single working women.

Compared with Japanese women, it sounds like Japanese men work more, take fewer vacations, have less free time, are less valuable to their global companies and are less sophisticated than their female counterparts.

It becomes hard to say who has the better -- or worse -- deal. There are women, especially young women, who would really like to run a company and have the opportunities that the men have. On other hand, you have men saying, "Company life isn't that great. I'd love to learn a foreign language, travel, have hobbies ..." The sexism is obvious, but at the same time, that sexism has created what one might call a sort of freedom. But it's not truly freedom, because the fact is that women should have a choice. Right now, women don't have a choice to be part of corporate Japan, and so what they've done is made these interesting other choices, like starting their own businesses and creating new roles for themselves within traditional companies.

Next page: You can find a woman snowboarder who spends her off-season doing flower arranging