Gender Roles and Norms

In Japan, gender roles tend to be quite strict and as such restrictive. Standards for masculinity and femininity are quite high, and those that don't meet them often feel cultural pressures in their day-to-day life. These themes are everywhere in Persona games from Shinjiro Aragaki and Kanji Tatsumi being embarrassed about taking to traditionally feminine activities such as cooking and sewing, to Chie Satonaka being regarded as 'too tomboy' in how she presents herself for guys to have a romantic interest in her, to Makoto Niijima feeling the pressure to hide her interest in action films and shounen manga simply to meet these expectations of how a girl her age should act.

Men are strictly seen as the breadwinners, whereas women are the homemakers and caregivers, even when both parties are still working. Father figures are often quite disengaged from the daily lives of their children to instead devote themselves to work, whereas mothers who work long hours still feel pressured to cook, clean, and manage both their children's lives and the household finances.

Because of this, men may feel this in the intense pressure to stay in an abusive work environment forever, to participate in after-hours parties, and to work unpaid overtime. Their duty is to provide for the family, and the idea that one must stick it out potentially forever is very high. Many salarymen may not even see their families more than a few times a week as a result. Death by overwork, or 'karoshi,' is common enough to be a cultural issue.

Women certainly feel it too in different ways. Japanese culture has very strict gender standards, which are hard to meet at baseline for both men and women. Even in modern Japan, many women believe that not only are men and women not equal, they shouldn't be. Indeed, within Japan, there is an idea of the 'three submissions,' in which a woman is first submissive to her father, then her husband, and finally once elderly, her son.

This extends not only in the family and home, but also in the workplace. Women often have to try harder to receive equal opportunity as men and may face extreme discrimination anyway. It is not an infrequent occurrence that young women are passed over for opportunities because their bosses believe they're just going to get married and get pregnant. This is in part due to the cultural attitude that women should marry young, before they're twenty-five. The slang phrase 'Christmas cake' refers to unmarried women over twenty-five, the implication being that no one wants Christmas cake after the twenty-fifth of December.

The stigma towards giving birth out of wedlock is equally high because of an intense focus on bloodlines. In Western countries, birth out of wedlock can be as high as 40%; in Japan, it is less than 3%. The 'koseki,' or family registry, can be used to fully disenfranchise children out of many opportunities for the rest of their lives.

Once wed, the gender roles are restrictive for many, with the man expected to work and spend very little time at home at all, and the woman expected to raise the child, take care of the household, and likely take on an extra job for additional income as well.