27 November, 2006

Japanese Women and Economy

Let us start concluding the topic on Japanese women and recession. Today (and finally) we’ll get to 21st century. (Just a quick note: today’s entry may sound more or less biased, but I mean absolutely no offense to anyone)

Women in the past few years have clearly change quite dramatically as compared to the women before. If I describe it really short and simple, the high school gals who enjoyed their power and energy grew up without losing them. So um... you’ll see.

According to the Japanese government the country is slowly recovering from the economic slump she was stuck in for a decade. Indeed, employment rates are so much higher than the ice age in the latter half of 1990s, and numbers like several hundred millions and billions are heard more often.

So have our daily lives of common people changed? Not really. Like I wrote some days ago, the disparity is widening here and there. The reality of economic recovery isn’t so much about economy as a whole lifting up but only about portions of the population becoming extraordinarily rich. This is Japan today.

And the women... more and more women are attracted to the luxury that has become more reachable than even during the bubble economy, and they eventually start to behave like celebrities (well, some really are). The fashion trend, the food trend, cars, pets, etc.... women try to imitate so-called celebs and feel like they’re one of them.

The difference from strong women during the bubble economy, is that even though they’re still very self-assertive they aren’t as aggressive but are more “feminine”. I don’t know if it’s because they’ve been shown too much of the luxurious gorgeous glittering and dazzling houses and dresses and lifestyles of the rich on TV and mags, but anyway I get the impression that women nowadays want attention from men and want to be looked up from the “normal” people. So the styles in trend are “girlish” “feminine” “graceful” rather than the sexy-hot kind of fashion that dominated the market until some years ago.

Sounds like all they have in their minds are attention from people (especially men) and luxury, but like any other case this isn’t true for every women and even for those who are really into celebrity-ism they say they have their own beliefs and borderlines they wouldn’t cross.

I think I need another day for this.. continues tomorrow.

No comments: