Women's Acts of Resistance in Japanese Companies

Abstract

Data collected through interviews with sixty sarariman(white-collar workers). OLs and ex-OLs(female clerical assistants) of large corporations are analyzed to understand how women effectively resist against male power, and why men, in spite of their exclusive command of authority, often subject themselves to women's control. In the workpalce, OLs seriously affect the efficiency and effectiveness of a man's work by refusing to take the initiative to help him or to do him a favor, by deciding arbitrarily the priority of assignments, and sometimes even by making an outright denial to cooperate. They also do harm to a man's reputation by informing the personnel department of a man's disagreeable behavior, and by giving him sosukan(total neglect). Women can take defiant attitudes toward men, because they are excluded from the race for promotion in the first place. With limited opportunities for advancement, there is not much incentive for them to care about their performance and the impression they leave on their bosses. In contrast, men who hope to make their way up the company ladder are saddled with the burden to prove themselves as competent managers. This article argues that what enables women to resist against male power is their accommodation to discriminatory company policies that set seperate career paths for men and women.