Japan and Mexico and International Trade

As international trade barriers fall to NAFTAs and GATTs, it becomes necessary to examine closely the lifestyles of those countries who promise to become the United States' close business partners. Japan and Mexico top that list. There are many attributes of the Japanese and Mexican lifestyle compatible with American standards, but in one key area these two countries differ greatly from ours: the status of women in society and in the workplace. An examination of the lifestyles of Mexican and Japanese women will reveal a status quo much lower than that enjoyed by women in the United States.

The root cause for this discrepancy lies in the basic social structure of both countries. Although derived from different causes, Mexico and Japan are rigidly hierarchic in social and organizational orientation. Moreover, their hierarchies have taken on a particularly patriarchal coloring. Both countries pride themselves on maintaining a certain purity of "tradition," traditions (religious and social) that emphasize the compartmentalization of women into a lower strata of opportunity than men.

In Japan the elements of hierarchy are well-known: theirs was an elaborately-nuanced class system that did not "demote" the emperor from deity status until 1945. Although empresses ruled early in Japanese history, foreign-born Confucian ideals came to override matriarchal-oriented indigenous beliefs:

Confucian philosophy and (a) long feudal experience combined to restrict the freedom

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eir men's "machado" as protectors and providers. A key difference between Japanese and Mexican attitudes, then, is the absence of sexual judgement in the former. A Japanese woman may engage in work, may domineer the household and may (but not necessarily) enjoy a vigorous sexual relationship with her husband. Confucian ideals might be sexually stratified, but they are essentially nonjudgemental vis-a-vis this matter. For the Mexican woman, however, sex takes center stage. To work implies that the husband is not up to the task. Only a shrew, with a castrado mate, can visibly dominate a Mexican family. As for sex: the male is expected to desire, initiate and enjoy sex - the woman should simply endure, lest she be considered licentious and a immoral. The Roman Catholic Church, with its own male-dominated hierarchy, reinforces these attitudes. (An important caveat to these and future observations must be made at this point: the attitudes described are not necessarily so extreme at the peasant levels in Japan and Mexico. Until fairly recently, peasant conditions in both countries were extremely harsh. Against the reality of eking out a barely-subsistence existence as a daily challenge, Confucian thinking and Church idea

Category: Economics - J