Backlash over new ‘women’s only’ craze has Japan split down the middle
At 2 o’clock every afternoon, an employee of Buon Viaggio walks out to the front of the restaurant in the JR Hakodate Station building and posts a huge sign saying, “Women Only,” according to AERA (7/17).
For the next two hours, men are banned from the eatery so that women can eat in peace.
“There have been a growing number of women’s only establishments popping up recently,” Buon Viaggio’s Shoji Hasegawa tells AERA. “We felt there was a need to for women to be able to have a place where they could relax while having something to eat or drink.”
From trains to spas to convenience stores, pachinko parlors and sports clubs, companies and businesses across Japan have recently started to “broad”-en their horizons by limiting their patronage and going Women’s Only, either full-time or just for parts of the day.
Ripped out of railroad carriages, shunned by sports clubs and spurned by spas, guys are fighting back, saying they’re being subjected to a kind of sexual segregation, even if women are only looking for a little peace of mind and have no intention of inflicting damsel discrimination. Even readers of the women’s weekly have unleashed something of a backlash against the Women’s Only craze, with 55 percent of men and about 40 percent of women respondents to a survey on the AERA website saying they felt policies that excluded men were discriminatory.
“I can understand it in places like the trains because a lot of guys grope,” one man tells AERA. “But when it comes to (excluding men from) restaurants and stuff, it really seems like both sexes are going to be missing out on a lot.”
Not everybody agrees. Curves, a U.S.-based exclusively women’s gym chain, opened its first Japan outlet in August last year and has already extended its network in this country to 138 outlets.
Menya Sora, a noodle restaurant in Tokyo’s Chiyoda-ku, turned its premises into an almost cafe-like interior, about as far from the typical grimy ramen joint as you can get, and started offering women free toppings like pork chunks and bamboo shoots.
Even adult businesses are getting in on the act, with Umeda Nikkatsu Gekijo, a theater showing exclusively softcore porn, setting aside its final row for women only in the hope it can dispel the widespread belief that adult movies are for men’s enjoyment only. It chose the back row to protect the women from peeping tom’s leering at them from behind. Women can also get a 33 percent discount if they attend a stick flick in pairs.
There’s a certain economic sense to choosing Women’s Only over a unisex option.
“Women are generally better spenders than guys are. When a woman goes to a spa, she’ll often have a beauty treatment and an aromatherapy session on top of that, where all the guy wants is to get into the sauna,” Nameko Shinkin, a manga-ka who frequents women’s only convenience stores and spas, tells AERA. “Women’s only places make more money than men’s only joints.”
Hiroyuki Murata, head of the Social Development Research Center, which tracks new businesses, is by no means a fan of splitting the sexes.
“Unless there’s a rational reason for doing so, segregating the sexes is asking to be accused of discrimination,” he says. “Public places are meant to be used by all people, but when you suddenly get places that say they’ll only cater to women, then naturally others are going to want to know why.”
Already something of a counterattack against the women has started. A 34-year-old man from Wakayama Prefecture says there’s something unnatural when women are given equal pay, equal employment opportunities and equal standing yet demand facilities that exclude men.
“Recently, I’ve really come to admire the female passengers who refuse to ride in women’s only carriages on principle,” he says.
Macchin, a chicken-on-a-stick seller in suburban Tokyo is another establishment rebelling against the anti-man movement. About 20 years ago, Macchin developed a strong following with young women who would go to the store, order minute amounts, but lounge around on the premises for hours at a time, preventing other customers from entering the restaurant and boosting its sales. The owner responded by banning women from the restaurant for all but Saturdays.
“I didn’t want to ban women customers,” the owner tells AERA. “But I had to do it to survive.” (By Ryann Connell)
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