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34 percent of Japanese men are afraid of their female colleagues, according to recent poll

Oona McGee Jun 15, 2016
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The reasons they give will make you think twice about the way men and women act in the workplace.

With the Japanese government heavily focussed on supporting women in the workplace, industries and professions are slowly becoming more and more diversified in terms of gender. For one socially curious website in Japan, this begs the question: how are the sexes getting along?

A survey conducted by the Japanese My Navi Woman news website asked 97 men between the ages of 22 and 39 years of age the question, “Honestly, do you think the women in your workplace are scary?” 34 percent of respondents said “yes”.

2ch速まとめ速―ゲーム― : 男性の34％が職場の女性を怖がってるらしい・・・そんな男性の本音を暴露してみた https://t.co/iSjqi2sxIw pic.twitter.com/zGAxqB6Mpy

— purasu (@purasu7) June 8, 2016

The reasons they gave for being afraid of their female workmates fell into four distinct categories.

1. Conversations

“Their conversations are appalling – they look down on others and don’t reveal their true intentions. I’m extremely uncomfortable when I hear them speaking about others in such a sneaky manner.” (38-year-old male; teaching industry)

“I’m scared of them because they love gossiping and rumours.” (31-year-old male; automobile industry)

“Women at work talk badly about people behind their backs all the time without caring.” (32-year-old male; electronics industry)

2. Workplace Communication

“I have to be extra careful when allocating work to them.” (32-year-old male; metals and chemicals industry)

“My female senior colleague is bossy and annoying.” (23-year-old male; food and drink sales)

3. Conspiracies

“I’ve seen instances where women conspire against their superiors by making up complaints and taking them to court. Sometimes when women are in a group together, it can be really frightening.” (32-year-old male; teaching industry)

4. Rivalry

“Trying to understand their real intentions is difficult and it’s annoying when they’re involved in faction rivalries.” (32-year-old male; financial industry)

“Women seem to form cliques. Also, there was one instance I heard of where a female superior would hit a female subordinate really hard when no male workers were around.” (36-year-old; teaching industry)

Readers were quick to jump in with comments in response to the results of the survey.

“This all sounds just like the women in my workplace”
“I’m a woman and I’m scared of other women”
“I’ve never met guys with this much hatred for women before”
“After I started dating a girl at work, I found out about all types of inside stories I wasn’t aware of. I discovered our workplace was very different from her point-of-view.”
“I’ve never worried about any of these sorts of things”

While the sample responses mentioned in the survey could well be used to discredit anyone, regardless of gender, it does provide an insight into the current psyche of Japanese businessmen and the state of workplace gender equality in Japan.

Thankfully though, according to the survey, the majority of Japanese men aren’t actually afraid of the women they work with. Let’s just hope they can teach their fellow male co-workers a thing or two about treating female colleagues as individuals in their own right and not just as members of the opposite sex.

Source: My Game News Flash
Images: Wikimedia Commons/Deborah Austin, Pixaby/jsks (1, 2), Pixaby/geralt