I’ve often written about how, on the surface at least, Japan can appear to be a “man’s paradise” where males enjoy a special status that would be unthinkable in the U.S. or Europe. And in in a lot of ways, Japan does seem especially geared to fulfill the wishes of men, from those heavenly zettai ryoiki skirts to the immediate approval of a certain blue pill despite it taking 30 years for birth control pills to become legal to use here. Another example of Japan not being on the same plane of reality as the West was popular announcer Miku Natsume, who was forced to resign when a photograph of her holding a box of condoms was published (shock!). With the Democratic Party of Japan’s rise to power, some changes are on the way. For example, the government is set to eliminate an automatic tax deduction for spouses, which is being done in part to encourage women who avoid working for tax reasons to get out and start being productive. Another change that’s in the pipe is a law allowing married couples to keep their own last names rather than requiring that both parties take the same family name. Currently only Japanese who marry foreigners are able to keep separate last names — my wife and I do this.
Poor Miku Natsume lost her job as a newscaster for being human.
