Today is Labor Thanksgiving Day

勤労感謝の日 Kinrō Kansha no Hi. This Japanese holiday was established in 1948 as an occasion for praising labor and celebrating production. Prior to the establishment of this holiday, November 23 was celebrated as an imperial harvest festival called Niiname-sai (新嘗祭). Let’s celebrate by reading a non-fiction book about Japan.

Office Ladies and Salaried Men: Power, Gender and Work in Japanese Companies - Yuko Ogasawara.

In large Japanese corporations, female clerical workers, known as OLs (office ladies), perform tasks such as copying, data entry, and serving tea. They are not part of the lifetime employment system and receive no job training, limiting their chances for promotion.

Ogasawara, in her PhD research, worked as an OL in a Tokyo bank, using participant observation and interviews with bankers, their wives, and OLs. She highlights the hierarchical nature of Japanese society, but his 1998 ethnography also argues that OLs resist male authority, both covertly and overtly. 

Men depend on OLs for clerical support, and their performance appraisals are influenced by their ability to manage OLs without conflict. OLs can hinder men’s productivity and career advancement if not treated well.

OLs use strategies like gossip, refusal to work, and gift-giving to manipulate their work environment. Valentine’s Day chocolates, for example, signal how well men meet OL expectations. 

The weak point of the book is the absence of any discussion of sexual harassment. I suppose we could conclude that it didn't exist in that particular bank and so a discussion was beyond the scope of the book. But it still would have been interesting if the interviewees had been asked about this phenomenon.

Overall, though by now the late Nineties is a long time ago, I think this book is worth reading if a reader is interested in gender relations, women's studies, or organizational behavior in Japan. The strong points of this book are it gives a look into a world not studied much before and challenges stereotypes of the exploited powerless OL’s. 

Though a PhD dissertation, it is written clearly with a minimum of the jargon of anthropologists, sociologists or management scientists (despite the title there is, mercifully, little talk of gender). The book supplies many real-life examples to support her assertions. 

Anybody interested in Japanese office life, organizational behavior or the resistance of oppressed groups should get much out of this book.