No matter where you look it seems like there’s a new headline emerging about admissions fraud or gender discrimination, as elites manipulate the situation to their advantage. As if it weren’t bad enough that the less fortunate, myself included, have to compete with affluent students whose parents can pay for private school, tutors, test preparation courses, coaches, campus visits, and more to sharpen their academic skills and burnish their résumés. Innate ability can only take a student so far without the opportunity to actually take advantage of it. Money is a large enough hurdle without our sex also being held against us.
Now proof has emerged that parents have taken the extra step of bribing officials to get their kids into college, paying for test results to be manipulated, and having experts write their children’s entrance essays?! Not that any of us is surprised to hear this, but I feel outrage nevertheless. Scandals such as these are, unfortunately, true of most countries. However, having lived in Japan for over a year, I was surprised to discover this country was no exception to the scandalous trend.
You think it’s hard getting into medical school here in the U.S.? It could be worse. Getting into medical school in Japan is a hugely challenging process for two reasons. First, the difficulty level of the entrance exam is extremely high. The necessary knowledge for the exam is not covered in high school, which means just preparing for the test already requires that you attend an additional prep school every day after regular classes for as long as four years—and these classes themselves aren’t cheap either. Second, even if you do pass the exam and the interview, private medical school can cost from $180,000 to $270,000. This is 5 to 7 times the regular cost of a college education in Japan. Furthermore, they don’t have financial aid there like we do, so this is money your family is expected to pay out of pocket. It’s not uncommon for students to have to take the entrance exam multiple times, and each medical school has a separate exam that students have to pay to take. Thus, just taking the exam already involves a significant financial, physical, and psychological cost. Imagine all the hours of sacrifice and study, only to be cheated out of a place as less-qualified applicants circumvent the system.
Last year, an investigation into the medical school acceptance of an education ministry bureaucrat’s son in exchange for backdoor promises of research funds revealed more than expected. It brought to light widespread score manipulation based on donations and connections—and on gender. Women’s scores were being purposely decreased across the board at multiple top medical schools in order to keep their acceptance rate around 30%, so men would remain the majority. Investigation revealed this had been going on for more than a decade, and more than two decades for some of the schools. The guilty have claimed a variety of justifications, the main one being that women cannot be “real doctors” and will just leave their profession if they have a child or get married. Considering that women are traditionally expected to quit their jobs if they marry or have a child, is it any wonder? Given Japan’s current birthrate plight (its population is shrinking: of the 32 countries with a population of 40+ million, Japan ranks at the bottom with just 12.3% of the overall population being children), you would think they would be taking this more seriously. How hard would it really be to expand the child care options and support these women so they can do their job? Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who was recently re-elected, promised to fix the daycare shortage and put women in positions of power. Like the head-bent apologies of those responsible for the med school admissions scandal, Abe’s promises seem likely to be nothing more than empty words.
In the 2017 Global Gender Gap Report, the World Economic Forum ranked Japan 114th out of 144 countries in terms of economic participation and opportunity and 123rd in terms of political empowerment. Approximately 50% of Japanese women are college-educated, one of the world’s highest levels, yet rampant sexism and discrimination against women make it difficult for them to find high-level or full-time positions. Only 4% of managerial positions in Japan are held by women, and on average women earn just 70% of what a man with the same job and experience would receive. This boys’ club should have long since faded into the annals of history. That this antiquated, entitled system of oppression is still such a systemic problem is absolutely unforgivable no matter where you live.
Here in the U.S., women are similarly shortchanged on pay and advancement because our reproductive capacity makes us a “liability” in the workforce. Plenty of memes pop up on the internet everyday about how hot it is to find a man who offers to wash the dishes or pick the kids up from school. That’s because it is not expected of them. Women are expected to marry, have children, and take care of the home. Sure, we’re “allowed” to work, but we are still expected to do everything else.
America or Japan, getting into school or making it in the workplace—discrimination and unfair practices seem to be everywhere you look. Officials bow their heads to apologize or are replaced, but it’s all window dressing. Nothing really changes. We need to start taking this seriously and level the playing field.