Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Japanese Career Opportunity

The NYTimes just published an article on the glamorous life of hostesses in Japan. In this career, women can "earn money just by drinking with men" and make anywhere from $100,000 a year to $300,000. A hostess would work at a Gentleman's club, where her main responsibilities are pouring drinks, offering attentive conversation, looking elegant in an evening gown, and flirting in a nonsexual manner. Hostesses at each club are ranked according to popularity, and the top hostess at each location is awarded star status. But, it's not all glory. The main risk is "exhaustion from a life of partying."

So, on one hand we have an easy and fun way to strike it rich, open to any attractive young woman in Japan. On the other, we have a society where a woman's attention has now become a publicly accepted commodity.

5 comments:

  1. "Non-sexual"? "Non-sexual"? Darkened room. Drunken men. Group of men bolstered by each other while being served by an attractive female. Unless these are all gay men, non-sexual? ;-)

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  2. I can see what you're getting at. The guys are no doubt looking at the hostess and are attracted to her. But, she's not expected to perform any sex acts for them or go into that realm. If you study the culture of Japan, you will see they often make a distinction between paying a woman to perform a social service vs paying her to be a prostitute.

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  3. Also, I am somewhat mocking the fact that the media is glorifying the job of hostess in Japan. In reality, you definitely might want to question a society where this is the most lucrative opportunity available to many women.

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  4. The hostessu role has been established a long time. I think that is right, i.e. the women are not required to have sex with customers, though flattery and sexual talk go along way to keeping the men in the bars parting with their cash. Depending on viewpoint, women who had tried it saw it as a mix of freedom to take cash off the men who otherwise looked down at them and a trap that was unfulfilling and disempowering; so neither view very positive. I haven't been to Japan since the 90s but, even in cities, Japan felt decades behind in the freedom for women and even more so disabled people.

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