My Family
---The source to develop the gender roles---

1. My Family .... A Good Teacher and Good Lessons

My family consists of my wife, two daughters at the age of seven and eight years, and myself. It has a ten-year history. My family is a so-called nuclear family, and with many respects a typical and average family living in the suburbs of the gigantic city, Tokyo.

However, since we got married and then had children, several big incidents which I had never had before happened to me. These happenings were fortunately not bad accidents but provided me with the variety of assignments. Our marriage itself was a big event in the sense that we needed to follow traditional and cumbersome arrangements and had to have a big wedding ceremony, which is really common to most Japanese. This series of steps that we took for our marriage were so burdensome that I would never want to marry again. This may in general lead to the extremely low divorce rate in my country.

Furthermore, about five years ago, I bought a surprisingly expensive condominium and I quit the construction company for which I had been working for thirteen years. Although these urged me to make a definite and serious decision, I don't remember that I hesitated to do so. It is, I believe, because I had a family! What is important to me is that these heavy experiences have made me much more independent and determined.

In the Japanese educational system as well as in Japanese society, the traditional notions of authority and groupism are directly or indirectly respected and emphasized so that the importance of independence and confidence may be neglected. As a result, Japanese young men and women are obviously polite but dependent. These characteristics are apparently distinguished from those of Westerners. I remember I was inevitably one of such typical and stereotyped Japanese.

In that sense, my family has been a teacher; I have to say a good teacher, assigning me various works, even though some of them have been troubles and complaints to me. I have learned s lot from my family. My family has trained me. If I had no family of my own, I would still be a dependent and lazy person. I can say my family has educated me rather than schools. So I have to appreciate my family.

2. My family .... From the Viewpoint of Gender Identity

It is interesting to see my mental development during these ten years in comparison of my wife's change. I believe that my wife and I have changed and developed in different ways. Why differently? It is obviously understood from the male/female differences.

The process during the purchase of the condo five years ago, I think, shows a good example of the formation of the gender roles. When we bought a condo, we were really forced to consider several serious things to have a good and successful buy. Before we decided to purchase a house, my wife and I enjoyed seeing the layout of various condominiums and houses in the same way.
However, once we decided to buy one, we found that my way of thinking towards the purchase of a house really contrasted the way of my wife. Our relation ship seemed to have changed from close friends to a manager and an employee.

Looking back to that time to observe carefully the situations and our behaviors, I can find the interesting points, which I didn't recognize at that time. However, I think that we should not easily assume that most of the qualities typically associated with either women or men are natural and something they already have when they are born.

I remember that I was really worried about the price, the tax, the mortgage and loan, and complicated paperwork, which I had never dealt with before. These were tremendous impacts on me because I was a lazy man, so I didn't like to treat cumbersome work and consideration? My wife, in contrast, was thinking of the layout of rooms and how close the house was to the daughters' school. She just said, " I want more spacious living room, "I think we need a walk-in closet, etc…" While I was anxious about how I should pay 400,000 dollars, my wife didn't seem to care.

Of course, I don't mean to criticize my wife, neither do I complain. I am sure this is the manifestation of the natural female/male differences, and more precisely, the beginning of gender identity. (This beginning may be a late one) I have a clear memory that I was encouraged to face the facts and objective reality and then to think logically. Unlike my teacher, I suppose, the maternal instinct seemed to urge my wife to think of supporting our daughters and to assure all family members' comfort. I was impressed that she was strong to insist on her opinions and that she never hesitated.

Hence, what I'd like to emphasize is that the male/female gender is not inborn characteristics, but fostered by something. Something may be 'culture', 'environment', 'education in school', or 'condominium.'

Another thing is that I don't mind at all if I took the feminine part as far as my wife wanted to have the masculine gender. The feminine role seems to be more enjoyable and more fun to me, while the male gender, really imposed on me with a lot of serious assignments and tasks. This is, I believe, why the average life expectancy of women is longer than that of men.