Japanese Workers Are Now Being Told By Their Bosses When They Can Get Pregnant | The Precision

A woman is criticised if she doesn’t want to get pregnant; she is shamed if she undergoes abortion; she is rebuked if she’s unable to live up to the ideals of motherhood. 

These are just a few of those many other ways in which the society thwarts a woman’s right to her own body and life.

Now, it looks like Japan has taken a step further to curb a woman’s freedom, through a new bureaucratic rule.

In Japan, employers are taking over personal lives of workers. Employees in Japan are now being given schedules that dictate when they should get married or give birth.

This new development came to the fore when a nursery worker’s husband revealed that his wife was allegedly being bullied by her boss for getting pregnant ”out of turn.”

”The director at the child care center where she [the wife] works had determined the order in which workers could get married or pregnant, and apparently there was an unspoken rule that one must not take their ‘turn’ before a senior staff member,” the husband was quoted as saying by Daily Mail.

Any pregnancy, which doesn’t comply with a company’s ”rule” is now being deemed a selfish move by employers. ”My wife and I went together to apologise. ‘We’re sorry we got pregnant,’ we said. The director grudgingly accepted our apology, but since the next day, has been chiding my wife with harsh words, such as, ‘How could you so selfishly break the rules?’,” added the husband.

In yet another case, a 26-year-old woman, working at a cosmetics company in Mitaka, Tokyo, revealed that she and 22 other female colleagues were reportedly sent an email, mapping out marriage and pregnancy schedules.

Later, the woman was asked by her supervisor to wait until the age of 35 to get pregnant, despite the fact that she suffered from fertility issues.

The new rule not only poses a threat to women’s choice, but also exposes unfavourable working conditions in Japan–which is proving to be detrimental to people’s life and health–and the ridiculous punishments thereby.

And all this is coming from a country that also has a specially coined word, ”karoshi”, which means ”death from overwork”.

Besides, the work culture in Japan has left very little time for people to raise families, which, in turn, is also causing a population crisis. (India Today)