Sister – queen
Companies that used to hire college graduates of any qualities became selective in their recruitment. First, they hired male graduates from top schools. Then they picked male graduates of mid-level schools. Then they picked high-school graduates for a less expensive workforce. Women were the last to pick because they believed women quit after a few years when they got married, and the company’s investment in their training would go to waste. This belief persists in Japan, as seen in 2018 in Tokyo Medical School, which manipulated female applicants’ exam results.
My sister, a woman with no college degree, had a limited option for her career. She told us she had an interview for a receptionist at an English conversation school, but we didn’t hear about it again afterward.
I supposed she didn’t look for a job seriously. As a hostess, she earned more than an average male new graduate from a top school in their first year. It didn’t make sense to her that she’d accept a job that paid her 150,000 yen per month.
Men paid for her beauty, her wit, and her company. They also paid for their ego that a beautiful young woman listened to them, respected them, and even considered them attractive. My sister excelled at making men believe they were special, not because she faked it but because she was genuinely curious. Through these men, she learned about the world she would have otherwise not known. In a way, she simulated life in a corporation without the stress of the glass ceiling, politics, and harassment. If she had worked in their office, they would have treated her like a second-class citizen. At the bar, they treated her like a queen.
And the queen indeed she became.