<書評論文>A Look at Our Students' Future : A Review of Office Ladies and Salaried Men

Abstract

This paper reviews Yuko Ogasawara's book, Office Ladies and Salaried Men: Power, Gender, and Work in Japanese Companies, (1998) in an effort to shed some light on the realities students face when they enter the job market? Since the majority of junior college students enter the work force as office ladies (OLs), information on the life of an OL is helpful. Any insight into our students' lives, past, current, and future, helps us interact with them in a more relevant way.The impetus for the book came when Ogasawara tried to reconcile two conflicting views of Japanese women: one in which women are discriminated against and are "relegated to low-paying and dead end jobs" (p. 3) and the other where they are powerful within the home and "have considerable leverage in society." (p. 4) With this as a starting point Ogasawara spent six months conducting participant observation as a temporary employee in a major Japanese bank, and then she interviewed 30 salary men and 30 OLs from major companies each employing 1000+ employees.The resulting book presents a quite complex topic in a clear and readable way.