Winding Paths to Success

PROLOGUE

The genesis of this book began with a simple idea a couple of years ago—we are close to the 40th year anniversary of the enactment of the Equal Employment Opportunity Act in 1985, a significant milestone in the history of gender equity at work in Japan, which prohibits discrimination against women by their gender at the workplace. The women who entered the workforce in the years following the enactment are now approaching retirement. Before it was too late, I decided to capture their natural voices to chronicle their individual career journeys, which run parallel to the progress of women's status in Japanese society. The original aim was to reflect on how far we have come and what still needs to be done in leveling the playing field for working women in Japan. This project took shape as a series of articles published on Japan Times starting in late 2021 under the title “Women at Work,” 12 of which are included in this book.

As I started interviewing these women, all in their 50s and 60s and still professionally active, it dawned on me that their stories carry a larger story beyond that of battling the odds as a gender minority—their stories apply to any ambitious individual building purposeful long‐term careers in uncertain times.

Whereas men in their cohort largely followed pre‐established paths, say by diligently climbing the ladder of a large corporation with consecutive positions handed down from the previous cohort man‐to‐man, women have been compelled, or in ...