Equal Participation and Diversity
Conference Report(1)Marie WEISHAUPT (Freie Universität Berlin)

The colloquium “Equal Participation and Diversity” was hosted by the Japanese-German Center
Berlin (JDZB) on December 1, 2017, in cooperation with the Japan Society for the Promotion of
Science (JSPS) and with the support of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES).The event brought together
an interdisciplinary and international group of renowned gender scholars. This colloquium wasorganized in the context of changing economies and growing investigation about gender equality
in industrialized societies. Drawing from examples stemming from the Japanese, South Korean andGerman cases, scholars engaged in discussions concerning the latest development of genderpolicies and their social and economic influences.

Panel IThe first panel on “Innovative Political Approaches towards Gender Equality and Diversity” covered
current approaches and reforms towards gender equality and diversity, tackling the issue of gendermainstreaming, gender budgeting and issues of implementation and assessment. The firstpresentation on “The Rise and Fall of Gender Mainstreaming in Germany – Lessons to Learn” wasbased on a paper by Dr. Regina FREY from the Institute for Social Work and Social Education,
unfortunately unable to attend the event, and presented by Prof. em. Dr. Ilse LENZ. Focusing on theGerman case, the paper highlighted gender equality as a basic principle in the German constitution
and social law, as well as in the functioning of federal governance. However, it appears that there isa relative absence of initiatives taken in order to promote it. Gender Mainstreaming (GM) has been
introduced through a federal cabinet decision as a leading strategy to achieve gender equality, but
an overall policy implementation (such as a comprehensive
gender budgeting system) lacking at the federal level
undermined possible outcomes. Concrete measures arebeing observed at a sub-federal level, but institutional
mechanisms still lack at the national level, making it
challenging to tackle persistent gender inequalities. The
complex debate around the concept of “gender” within
civil society complicates the process of implementing
national measures. The presentation ended on several
Prof. em. Dr. Ilse LENZ & Prof. Dr. MAE Michikorecommendations, putting an emphasis on promoting

1. This report portrays the main line of argument of the conference and it summarizes the presentations and discussions
according to the understanding of the author. We therefore ask not to quote single remarks as literal remarks of the
speakers.
Japanese-German Center Berlin ・JDZB

Az.: P1792_report colloquium_Eresearch concerning Gender Impact Assessment (GIA) and improving Gender Budgeting (GB) at a
European level, while calling for the creation of institutional mechanisms at the national level,
accompanied by an assessment and monitoring system, and a further discussion at the societal level.
The second presentation by Prof. Dr. MIURA Mari( 2 ) from Sophia University on “Revisiting Social
Investment in Japan” addressed the topic of social investment in contemporary Japan. Pushed bydemographic changes, reforms had to be implemented in the last two decades, and since 2009,social expenditures have grown, with for example the multiplication of daycare facilities to support
working women. However, MIURA underscores the absence of consideration on human capitalformation, and the sustained assumptions over gendered labor division. According to her, theWomanomics launched by the Abe government, rooted in neoliberalism and anti-feminist
conservatism, promoted women’s activation but without questioning gender discriminations, themale breadwinning system, and the link between womanhood and motherhood. The shift from amanufacturing nation to a knowledge-based economy does not seem to have been
acknowledged by recent governments, leading to the absence of investment in career paths for
women. If the Womanomics were aiming at “making women shine”, it appears that reforms haveneither led to a better representation of women in the economic sphere nor to an overall debate on
gender inequalities.
In the third presentation on “Bringing Back the Policy Potential of Gender Mainstreaming to
Challenge Gender Inequality in Korea”, Prof. Dr. KIM Kyoung-Hee from Chung-Ang University covered
the issue of Gender Mainstreaming (GM) in the case of South Korea, with perspectives on the newly
elected Moon government. GM has been implemented in late 1997. Working with feminist
organizations and civil society, the government enacted several laws and acts, creating institutional
mechanisms to ensure the promotion of gender equality. However, with the return of a neoconservative government in 2008, gender impact assessment started being implemented without aclear concern for GM. With time, GM became technocratized, emptying the concept from its
political contents and objectives. According to the discussant, the reasons for such atechnocratization would be the absence of clear definition for the term “gender”, but also thepowerful neoliberal ideas embedded in the economic discourse that tainted the issue of gender with
notions of efficiency and effectiveness rather than equality. The presentation ended on the plansannounced by the newly elected government to bring GM into the political debate through theestablishment of a Presidential Commission on Gender Equality and the strengthening of the Ministryof Women and Family.

Panel II
The second panel on “Participation and New Forms of Securing Work and Family Life” revolved
around contemporary challenges surrounding gender equality in politics and in the labor market
with regards to the different reforms of the welfare system. The first presentation by Prof. Dr. Hildegard
Maria NICKEL from Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin on “More Gender Equality? New Patterns of Conflictin Gender Relations” relied on the ongoing Hans Böckler Foundation (HBS) research project
conducted at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin entitled “Participation and Reproduction: The
Employment and Gender Policy Roles Played by High Skilled Workers and High Level Managers at
the German Rail Operator Deutsche Bahn AG”. According to the presenter, even if there is a growing
integration of women into managerial positions, leading to a reflection on women’s role with regards
to production and reproduction, leadership culture in the company still ignores the necessary
2. Conventional Japanese and Korean name order is generally followed: FAMILY NAME – given name
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balance between professional and private lives, an issue that is even more exacerbated by the useof communication technologies. The resistance of male workers, despite a rise of awareness among
male managers and skilled workers, also impedes the possible changes in the working environment.
New boundary struggles between production and reproduction, as well as new gender traps, areobstacles to the integration of women in the labor market, especially when it comes to managerial
positions. NICKEL underlines the need to think further about the issue of gender-fair distribution of laborin the workplace and to expand the reflection to embrace lifestyle in a holistic manner.
The second presentation by D. TSUJI Yuki, Associate Professor at Tōkai University, titled “A Challenge
to Patriarchal Political Arena, or What? Analysis of KOIKE Yuriko’s Uprising in the 2017 National Election”
was centered on the rise and fall of KOIKE Yuriko, with her election as Tōkyō’s governor in 2016 andher failure to secure a large number of seats during the legislative elections in 2017. As the Liberal
Democratic Party (LDP, conservative) did not endorse her for the 2016 gubernatorial elections, Koike
decided to create a local party “Tomin First” (Tōkyō Citizens First Party) and challenged the Japanese
two-party system revolving around the LDP and the DPJ (The Democratic Party of Japan). With apopulist but neoliberal program, highlighting gender imbalance in politics and including women’s
policies, she was able to collect votes from liberal, but also conservative competing parties, with ahigher support coming from female voters. KOIKE also challenged the Japanese familialist welfare
regime by offering an approach leaning towards a neoliberal model, promoting a universal
breadwinner system and therefore the expansion of female employment. According to the presenter,the victory of KOIKE’S party at the 2016 Tōkyō election illustrates the citizens’ dismissal of a patriarchal
party (the LDP) and the demand for alternative policies to face new social issues. Nevertheless, thenew party created for the national election, the Party of Hope, only secured 50 seats in the Lower
House, showing the limits of her program. Koike was criticized for enhancing ideological coherence
within her party, not devoting herself to her status as Tokyo’s governor and implementing a top-down
party governance. Increasing the number of female candidates was therefore not enough to securea victory. KOIKE’S parties showed that the party leadership’s intervention can bring a change andincrease the number of female candidates within the party, but also showed that a more democratic
running of the parties themselves was expected for voters to endorse them.
In the third presentation on “Reconciliation of Work and Family without Gender Equality: South
Korea’s Dilemma”, Prof. Dr. HONG Seung-Ah from the Korean Women’s Development Institutediscussed the issue of Work Life Balance (WLB) in the context of South Korea. The increase of womenon the labor market in the past decades has led two-earner families to become prevalent in Koreansociety, creating a demand to reconsider the issue of WLB, but more generally social policies. The
presenter started by presenting three main policy areas in which reforms were made in order toaccommodate the societal changes. First, childcare services were created in 1991 in order tosupport working parents. But it appears nowadays that 58.4 % of children taken care of in thosefacilities have non-working mothers, questioning the full impact of the reform. Second, Parental
Leave was expanded in 2001 in order to balance work and childrearing, including full paternal leave
starting in 2007. However, data still shows a lower rate of men taking a leave, an issue related toorganizational issues within companies (disadvantage in promotions and job arrangements) but also
economic struggles (parental leave compensations are too low to ensure economic stability). The
last measure was improving Work Flexibility in 2010, with the goal of creating new jobs and increase
women’s economic participation. It could have led to a better balance between family life andwork, but it appeared that women often use their extra free time for childcare, children’s educationand housework, in a much higher proportion than men. Even though South Korea has engaged in a
rapid reform of its social policies, many issues still remain. Structural rigidities penalizing fathers whotake time off work and maintaining care work mainly onto women’s shoulders; there is a need toJapanese-German Center Berlin ・JDZB

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encourage and strengthen policy implementation and men’s participation, but first of all, there is aneed to put gender equality on the agenda once again, in order to question the link between
caregiving and womanhood in the Korean context.
In the last presentation of the second panel on “Gender Inequality in a Growing Service Economy?
Non-Standard Workers in Germany and Japan”, Prof. Dr. TANAKA Yōko from the University of Tsukuba
addressed the issues related to non-standard work in Germany and Japan. With the expansion of
the service sector, both countries have seen a growing number of non-standard workers. This shift
brought three issues possibly leading to the devaluation of work, especially for female workers: a
difference in skill formation, a devaluation of gendered vulnerabilities and a persisting malebreadwinner system.
Even though it is undoubted that the general employment structure is now shifting towards a femaleoriented non-standard work in the service sector in both countries, TANAKA highlights the presence ofimportant differences in the two cases. In general, part-time work in Germany is considered as avariation of full-time employment, giving access to a better wage, benefits and bonuses, and it
concerns mainly young workers. In the Japanese case, part-time work is detached from full-time
employment, with little prospect for a career, pay raise, no access to benefits and bonuses, and it
affects mostly women, bringing in a gendered dimension.
According to the presenter, these differences are rooted in the labor conditions of full-time
employment. The conditions being constraining in the Japanese context, with unlimited working
hours, possible compulsory periodical relocations and expected devotion towards the company,
many people (and especially women) prefer overlooking the disadvantages of non-standard work.
In Germany, collective agreements led to a form of social protection of part-time workers and to thepossibility to transition from part-time to full-time employment. Even if the service sector is growing inboth countries, the two examples show how labor policies can impact non-standard workers
differently, with important consequences on female workers’ trajectories.

Panel IIIThe last panel of the symposium on “Paths towards
Participatory Societies” was dedicated to recent
developments of the concepts of womanhood andmanhood, and their implications for participatory societies.
The first presentation on “The Men’s Need for Gender
Equality” offered by Prof. Dr. Stephan HÖYNG from the
Catholic University of Applied Sciences Berlin tackled theneed for more gender equality from a masculine
perspective. If feminist groups have often highlighted theProf. Dr. Stephan HÖYNG
existence of male privileges rooted in patriarchy, thepresenter argues that patriarchy also comes with constrainsthat burden men (lack of self-care, pressure to succeed professionally, limited time for childcare,etc.). Within the labor market, capitalism led to the link between masculinity and certain types ofsectors, pulling men away from care work or social work. There is the need to understand that ahegemonic masculinity influences the construction of identities and that it also creates tensions formen. Drawing on data showing men’s vulnerabilities related to health and life expectancy, but also
the gender based division of labor, HÖYNG stresses the importance of gender equality for both
women and men, deploring the lack of public policies aiming at reconfiguring masculinity. Civil
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groups now advocate for a redefinition of this concept, especially towards a caring masculinity. As
a conclusion, HÖYNG underscores the dangers of creating new forms of normative masculinity andthe need to reconstruct gender relations in a democratic manner.
The second presentation on “’Shining Women’ Policy Under the ABE Government: A Japanese
Version of Gender-Mainstreaming?”, held by Dr. SHIN Ki-Young, Associate Professor at Ochanomizu
University, offered an analysis of the “All Women Shining Society Policy” in Japan, asking if this policy
could be considered as a new form of Gender-Mainstreaming (GM). In 2013, Prime Minister ABE
pledged to promote a “society where women shine” as a part of his economic growth strategy,
leading to the Act Concerning Promotion of Women’s Career Activities in 2015. Tackling many issues,
such as the promotion of women into leadership positions, the return to the labor market afterchildbirth, men’s parental leave, or support for childcare, it aims at mobilizing the dormant power offemale workers. Focusing mostly on the business sector, the government has produced numericaltargets in order to promote women’s participation. But according to the presenter, theachievements are still underwhelming. Even if all national and local governments have produced
action plans, as well as 99.9 % of firms with more than 300 employees, the implementation is stilllacking, notably because of an absence of enforcement measures. Since 2017, the Women Shining
Society policy has expanded in order to incorporate more issues, such as violence against women,
health, or single-parent support. If it seems that gender equality would be at the heart of thosepolicies, the discussant underscores the conservative stance of PM ABE against the promotion ofgender equality before his arrival in power, concluding that the ultimate goal of his policies is the fullscale mobilization of the working force in order to promote a strong nation-building, not throughbetter gender equality, but through the contribution of women to economic growth.
The last presentation on “Pleated Hair, Hair Rollers andUndyeing Hair: the Challenges of Women’s Participation in
Public Participation in Korea” was given by Dr. KIM HyunGyung from Freie Universität Berlin. Taking on the examplesof three public figures (PARK Gun-Hye, LEE Jung-Mee and
KANG Kyung-Hwa) and their hairstyles, the presenter offeredan analysis of the presence of women on the South Korean
public scene. The modern public and political spheres arestill male dominated, explaining why women tend to get
Dr. KIM Hyun-Gyung
more attention, especially about the way they look. In the
Asian context, as it was in the European one, women are often associated with the private sphere,leading to their underrepresentation in modern democracies. After being elected as president in
2012, PARK’S pleated hair was used to remind the population of the paternalistic social activities andimage of her mother, while promoting policies reminding of her father’s presidency. However, hertidy hair became the center of criticisms after the Seawol ferry incident in 2014, as it was interpreted
as a symbol of unnecessary vanity and corrupt femininity. On the other side, the constitutional court
judge LEE, who voted in favor of the impeachment of PARK in 2017, was publicly seen with hair-rolls in
her hair, and became a symbol of the difficulties to bring together professional and private lives for
women. As a last example, the discussant brought up the example of KANG, currently the first female
Foreign Minister in South Korea. Her undyed hair, going against the pressure for female workers tolook young and feminine, created the image of an independent, capable professional woman.
However, her education abroad and career path created a gap between her and working classwomen, deepening a gap among women in a post-developmental state. The discussions that arosefrom those three women’s hairstyles show the importance of appearance, especially for female
figures, in democracies because of the necessity to represent oneself in the public sphere.
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Discussion
Before moving onto the general discussion, MAKIYAMA Hiroe, a member of the House of Councilors inJapan, was invited to express her opinion about the event and possible questions. She expressed theneed for more female politicians in Japan, in order to tackle the gender imbalance, but also in orderto represent female voters better. She asked female researchers to pay attention to the initiatives
implemented by female politicians, such as the group Kanajo (“Women of Kanagawa Prefecture”)
in order to make their actions more visible.
The general discussion revolved around two main topics: the common issues between Germany,
Japan and South Korea, and the differences that need to be considered. It appeared that thecurrent entrenchment of the welfare state, under the idea that it is too costly, is shared between thethree countries, and that neoliberal policies in general tend to lead to a representation of women as
economic actors, without systematically raising awareness about gender equality. But with the majorsocial changes happening, with for example demographic change and structural changes within
the family as an institution, it might be important to go beyond the traditional vision of family andaddress other issues. It also seems that the three countries have seen progress with regards to genderinequality, even though many issues still remain; there is therefore a need to carefully analyze the
new issues and put them in a transnational perspective, by comparing the changes and evolutions
in different countries. In terms of differences, scholars pointed out the need to carefully define
concepts, such as “gender equality”, “democracy” or “feminism”, as they might convey different
meanings. Reminding of the context is extremely important when addressing issues such as “family
policies”, “masculinity”, “femininity”, “hegemony”, as concepts are constructed within this particular
context.
Overall, the colloquium has allowed researchers to bring together different perspectives from threesimilar, but still quite different countries, and to open a discussion about gender equality and social
participation in rapidly changing environments. Different trajectories of change are observed
nowadays, with tensions between neoliberal/conservative policies and empowerment, as well as
between different kinds of feminism, but there is still an overall need to address and discuss the issues
gender equality, democracy and social justice further.

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