Treating half the population as undeserving of a career is "extremely minor"?

You mean forgetting the fact that America just literally banned abortion because the country is run by religious nutters, and has more mass shootings than any other country in the world, including the very nice statistic that the leading cause of death for children is America is from firearms. So yeah, I'll take whatever Japan has thanks very much.

> America just literally banned abortion

This is simply not true.

While shootings get a lot of attention, the probability of getting shot is approximately zero.

We literally had a mass shooting where 10 died and 10 were injured, today. And the number 1 cause of death in children is gun violence, for the last few years.

> We literally had a mass shooting where 10 died and 10 were injured, today.

And? Statistically, every day over a 100 people die in motor vehicle incidents and a further 100 from fall related injuries in America. You're just proving my point.

> number 1 cause of death in children is gun violence,

Firearm related deaths are not all gun violence. The overwhelming majority of them are accidents.

It’s not zero at all it’s higher than dying from a bike accident

Just looked it up: 0.3% lifetime probability of dying by gun assault. Mass shootings are indeed lower at 0.01%.

The religious nutters who banned abortion (edit: better put, eroded protections on it) are literally the same people who are trying to get everyone to focus on a severely overstated crime problem, as the grandparent comment did.

In fact you can point to Trump for both of these. On crime: He came in with his outdated world view shaped by 1980s New York complaining of "American carnage in our cities" at a time when crime was at a 25 year low. On abortion: Then he filled a few supreme court seats.

Except that America literally did not ban abortion.

Abortion is technically illegal in Japan.

How kind of you to take one of the most racist and sexist societies that’s politically identical to the religious nutters you’re talking about.

America did not ban abortion and it’s less restrictive than in Japan.

Also weird to call out shootings when a Japanese PM was assassinated with a gun less than a year ago.

Abe was assassinated with a homemade gun because manufactured ones are so hard to obtain. Per capita, the rate of gun death in the US is 1600x Japan's. Hell, the total annual number of gun deaths in Japan is lower than the US's rate of gun death per 100k (~10/year in Japan vs more than 10/100k/year in the US). The US is so much worse on that aspect that it's laughably absurd you'd even make that point.

https://everystat.org/ https://www.businessinsider.com/gun-control-how-japan-has-al...

And yet a longtime head of state got assassinated with a gun. No peaceful nation has political assassinations. The people are just as violent but with fewer resources to act on that violence. The sexual assault of women is one notable projection.

Abe's assassination was an anomaly. Japan is far more peaceful than America (I'm an American)--rather than pretending Japan more violent than the US, you might prefer the more accurate argument: Japan's low crime is attributable to its strong traditional values, homogeneity, conformity, etc.

Lol none of that is true. If you want to cherry-pick stuff, go with mass incarceration or something.

> America just literally banned abortion

Our supreme court overturned a law that enshrined country-wide access to abortion. I personally disagree with this, but the phrasing as stated here isn’t representative of the truth. Individuals in progressive states and those willing to cross state lines in many cases still retain access to abortion.

We didn't ban abortion, the Supreme Court said that states could make their own rules (more specifically, it says that there is no constitutional right to abortion, but state constitutions can change that).

(I'm not defending the US, just trying to correct a misconception.)

I am not convinced that finding "job opportunities and career growth severely limited by the heavily patriarchal culture" is the same as "treating half the population as undeserving of a career".

In what way are they different?

It seems like a different description of the same thing.

One is hyperbolic. One can believe that there is some bias against women without believing that they are treated as undeserving of having a career.

Ok, I read the description as quite literal not hyperbolic.

And you think they are the same? How much experience do you have with the Japanese job market?

I am not a female in the Japanese job market, but I do have first hand accounts from them.

Are you a woman in the Japanese job market?

I am not a woman in the Japanese job market. I am merely a man trying to understand how "job opportunities and career growth severely limited by the heavily patriarchal culture" is the same as "treating half the population as undeserving of a career". I see "job opportunities and career growth severely limited" for women in many industries in the United States and yet it would be silly to say that many think they are "undeserving of a career".

I am skeptical of some claims made about specific industries and cultures being much worse than others.

The word choice may be the same, but Japan is significantly more extreme than the US.

In 2018 21.8% of Medical doctors in Japan where women vs 36.6% in the US and 48.6% in the UK. https://www.who.int/data/gho/data/indicators/indicator-detai...

You can find more and less extreme examples in various industries, but there’s a real difference between the two counties.

Does this existence of fewer women in a job mean that they are kept out by those who think them “undeserving of a career”? Only 4% of sewage plant operators are female. Is that because they are kept out of the industry?

Deserving of a career here implies the career is desirable.

So, I understand if reality makes you uncomfortable but reality doesn’t care.

The reality of the situation has not caused me any discomfort.

I remain unconvinced that the two phrases are descriptions of the same thing.

Both phrases where used to describe the same situation. So they quite literally where describing the same thing.

The two phrases were used by two different commenters. I questioned that one was equal to the other. I still do.

Do you honestly think they aren’t both describing the job situation in Japan as it applies to women from the poster’s perspective?

Because I can only assume you’re playing pretend at this point.

I take offense at your assumption. I have sincerely written what I think. You have implied that you can read my mind and that I am "uncomfortable" or "playing pretend".

User SoylentOrange wrote that his wife "found her job opportunities and career growth severely limited by the heavily patriarchal culture." That seems a very believable assertion to me, given what I have read about Japanese culture and seen in many industries outside of tech in Western cultures.

User lozenge rephrased that as, "treating half the population as undeserving of a career".

I have no idea if lozenge has any experience with Japanese culture. I read his statement as a summary of what SoylentOrange wrote.

I remain unconvinced that the median Japanese man thinks that women are undeserving of a career. I welcome those with first hand experience to share more than anecdotes to convince me.

To be accused of "playing pretend" when questioning hyperbole makes me reconsider commenting on HN at all.

Sexism and racism is minor compared to crime and poverty? (Which Japan also has, you just don't see it)

Kinda yes? I’d rather be discriminated (to some degree) than shot dead.

Your chances of being shot outside of an inner city ghetto is so small as to be negligible. You've been brainwashed by sensationalist news. Meanwhile there are places in Japan that won't allow non-Japanese to enter.

Asian standard of crime rate is very different from the US...

I used to enjoy the night hanging out with friends or having fun alone in big Chinese cities (Beijing and Shanghai), hopping on public transportation, and having food in narrow streets. Without even the slightest worry of being robbed (but pickpockets do exist). Tokyo and other Japanese cities are supposed to be better.

But during my visit to Chicago and New Haven, I was strongly advised against going out alone (without a car) at night by my landlord.

You’re comparing Beijing and Tokyo to New Haven and Chicago.

Due respect, but your landlord was an idiot. It's dark at 4:30PM in Chicago in December. You think the city just shuts down?

Honest question: is it OK if I live near UChicago (visiting) and go out alone by foot at 9-10pm?

I have done for over 20 years. Hyde Park is one of the safer neighborhoods in Chicago.

You should, as in all places, be aware of your surroundings.

I'd say the chances of most people being shot inside an inner city ghetto are also small.

But I'm going to guess those complaining about the risk of being shot dead in an American city are unwilling to say the current interpretation of the 2nd amendment is a factor, or that we simply have too many guns.

The correlation between gun ownership and gun-related homicides (by state) is (weakly) negative.

We are happy to talk about the statistics, they just don't tell the story you want to tell.

You're saying that in states with a higher gun ownership rate, there are few (per capita, I hope you mean) gun related homicides. Specifically comparing US states, not the US to another country.

But 100% of gun related homicide happens with a gun. I had a funny read of your comment, perhaps you think those happen with "borrowed" guns ... If they only owned those guns outright, they could benefit from your statistic.

Sure if guns didn't exist, we wouldn't have gun violence. The question is: given that we have guns, what is the right form of regulation that would lead to better public safety overall? After all, there is meaningful evidence that guns are often used (even just presenting the gun, not actually firing it) for legitimate self-defense purposes.

I said nothing about borrowed guns. To my knowledge, most of those homicides are done with stolen handguns, and are used by people involved in organized crime in the most highly gun-restricted cities in the nation.

By the way, some googling on your claim found this as a first hit.

https://www.newswise.com/politics/gun-ownership-and-homicide...

"... [A] 1-per-cent increase in the rate of ownership is associated with a 1-per-cent increase in the rate of homicide by gun, which is three times higher than the previous studies had estimated,” Chalak explained.

There are lots of studies that come down on both sides of the issue. I'll have to check that one out, but experience suggests this one will have methodological issues.

> Your chances of being shot outside of an inner city ghetto is so small as to be negligible. You've been brainwashed by sensationalist news.

So have you. Just the word ghetto shows how disconnected you are from reality (sorry) - I haven't heard it in the city for decades. Your chance of getting shot anywhere is very tiny. People live and work, every day, for their entire lives in the highest-crime neighborhoods; almost all of them never get shot. They aren't idiots or monsters; they are normal people. If it was that dangerous, they would find a way to move. You could go there right now and you'd be fine. (And still, too many people are getting shot.)

That just shows what's important to you. Which is not necessarily what's important to others.

There's isn't necessarily more of either poverty or crime in USA cities than rural areas, it's roughly the same on average. (per capita; there are of course more people total in a city than a similarly sized rural area). Googling for cites, I find numbers all over the place.

I don't know how to compare problems between the USA and Japan, or decide what kinds of problems are "worse"... but our misperceptions of the size of various problems based on our "common sense" probably doesn't help.

I also lived for a time in Germany and in Canada. I want to note that West != USA.

These countries are not without their own problems but I see no need to paper over them. Rather, we can be honest about their faults and their positive qualities so we might learn to build a better society or inform others who may want to try living there.

Multi racial/cultural societies have a different set of problems and advantages. Why can't we be more like Japan is because you can't? It would be interesting to see what a modern multi racial/cultural society built under an Asian country would be like. Dubai? UAE? Not really the place for me.

Attributing problems to race is unfounded, a soft racism promoted by the far right (and unwittingly repeated).

This image of US cities is misleading.

American cities I've been in are dyanamic engines of the American economy, filled with culture and life. Crime is low (though shootings are up nationwide, in every kind of place, urban to rural). Poverty is a big problem all over the US.

The strongest evidence is the very high premium people will pay to live in these cities.