The Japanese Immigrant Family in the USA
expects the children will come to think that their selfish deeds suffer the mother. Kato also summarizes that Japanese children will soon regret their wrong doing
after realizing that their parents have been suffering because of them and then end up following what their parents say. However, American people tend to think that
amae or physical dependency of children to their parents indicates immaturity and
negative quality. They assume that individualism is ideal since mature people should be independent as well Kato, 1989: 52-53.
In addition, The Japanese is a patriarchal society. Hsiao-Chuan Hsia and John H. Scanzoni in Rethinking The Roles of Japanese Women says that, the
Japanese were influenced by Confucianism and Buddhism that changed matrilineality system into patrilineality system. Women lost their legal privilleges,
for instance, they could not own property and divorce their husbands. Confucianism and Buddhism not only changed the system, but also ascribed an
inferior social and religious status for women Hsia, 1996: 310-311. Chris Kincaid in A Look At Gender Expectations In Japanese Society states that in
Japanese society, gender identities are defined by culture more than physical difference between men and women. Women are labelled into child-bearing
because men are physically cannot. However, child-rearing roles are a product of a culture. Furthermore, Kincaid also adds a few key ideas about gender that persist
within Japanese society, namely: a.
Men should work outside the home. b.
Genders should be brought up differently. c.
Women are more suited to household work and child-rearing than men.
d. Full time housewives are valuable to society because of their family
raising role. http:www.japanpowered.comjapan-culturea-look-at-gender-expectations-in-
japanese-society