Traditionally, Japan has been a country that emphasises class concepts, especially in terms of gender (Tocco, 2005). Women’s workplaces and even areas of work are restricted, followed by the labour commonly performed by women (such as housework), which is forcibly recognised as the duty and obligation of all women, which rudely obliterates women’s right to choose, control, and speak for work. It means that Japanese society has always instilled in women the image of a virtuous woman, and women’s role positioning and division of labour (Makita, 2010) in the workplace and family have been fixed. Also, under the influence of traditional ideology, men dominated women's behaviour in modern society. The heroine of We married as a job! Mikuri Moriyama is a master’s degree graduate but has been unable to find a job. When her father saw this situation, he found her a job as a domestic helper. However, because her parents were moving to other countries, she could not do this job anymore. Mikuri Moriyama, who was extremely disturbed about the future, proposed to Hiramasa Tsuzaki to “get married for employment,” so she started a life of “employment marriage,” when questioning the value of housewives, different problems and conflicts arise during their “married life”. Employment and marriage became the focus of the whole TV series discussion. The series extended to correspond to the various gender stereotypes, labour rights and the division of housework in the family and society. Through ideology, my purpose is to explore We married as a job! (2016), society’s stereotypes and expectations of women and women’s struggles in society’s expectations, with the hope to live for self. The solidified social roles and division of labour, and the subsequent male discrimination against their status, the vicious circle creates a more closed female disadvantaged environment, hinders women from fighting for legitimate work rights, and even extreme evolution to women working outside or women becoming the workplace and leadership is not recognised. 

 

First, gender hegemony allows men to control society. Louis Althusser mentioned that ideology permeates every corner and everyone is involved. For example, it is mutually exclusive, and this tune is used as a process for establishing the subject. Moreover, ideology needs to be produced and reproduced by the ideological state machinery such as the family and media (Storey, 2009). When Mikuri Moriyama proposed the “marriage contract” to Hiramasa Tsuzaki, her consciousness was to treat herself as an employee, and Hiramasa Tsuzaki was the employer, which indirectly revealed that her heart had been affected by the ideology of male society. Because she regards the male protagonist as an employer, this employment relationship implies the class system between men and women. Ruth Benedict (1989) elaborated on Japan’s Bushido ethical spirit. Japan values the five principles of Confucianism and embodies the Bushido spirit of voluntary sacrifice and class concepts. Therefore, women have always been regarded as the lowest level in the family and society. The family comes first. The situation in Mikuri Moriyama reflects that under the influence of gender hegemony, women allow men to control and did not protest. 

 

Second, women’s relationship in marriage and family is not equal. Karl Marx (1967) proposed that in a capitalist society, the distribution of labour and economic status is unequal. Women are the proletariat of the family, and providing care and services in the family does not make money in society. If the family is neglected because of going out to work, women will have the opportunity to be criticised by society and put women into trouble. Therefore, social restrictions on gender are not innate but constructed by cultural values. Regarding the concept of contractual marriage, Mikuri Moriyama believes that housewives should also be regarded as professionals. She analyses the occupation of housewives from a rational viewport. She believes that housewives also have to pay labour and time to take care of the family, why they are not paid and guaranteed. The initial controversy of We married as a job! started with the non-traditional form of marriage called contractual marriage, challenging Japan’s “traditional family concept”, which is to form a nuclear family of “a woman's place is in the home” through marriage. In a traditional family, men are the backbone of the economy and women are full-time housewives, forming a traditional family gender division of “men dominate the outside and women dominate the interior”. Women’s functions are fixed as housework and parenting, and women’s professional abilities and career choices are affected and ignored. After that, Hiramasa Tsuzaki suffered from company layoffs and could not afford to pay Mikuri Moriyama’s housework salary. Then, Hiramasa Tsuzaki proposed to her because he became a real husband and wife without paying the salary and handled everything in the family as his wife. However, Mikuri Moriyama believes that marriage is the “love exploitation” of women through marriage to highlight the value of women's unpaid housework. The marriage contract is only a formality. The focus is to examine the views and expectations of both parties on marriage through the contract. This helps establish a healthy and equal relationship between husband and wife, rather than extorting the other half through social or traditional forces to be unconditional “Marriage workers”. 

 

Third, society weakens the social value of women. Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1911) once mentioned that men manage all human activities and exclude women from all categories of creativity. Gender is a classification that shapes the social order, requiring men and women to have certain personalities and characteristics to define gender. However, all these are based on the rules and restrictions established from the perspective of men, and the image of women is constructed through the process of social education to stabilise the social structure and meet the requirements of men. The role of Mikuri Moriyama exposes the plight of contemporary Japanese women. With a master’s degree, they can only be dispatched employees and can not become regular employees. The Japanese workplace advocates a lifetime employment system, as long as you become a full-time employee, that means can work safely until retire (Yu, 2013). However, modern society in Japan has long discriminated against women and after women enter the workplace, they will get married and have children and resign after a while, so they can not take up important corporate positions (Chang, 2009). Also, at the beginning of the TV series, the boss naturally assigned Mikuri Moriyama to do the work of pouring tea and chores and was later fired because of a high degree of education. It can be seen from this that society has a stereotyped impression of women, such as chores and handling tea. These jobs are women’s natural responsibilities, and they do not pay much attention to women’s work abilities, which makes women unable to show their abilities in society. Furthermore, Yuri Tsuchiya is a special presence in the TV series. Yuri Tsuchiya is Mikuri Moriyama’s aunt. She worked hard as an unmarried woman to earn her career worth. In the process, she could still hear other women's gossip. But here, we can see that Yuri Tsuchiya has received gossip in society because she is not married at the age of 50. Many colleagues and friends are full of doubts and discrimination about her being unmarried at 50, even guessing it was her aunt's problem, no one wanted to marry her. The more important issue is that because she is not married, she can achieve a position at a high-level company. In this way, we can see society exploited women, limiting their freedom of choice, family and career can not coexist. 

 

In conclusion, under the traditional concept, housework is regarded as a labour of love, and women’s housework is often taken for granted, exploited in the name of love, under the curse of good wives and mothers, and requiring women to sacrifice for the family. Even if a woman has a high degree of education, or both husband and wife have jobs, the responsibility of taking care of the family still mostly falls on women. Women are often seen struggling in work and family in society. Discrimination and objectification of women still exist in our society, but Yuri Tsuchiya is proud to be an independent and powerful woman. This reflects that women also need to work hard for their status and identify with themselves. Traditional cultural values and marriages are full bindings to women, and the status of a woman is positioned as a person who takes care of the family. The choice of marriage seems to be the choice to enter and be squeezed, while women enjoy it. The protagonist and heroine are aware of this problem and propose a solution to the exploitation by using both spouses as co-operators, which also points out that the spouses are equal rather than opposed or have a high-low relationship. 

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References 

Benedict, R. (1989). The chrysanthemum and the sword patterns of Japanese culture. Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin. 

Chang, A. (2009). Facing change: Some issues for Japan & women in the Japanese workplace. Japan Spotlight: Economy, Culture & History, 28(3), 38. 

Kaneko, F. (Director), & Nogi, A., & Umino, T. (Writers). (2016, October 11). We married as a job! [Television series episode]. In We married as a job. Tokyo, Japan: Tokyo Broadcasting System, Inc. 

Makita, M. (2010). Gender roles and social policy in an aging society. International Journal of Ageing and Later Life, 5(1), 77-106. 

Marx, Engels, & Engels, Friedrich. (1967). The Communist manifesto (Penguin classics). Harmondsworth, England: Penguin. 

Storey, J. (2009). Chapter 4 Marxisms. In Cultural theory and popular culture: An introduction (5th ed., pp. 70-71). Harlow, England; New York: Pearson. 

Tocco, M. (2005). Made in Japan: Meiji women’s education. In Gendering Modern Japanese History (pp. 37-60). Brill. 

Yu, W. (2013). It's Who You Work With: Effects of Workplace Shares of Nonstandard Employees and Women in Japan. Social Forces, 92(1), 25-57.