Photo/Illutration Female opposition lawmakers enter the Lower House chamber wearing white jackets and sporting white roses to protest Yoshiro Mori’s sexist remarks on Feb. 9. (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

Here’s a riddle: A man and his son were seriously injured in a car accident and taken to different hospitals. The surgeon assigned to the boy screamed upon seeing the patient's face, “This is my son!” How could that be possible?

The answer is that the surgeon was the boy’s mother.

The riddle lies in the fact that many people automatically assume the surgeon is male.

This sort of “unconscious bias” was the subject of a survey last year by Rengo (Japanese Trade Union Confederation) that canvassed the views of 50,000 members and others.

A sizable 66 percent of respondents assumed that “a parent living away from their family because of work” was the father. And 39 percent imagined women when they heard job descriptions such as “someone who serves tea in the office, office receptionist, clerical worker and nursery teacher.”

In some ways, bias is formed by social realities, and it in turn impedes and delays changes in society.

In that sense, the “lens of bias” through which Yoshiro Mori saw society was quite darkly tinted, so to speak.

Behind the words he uttered, his true message sounded none other than that “women should keep their mouths shut.”

The fact that it took Mori so long to resign as president of the Tokyo Olympics organizing committee speaks volumes about his cluelessness to the gravity of the situation he brought on himself. The same applies to those close to him as well as people within the Suga administration.

The only silver lining I can see in this appalling turn of events is that Japan’s male-centric society has been challenged anew.

Is it not that women are expected to “know their place” everywhere in this nation? And aren’t many people looking through “lenses of bias,” albeit tinted in varying degrees?

When you step on someone’s toe, you aren’t aware of that person’s pain.

Including myself, men must examine their consciences and look squarely at their own biases. And this just cannot wait.

--The Asahi Shimbun, Feb. 13

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Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a popular daily column that takes up a wide range of topics, including culture, arts and social trends and developments. Written by veteran Asahi Shimbun writers, the column provides useful perspectives on and insights into contemporary Japan and its culture.

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