August 24, 2018 • 30 mins
A recent investigation revealed that admission to a prestigious medical school in Japan was rigged to keep women out. A & B discuss the ramifications, as well as sexism in Japan and the medical field at large.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, listeners, if you're listening to this on the day
that it drops Friday, I just wanted to let you
know that it is one of my favorite people's birthdays,
and that is Annie. Annie has been such a terrific
co host of this show. You know, I've been so
so happy to produce Sminty with her. She's amazing. It's
great for me because you know, y'all that's got a
(00:21):
taste of how amazing she is. Every Wednesday and Friday
I get to have her all the time. So happy birthday, Annie.
We are so so grateful to have you on the
show and just in the world, and we hope it's
a great one. So listeners, Uh, Annie doesn't know I'm
doing this, so'll be sure to show her some love
on social media. Show where that birthday love and Annie,
we love you so much. Hi, this is Annie, and
(00:46):
this is Bridget and you're listening to stuff Mom never
told you. And one thing that has happened since I
became an outspoken feminist um and have started working on
(01:06):
the show in particular, is that any time a story
breaks about sexism or that it's tangentially related to sexism,
people text me about people are always like, have you
heard about this? Are you're going to talk about this
on the show? And I bet the same. It's true
for a lot of your listeners. Is the same true
for you bridget Oh so true? So true. I don't
(01:28):
even need like a Google alert, you guys A let
us know. Yes, And today's topic is no exception. Um,
we're talking about Tokyo Medical Institute. On August eight, an
investigation revealed that the test scores at Tokyo Medical University
had been regularly doctored, which is a pun that I
(01:49):
made on accident to keep women out. Tokyo Medical University
is a really well known and respected university in Japan
um and it was chosen to receive special funds from
the government to increase female attendance. So this is a
big deal and it has been going on for over
a decade. Some women claim to have heard rumors that
(02:13):
the university was engaging in this practice, and from the
university's internal report quote, this can only be described as
serious discrimination against women and it deserves strong criticism. Okay,
So when I first heard about this, I was thinking,
maybe it's this sort of implicit thing where they're every
third woman, they're giving a hard time. No, this is
(02:35):
a systematic and very specific method of keeping women out
in a way that's almost cartoonishly evil. When I was
reading for what they actually did and how specific the
numbers were behind how they were keeping women out, this
is like a plot from a Bond movie. It was.
It was so intense. Yeah, and not only did the
university lower the scores for female applicants, it also helped
(02:58):
certain individuals, usually the family members of donors, usually men
also called priority males, by raising their scores. So here's
how they did it. Um on the essay portion of
the exam, which was marked out of one hundred, was
taken off automatically men who had taken the test three
times or less, so most men got twenty bonus marks.
(03:22):
So for a man and a woman who got the
same test score, say eighty, but the man had taken
the test three times or less, he would get a
score of an eighty four and the woman would get
a score of a sixty four. It's it's so cartoonishly evil.
To the goal was a so called quote silent understanding
to decrease female enrollment from Yeah, they were trying to
(03:48):
get it down to which again, is so horrible, and
that they were receiving money to in order to increase
the female population at the school. Right yeah. Investigation into
possible score altering launched after a scandal came to light
around a higher up in the education ministry that um
(04:09):
he had bribed the former chairman of the school's board
of regents and the former president of the university to
grant the official son entry into the university after he
did poorly on the test hashtag poorly performing me it'll
catch on one day, No, I I badly. We should
put that on a shirt hashtag or like I guess
(04:31):
a woman wouldn't want to wear it. I don't. We'll
figure it out. We'll sort it out. But it's my
favorite thing, and we gotta make it happen. I think
we will thirty five million yen in government subsidies for
the school in exchange for his son's acceptance. That's what
the officials the investigation found. So it's well that it's
not just blatant sexism keeping women out. It's giving priority males.
(04:52):
You know, men who have these connections, men who are
the sons of donors, giving them a leg up. It's
like this, it's like working in tangent with each other. Yeah,
like sexism and nepotism on how to baby. And it's
this that is exactly how I would describe it. Another
possible red flag is that for nearly every subject other
than medicine, women have a higher pass trate on the
(05:14):
intrance exam, but um, for for this particular interest exam medicine,
it was six to five men to women. So when
the news of this broke, the managing director and vice
president of the university apologized and promised that it would
never happen again, and said they were looking into ways
to making it up to the women who had been
(05:35):
denied access to the university. UM, I can't imagine what
that would look like unless it's just we are now
at all female university, you know, I can't. I can't imagine, Like,
how do you how do you make that up to someone?
They said? Um, And by the way, they don't know
how many women this impacted, but they suspect it's thousands
at least. Um. They were talking about maybe reimbursing, because
(05:58):
you have to pay to take the test, you have
debate to take the test, so reimbursing the test fees.
But how does that make it. I mean sure that
that's the least they can do is make them financially whole.
But it's almost one of those things where let's say
that I was a prominent, you know, so prominent medical
student and I wanted to go to this medical school
(06:20):
and I could have gotten in and my life could
have been so different, and you know, I could have
had untold success. Like, you can't reimburse somebody for what
you've taken from them when what you've taken is is potential,
you know what I mean. Yeah, No, certainly not a
test fee is going to make up for for just
a lost opportunity. So the vice president said, I suspect
(06:41):
that there was a lack of sensitivity to the rules
of modern society in which women should not be treated
differently because of their gender. Yeah you think you think, yeah,
he might be onto something there. Yeah, sounds like you
know what I'm saying. The reason given for this practice
of trying to keep women out was the belief that
(07:02):
women would be more likely to quit after getting married,
are getting pregnant having children, which is pregnancy discrimination, just
like we were talking about in our episode on the
New Zealand Prime minister. University officials told local reporters that
it created an intolerable burden on already overworked doctors, and
that the university was well within their legal rights to
(07:25):
choose who to accept b s. Come on, I mean,
I mean, this is this is tail as oldest time
you know in America. Women certainly deal with pregnancy discrimination,
but this idea that the university they're well within their
rights to systematically scam women out of a place in
(07:46):
a medical school that they've earned through hard work because
they are worried that they're gonna have children and take
time off. But that's that's no, that's wrong, Yes, flat
out wrong, And there are a lot of things to
unpack around um. Japan's aging population putting more and more
pressure on hospitals. That creates an environment of understaffed hospitals
(08:08):
and long work hours. But there are certainly better solutions
than essentially cheating to keep women out of their profession.
I mean, that's just blaming women for societal problems. Of course,
understaffed and overworked hospital staff is a problem, but these
(08:29):
are larger societal problems. It's not individual women's fault for
daring to be women, you know, and trying to become doctors,
like is like putting the blame on these women who
have the audacity to want to go to medical school
as opposed to social services, your government and all of that. Yeah,
and we're going to talk more about that later because
there is so much other things keeping women out of
(08:53):
the medical profession. But um, some media reports to indicate
in Japan, seventy of women leave their job after kids,
but it's because they don't have access to good childcare.
The hours are really long, and they're also expected to
do the housework and take care of the elders in
the family, which is like three other jobs. Um. And
(09:16):
a story broke pretty recently about how a woman was
reprimanded for having a baby before it was her quote turn,
and that she was supposed to stick to a timetable
for when she could have kids. She worked at a
child care center, and these centers are under enormous stress.
Fifty five thousand children are on the wait list for
(09:37):
certified childcare centers. Women in other careers have reported getting
similar childbirth schedules. So, of course, as you might imagine,
women were not having it. They were furious. They took
to social media with the hashtag It's Okay to be
Angry about Sexism to share their stories of betrayal and sexism,
and they faced um. Women wrote about how they were
(09:59):
asked with jobs that are getting pregnant as if it
was just understood, and now they were seeing women after
women after women quit their job after getting pregnant and
having no examples of the fact that they could have
a career and a family. Yeah. One woman wrote, I
ignored my parents who said women don't belong in academia,
and got into the best university in Japan. But in
(10:19):
job interviews, I'm told if you were a man, we'd
hire you right away. My enemy wasn't my parents, but
all society itself. Students protested at the university, hearing science
that said things like you trampled on the efforts and
lives of women who trusted and chose you. Um and
like I said, you have to pay to take the exam,
and several women who had their scores altered are seeking compensation.
(10:44):
I certainly wouldn't have applied if I'd known the unfair
odds that I've faced. And that's part of the problem too,
because think of the young girls in Japan hearing this
story and thinking it doesn't matter how much I study,
the medical field is not a place for women. That
they don't want me. Yeah, And that's why I was
so almost sort of baffled by this idea that they
(11:05):
could quote make this make us right, or you know,
pay these women to you know, make them feel whole.
You can't. There's no amount of money that is going
to correct that damage of being a woman or a
girl who worked hard to become a doctor. And that
idea that it doesn't matter how hard you work, they
don't want me in this field, right, Like, that has
probably done immeasurable damage for gender parity in the medical
(11:29):
field in Japan, and like there's no amount of money
that can fix that. Yeah. And it's also damaged people's
trust in other universities and people starting to raise questions
about um similar institutions with low female attendance, and and
it has also brought the issue of gender inequality and
(11:49):
sexism in Japan back into the spotlight. Japan rinks out
of one forty four when it comes to gender inequality,
a cord into the World Economic Forum. The gap is
particularly evident in specialized fields requiring high levels of expertise,
despite the fact that women in Japan at a global
(12:10):
level scores some of the highest literacy and numerical scores,
and this is something Prime Minister Shinzo Abbe has been
trying to combat with his woman Omics program, which at
its most basic is aimed at increasing the number of
women in the workplace. A place where all women will
shine is the kind of tagline for this woman Onmics program.
(12:34):
And while we're focusing on women in medicine today, by
no means is this problem unique to that field exactly,
but for the medical profession in Japan specifically, since to
thus on three the number of women in the industry
has stayed around one third. This number also racist suspicions
that other medical schools have probably been sort of manipulating
the numbers to keep women out as well. The O
(12:56):
E c D found that twenty one percent of Japanese
positions are female and us less than half of the
average of the uncovery of the Tokyo Medical universities wrong
doomings has sparked major outrage and an investigation into all
medical universities in Japan, But maybe the rest of the
world should be looking at this and doing some reflection
as well. We'll get more into what we mean after
(13:17):
this quick break and we're back. Thank you, sponsor. Yeah. So,
unfortunately this problem is not localized to Japan, which I'm
sure is a surprise to everyone listening. We talked a
(13:40):
little bit about this and our women in Pain episode,
but discrimination against women in the medical fields is pretty
common throughout the world. It's wide spread. I mean, I
don't want to give the message that we're just singling
out Japan, because in our country, the United States, this
is certainly a problem as well. Yeah, the past two decades,
(14:01):
female entrance to the medical field has equaled that to
their male counterparts, but the burnout rate for women in
the US is double. This is often reframed as individual
failures and that's a quote that could have been avoided
by being a better negotiator, by not having kids. And yes,
women report having received this advice in private. And this
(14:24):
ignores the sexism and discrimination women face at every level
that a lot of you listeners have written into us
about that is causing them to drop out. Absolutely, So
I don't want to make people think that, you know,
you shouldn't want to be a good negotiator. Or you know,
be your best employee or whatever. But we also can't
discount the fact that society is messed up. If there's
(14:46):
sort of no, you can't negotiate your way out of
institutional sexism. And so we can't pretend that these are
the individual failings of women. And that's why you have
this burnout rate, and that's why you have this lack
of gender parity in the medical field. You need to
look at the entire situation and a lot about a
societal and widespread Yeah, like sexual harassment. UM women in
(15:08):
the medical field experienced seven times the amount of harassment
as men, and with forty of women reporting receiving a
negative remark from a patient about their gender as opposed
to six percent of men getting paid less for the
same work. Everything accounted for about twenty thousand dollars less
a year. And UM women aren't equally represented in academia either.
(15:31):
In medical schools across the country, women make up fifteen
cent of department shares and sixteen percent of deems. Think
about that for a second. Yeah, that's wild as wild.
Since two thousand eight, women only are awarded about thirty
of tenured positions, and studies have found that gender bias
(15:51):
comes into play when it comes to residency evaluations, which
sets women back in average of four months, and these
are extremely important for students in the medical field, potentially
impacting fellowship placement and research awards. Other studies found that
female physicians were less likely to get help from nurses
than male physicians, and we're also viewed more negatively for
(16:13):
making the same mistakes as their male counterparts. Compared to
the rest of the population. Female doctors are anywhere from
two to four times more likely to commit suicide. That's
so sad. My mom is a doctor and none of
this surprises me. She's completely overworked. She tells me things
that her patients will say to her. You know, I
(16:34):
don't want a black woman doctor. People feel really comfortable
making sexist and sometimes racist comments about women and people
of color in the medical field. And another part of
the conversation is nurses. Nurses report rate of sexual harassment
of seventy So if you're a woman or someone marginalized
(16:57):
in the medical community, it's like you just can't get
a break. Yeah, And certainly that would contribute to that
the high dropout rate that we were talking about, and
going back to pregnancy discrimination. One in three female physicians
reported experiencing this and being unable to follow the recommendations
(17:18):
they give to new mothers. Um. I hadn't really thought
about that before, but to tell a new mother, this
is what you need to take care of yourself, and
knowing that you can't follow your own advice since we
don't have much in the way of maternity leave here
in the United States, having children and then practically zer
support from the institutions that have been designed without you
(17:39):
in mind, um, maybe even to keep you out. That
that plays into the high burn out rate as well.
And the situation is similar in both the UK and Australia,
where more women graduate from medical schools, but that does
not reflect outside of university, where they support a similar
wage gap to the United States and to study out
of Canada from three found that seventy of female doctors
(18:02):
experienced sexual harassment from patients. A similar study out of
Ireland from found that number to be six And it's
bad when I'm like, oh, only sixty um, and respondents
reported gender based bullying. And that's so bad because, as
we were just talking about, so many hospitals and medical
(18:24):
facilities are already dealing with overwork burnout understats like they
already have legitimate issues that they are facing in their workplaces.
That added, you know, bullying and gender based harassment and
sexual harassment on top of that, I mean, I can't
even imagine. Of course they're burnt out. Of course they're
leaving the industry, of course. And the New Zealand Harold
(18:47):
reported this year that one out of ten junior doctors
experienced or witnessed sexual harassment, but that there was a
culture of sexual intimidation and that many women were too
afraid to speak out against male colleagues. From that report, quote,
female staff thought putting up with a certain amount of
sexual harassment was part and parcel of being a female doctor. God,
(19:10):
doesn't that sound like so many other industries. You would
think that, you know, people who are doctors are sort
of sort of enjoyed at elevated position in society, as
they should. But it's so interesting to me that even
in this respected industry, it's the same as when you
are working in the sortvice industry, or when you are
working in and lots of other kinds of industries where
(19:32):
you just internalize that, yeah, putting up with sexual harassment.
It's just part of being a doctor when you're a woman. Yeah,
it's so infuriating that we just kind of accept it
and keep hearing similar things over and over again. But
clearly this is a problem in in a lot of countries. Um,
(19:53):
and I hope that we can start moving towards a solution,
and we do have some potential solutions. But first we're
going to stop for one more quick break for word
from our sponsor, and we're back, Thank you sponsor. Alright, So,
(20:16):
keeping women and minorities who face similar obstacles from becoming
physicians impacts patient care and the quality of care a
country can provide. And as we say so often on
this show, ultimately it's about respecting and valuing women. But
to drill in on some specifics, don't cheat to allow
(20:38):
more men to your university step one. I would think
that would not need to be spelled out in such
explicit terms. For university officials who probably have parts of
their curriculum that spell out that their students shouldn't be cheating,
they need to be told lot to cheat as well.
But here we are. You know, don't cheat. It's bad. Yeah,
(21:01):
providing support structures at all levels, like more flexible work schedules,
maternity care, merit based programs. Those are things that could
help prevent that burnout. Yeah, and then lastly, have clear
structure and pathways for reporting sexual violence sexual harassment. Now,
of course this is complicated and it comes with its
own set of complications around it, of course, but it's
(21:25):
a good step. You know, not having any clear pathway
for what to do with someone sexually harass you on
the job is not good. Yeah. I read a lot
of stories from women in the medical field who said
they didn't know who to talk to. So at least
having that and being able to make decision to go
(21:47):
report sexual harassment, that's a step in the right direction.
And our yeah, our heart goes out to all the
women in Japan kept out of Tokyo Medical University. Oh
my god, I want them to have eyes up and
like burn that place to the ground. I'm so angry
on their behalf. And yeah, and my heart beyond that,
my heart goes out to if you're overworked, stressed out
(22:09):
doctor or nurse driving to your five am shift and
you haven't slept and you you know, my heart goes
out to all of y'all. I mean, I see how
hard my mom works, as she works really hard, and
it's actually kind of thankless. People think that being a
doctor means that you're rich, and you know, all you
do is walk around the statyscople around your neck and
get handshakes all day and it's really hard. Like I
(22:31):
see how hard she works, and it's I know, it
can be kind of thankless, and I yeah, my heart
goes out to yall. I don't know how y'll do it. Yeah.
I have a lot of people in the medical profession
in my family and seeing their work hours and just
hearing about all of the stress and the things they
have to deal with that are above and beyond like
(22:52):
the job that they trained for a bit like dealing
with difficult patients. Um. I'm always kind of taken aback
by it. Yeah, it's a lot to ask of one person.
It is a lot. Yeah, we would love to hear
from any listeners in the medical field about about this stuff. Um.
And this does bring us to a listener mail. Before
(23:18):
we read the mail today, I did want to say
thanks to everyone who's written in about the changing your
Name episode. Is so many emails. I had no idea
that this was such a. I mean, I guess I
did know, but I had no idea. We heard from
people who were getting divorced, people who were depressed that
they're changing their name, people who were super happy to
(23:39):
change their name because their partner had an awesome last name.
But this, there's so many So we should do a
follow up for another episode on it because it just
raised such an interesting conversation. Yeah, I was thinking we
could probably do an entire episode where we just read emails,
people have sent in messages, people have sent in of
their story, because I found it was also personal all
(24:00):
and different people, the reasons people had for changing their
name or not changing their name or whatever ended up happening.
And yes, I apologize to all women in Canada. It
is not all women in kid that cannot change their
name legally. It's only in Quebec. So I'll probably be
hearing about that until the end of time. But that's
all right, that's okay. You know, we all make mistakes. Annie, Yes,
(24:26):
and everyone's been very kind in correcting me, which I appreciate.
I hope I didn't cause any panic of people like,
oh my god, god, I wrote the law. Somebody out
there is is if you if you need to stuff
pay your legal fees because you heard that you've broken
the law and you consulted a lawyer, let us know.
I mean, we're not gonna pay them, but let us know.
I make a personal apology video or something. I'm sure
(24:49):
that's worth legal fees, right, Okay, So our first letter
today is from Meredith. She wrote, one of the biggest
impacts fan fiction has had on me was introducing me
to the LGBTQ community. I drew up in a well off,
predominantly white community in California, where lgbt people weren't necessarily shunned,
(25:09):
but they were just not talked about. I distinctly remember
there were two gay couples in my neighborhood, but other
than knowing of their existence, it was never talked about.
When I first stumbled upon fan fiction in high school,
I quickly learned about slash VIC. I remember being uncomfortable
with it at first because heteronormativity was so ingrained in
my brain that I couldn't wrap my head around wanting
(25:30):
to pair two male characters together. At first, I would
avoid all slash fix and even gravitate towards the fix
that turned one of the males and the pairing into
a girl. I even started writing a fix where one
of the main characters was actually a girl in disguise
as a boy, so that I could pair him with
another male character. Looking back, I crunched at how heteronormative
and homophobic this trope is, But after continuing to read
(25:52):
fan fiction, I soulely became more accustomed to the idea
of queer characters and slash pairings. By the time I
entered college, the LGBT community had become normalized. For me.
I stopped considering the gender of two characters when shipping
and started only looking at the dynamic between them. I
know there's a lot of fotitization that goes on with
m l M FICK, but for me, I usually gravitate
(26:14):
towards those pairings, not because it is MLM, but because
in media we get so many more dynamic and interesting
male characters that it is just easier to find two
compatible male characters to pair together, rather than forcing the
token female to pick one of the males. Fan fix
helped me discover my own queer identity and that sexuality
(26:35):
and gender identity can be freely explored. I can hear
the diversity of authors voices through their work, and I
have learned about so many queer identities. Just the exposure
to these identities helped me identify my own and realized
that I was not the only one with these kinds
of feelings. I look forward to the day when mainstream
media embraces the diversity of identities that fan fiction already has.
(26:58):
I don't know if this has been in it's by
fan fiction at all, but just in the last few years,
we have gotten some real progress with representation in children's media,
with several cartoons such as Legend of Cora, Stephen Universe,
and Voltron having some cannon gay and by characters, as
well as disabled characters and poc. Legend of Cora introduced
me to the only acceptable love triangle trope, where at
(27:21):
first both girls fight over a boy and then decide
he is not worth it and date each other instead.
Oh my god, my favorite trope. I love it. I
love it. I used to One of my favorite shows
is Gilmur Girls, and I used to always want have
you to watch that show? I alays wanted Rory in
Paris when they were fighting over this awful guy and
they're in their high school. I was like, clearly you
two belong together. They do kiss in a later episode
(27:47):
during Supring break. Oh my gosh, I feel like I
just want to have you tell me all about guilt
for Girls. I could do it. I've seen every episode
multiple times. I mean, I think that'd be a really
fun night for me. And they wrote just Listen to
Love Your Pot about female journalists in India. The part
(28:07):
where Bridget was discussing how women face such aggressive and
gross comments when they become an online presence really resonated
with me. I recently learned firsthand how scary internet massage
andy can be when regular non pornographic photos of myself
from my private Instagram account were used to make a
fake profile on a porn site asking for abusive and
degrading comments. When I went to the police about the
(28:28):
issue and spoke out about it, I was met with
a lot of comments about quote being careful about what
goes online and that comes with the territory of the Internet.
Maybe it's my interraging feminist flaring up, but that is
such bullsh Women to be able to post whatever they
want online without fearing it will end up being used
to threaten or degrade them, and it's impossible to police
what you post. Even with the most innocent photos can
(28:50):
be grossly misused and sexualized. I'm so exhausted of constantly
policing my actions and posts to protect myself from sexist,
abusive bs that people are rarely held accountable for. Here
here Um, First of all, I'm really sorry that happened
to you. That's disgusting and not okay and just completely unacceptable.
I'm really happy that you went to the police, but
(29:10):
it's not surprising to me that the police did not
take it seriously because I think a lot of times
police departments are still sort of catching up with how
you deal with these kinds of sensitive crimes that originally online.
And yeah, you should be able to post whatever you
want online and the message of oh, be careful what
you post. If you just posted a headshot of yourself
(29:30):
dressed normally and somebody can take that and make make
a disgusting porn version of it, then it really isn't
about what you post online. That the onus isn't on
you clearly that that advice hasn't hold water. Yeah, it's
just another victim blamy way. It makes me so mad.
We shouldn't have to worry about like what does this
(29:51):
innocent picture? We don't have to worry about what any picture?
But like even just that, I wouldn't think twice about posting,
and then who knows that would be you? And again
the onus is only on the person who is doing this.
If I'm on you as the person who innocently posted
a picture online, which is your right, even if it
was like a racy picture. The only person who has
(30:13):
done something wrong is the person who has done something wrong. Yes,
So thanks to both of them for writing in. If
you would like to write to us, you can. Our
email is mom Stuff at Houston works dot com, and
you can find us on the social means. We're on
Instagram at stuff but I've Never told You, and on
Twitter at mom Stuff Podcast. And thanks as always to
(30:34):
our producer, Kathleen Billion.
Hey, listeners, if you're listening to this on the day
that it drops Friday, I just wanted to let you
know that it is one of my favorite people's birthdays,
and that is Annie. Annie has been such a terrific
co host of this show. You know, I've been so
so happy to produce Sminty with her. She's amazing. It's
great for me because you know, y'all that's got a
(00:21):
taste of how amazing she is. Every Wednesday and Friday
I get to have her all the time. So happy birthday, Annie.
We are so so grateful to have you on the
show and just in the world, and we hope it's
a great one. So listeners, Uh, Annie doesn't know I'm
doing this, so'll be sure to show her some love
on social media. Show where that birthday love and Annie,
we love you so much. Hi, this is Annie, and
(00:46):
this is Bridget and you're listening to stuff Mom never
told you. And one thing that has happened since I
became an outspoken feminist um and have started working on
(01:06):
the show in particular, is that any time a story
breaks about sexism or that it's tangentially related to sexism,
people text me about people are always like, have you
heard about this? Are you're going to talk about this
on the show? And I bet the same. It's true
for a lot of your listeners. Is the same true
for you bridget Oh so true? So true. I don't
(01:28):
even need like a Google alert, you guys A let
us know. Yes, And today's topic is no exception. Um,
we're talking about Tokyo Medical Institute. On August eight, an
investigation revealed that the test scores at Tokyo Medical University
had been regularly doctored, which is a pun that I
(01:49):
made on accident to keep women out. Tokyo Medical University
is a really well known and respected university in Japan
um and it was chosen to receive special funds from
the government to increase female attendance. So this is a
big deal and it has been going on for over
a decade. Some women claim to have heard rumors that
(02:13):
the university was engaging in this practice, and from the
university's internal report quote, this can only be described as
serious discrimination against women and it deserves strong criticism. Okay,
So when I first heard about this, I was thinking,
maybe it's this sort of implicit thing where they're every
third woman, they're giving a hard time. No, this is
(02:35):
a systematic and very specific method of keeping women out
in a way that's almost cartoonishly evil. When I was
reading for what they actually did and how specific the
numbers were behind how they were keeping women out, this
is like a plot from a Bond movie. It was.
It was so intense. Yeah, and not only did the
university lower the scores for female applicants, it also helped
(02:58):
certain individuals, usually the family members of donors, usually men
also called priority males, by raising their scores. So here's
how they did it. Um on the essay portion of
the exam, which was marked out of one hundred, was
taken off automatically men who had taken the test three
times or less, so most men got twenty bonus marks.
(03:22):
So for a man and a woman who got the
same test score, say eighty, but the man had taken
the test three times or less, he would get a
score of an eighty four and the woman would get
a score of a sixty four. It's it's so cartoonishly evil.
To the goal was a so called quote silent understanding
to decrease female enrollment from Yeah, they were trying to
(03:48):
get it down to which again, is so horrible, and
that they were receiving money to in order to increase
the female population at the school. Right yeah. Investigation into
possible score altering launched after a scandal came to light
around a higher up in the education ministry that um
(04:09):
he had bribed the former chairman of the school's board
of regents and the former president of the university to
grant the official son entry into the university after he
did poorly on the test hashtag poorly performing me it'll
catch on one day, No, I I badly. We should
put that on a shirt hashtag or like I guess
(04:31):
a woman wouldn't want to wear it. I don't. We'll
figure it out. We'll sort it out. But it's my
favorite thing, and we gotta make it happen. I think
we will thirty five million yen in government subsidies for
the school in exchange for his son's acceptance. That's what
the officials the investigation found. So it's well that it's
not just blatant sexism keeping women out. It's giving priority males.
(04:52):
You know, men who have these connections, men who are
the sons of donors, giving them a leg up. It's
like this, it's like working in tangent with each other. Yeah,
like sexism and nepotism on how to baby. And it's
this that is exactly how I would describe it. Another
possible red flag is that for nearly every subject other
than medicine, women have a higher pass trate on the
(05:14):
intrance exam, but um, for for this particular interest exam medicine,
it was six to five men to women. So when
the news of this broke, the managing director and vice
president of the university apologized and promised that it would
never happen again, and said they were looking into ways
to making it up to the women who had been
(05:35):
denied access to the university. UM, I can't imagine what
that would look like unless it's just we are now
at all female university, you know, I can't. I can't imagine, Like,
how do you how do you make that up to someone?
They said? Um, And by the way, they don't know
how many women this impacted, but they suspect it's thousands
at least. Um. They were talking about maybe reimbursing, because
(05:58):
you have to pay to take the test, you have
debate to take the test, so reimbursing the test fees.
But how does that make it. I mean sure that
that's the least they can do is make them financially whole.
But it's almost one of those things where let's say
that I was a prominent, you know, so prominent medical
student and I wanted to go to this medical school
(06:20):
and I could have gotten in and my life could
have been so different, and you know, I could have
had untold success. Like, you can't reimburse somebody for what
you've taken from them when what you've taken is is potential,
you know what I mean. Yeah, No, certainly not a
test fee is going to make up for for just
a lost opportunity. So the vice president said, I suspect
(06:41):
that there was a lack of sensitivity to the rules
of modern society in which women should not be treated
differently because of their gender. Yeah you think you think, yeah,
he might be onto something there. Yeah, sounds like you
know what I'm saying. The reason given for this practice
of trying to keep women out was the belief that
(07:02):
women would be more likely to quit after getting married,
are getting pregnant having children, which is pregnancy discrimination, just
like we were talking about in our episode on the
New Zealand Prime minister. University officials told local reporters that
it created an intolerable burden on already overworked doctors, and
that the university was well within their legal rights to
(07:25):
choose who to accept b s. Come on, I mean,
I mean, this is this is tail as oldest time
you know in America. Women certainly deal with pregnancy discrimination,
but this idea that the university they're well within their
rights to systematically scam women out of a place in
(07:46):
a medical school that they've earned through hard work because
they are worried that they're gonna have children and take
time off. But that's that's no, that's wrong, Yes, flat
out wrong, And there are a lot of things to
unpack around um. Japan's aging population putting more and more
pressure on hospitals. That creates an environment of understaffed hospitals
(08:08):
and long work hours. But there are certainly better solutions
than essentially cheating to keep women out of their profession.
I mean, that's just blaming women for societal problems. Of course,
understaffed and overworked hospital staff is a problem, but these
(08:29):
are larger societal problems. It's not individual women's fault for
daring to be women, you know, and trying to become doctors,
like is like putting the blame on these women who
have the audacity to want to go to medical school
as opposed to social services, your government and all of that. Yeah,
and we're going to talk more about that later because
there is so much other things keeping women out of
(08:53):
the medical profession. But um, some media reports to indicate
in Japan, seventy of women leave their job after kids,
but it's because they don't have access to good childcare.
The hours are really long, and they're also expected to
do the housework and take care of the elders in
the family, which is like three other jobs. Um. And
(09:16):
a story broke pretty recently about how a woman was
reprimanded for having a baby before it was her quote turn,
and that she was supposed to stick to a timetable
for when she could have kids. She worked at a
child care center, and these centers are under enormous stress.
Fifty five thousand children are on the wait list for
(09:37):
certified childcare centers. Women in other careers have reported getting
similar childbirth schedules. So, of course, as you might imagine,
women were not having it. They were furious. They took
to social media with the hashtag It's Okay to be
Angry about Sexism to share their stories of betrayal and sexism,
and they faced um. Women wrote about how they were
(09:59):
asked with jobs that are getting pregnant as if it
was just understood, and now they were seeing women after
women after women quit their job after getting pregnant and
having no examples of the fact that they could have
a career and a family. Yeah. One woman wrote, I
ignored my parents who said women don't belong in academia,
and got into the best university in Japan. But in
(10:19):
job interviews, I'm told if you were a man, we'd
hire you right away. My enemy wasn't my parents, but
all society itself. Students protested at the university, hearing science
that said things like you trampled on the efforts and
lives of women who trusted and chose you. Um and
like I said, you have to pay to take the exam,
and several women who had their scores altered are seeking compensation.
(10:44):
I certainly wouldn't have applied if I'd known the unfair
odds that I've faced. And that's part of the problem too,
because think of the young girls in Japan hearing this
story and thinking it doesn't matter how much I study,
the medical field is not a place for women. That
they don't want me. Yeah, And that's why I was
so almost sort of baffled by this idea that they
(11:05):
could quote make this make us right, or you know,
pay these women to you know, make them feel whole.
You can't. There's no amount of money that is going
to correct that damage of being a woman or a
girl who worked hard to become a doctor. And that
idea that it doesn't matter how hard you work, they
don't want me in this field, right, Like, that has
probably done immeasurable damage for gender parity in the medical
(11:29):
field in Japan, and like there's no amount of money
that can fix that. Yeah. And it's also damaged people's
trust in other universities and people starting to raise questions
about um similar institutions with low female attendance, and and
it has also brought the issue of gender inequality and
(11:49):
sexism in Japan back into the spotlight. Japan rinks out
of one forty four when it comes to gender inequality,
a cord into the World Economic Forum. The gap is
particularly evident in specialized fields requiring high levels of expertise,
despite the fact that women in Japan at a global
(12:10):
level scores some of the highest literacy and numerical scores,
and this is something Prime Minister Shinzo Abbe has been
trying to combat with his woman Omics program, which at
its most basic is aimed at increasing the number of
women in the workplace. A place where all women will
shine is the kind of tagline for this woman Onmics program.
(12:34):
And while we're focusing on women in medicine today, by
no means is this problem unique to that field exactly,
but for the medical profession in Japan specifically, since to
thus on three the number of women in the industry
has stayed around one third. This number also racist suspicions
that other medical schools have probably been sort of manipulating
the numbers to keep women out as well. The O
(12:56):
E c D found that twenty one percent of Japanese
positions are female and us less than half of the
average of the uncovery of the Tokyo Medical universities wrong
doomings has sparked major outrage and an investigation into all
medical universities in Japan, But maybe the rest of the
world should be looking at this and doing some reflection
as well. We'll get more into what we mean after
(13:17):
this quick break and we're back. Thank you, sponsor. Yeah. So,
unfortunately this problem is not localized to Japan, which I'm
sure is a surprise to everyone listening. We talked a
(13:40):
little bit about this and our women in Pain episode,
but discrimination against women in the medical fields is pretty
common throughout the world. It's wide spread. I mean, I
don't want to give the message that we're just singling
out Japan, because in our country, the United States, this
is certainly a problem as well. Yeah, the past two decades,
(14:01):
female entrance to the medical field has equaled that to
their male counterparts, but the burnout rate for women in
the US is double. This is often reframed as individual
failures and that's a quote that could have been avoided
by being a better negotiator, by not having kids. And yes,
women report having received this advice in private. And this
(14:24):
ignores the sexism and discrimination women face at every level
that a lot of you listeners have written into us
about that is causing them to drop out. Absolutely, So
I don't want to make people think that, you know,
you shouldn't want to be a good negotiator. Or you know,
be your best employee or whatever. But we also can't
discount the fact that society is messed up. If there's
(14:46):
sort of no, you can't negotiate your way out of
institutional sexism. And so we can't pretend that these are
the individual failings of women. And that's why you have
this burnout rate, and that's why you have this lack
of gender parity in the medical field. You need to
look at the entire situation and a lot about a
societal and widespread Yeah, like sexual harassment. UM women in
(15:08):
the medical field experienced seven times the amount of harassment
as men, and with forty of women reporting receiving a
negative remark from a patient about their gender as opposed
to six percent of men getting paid less for the
same work. Everything accounted for about twenty thousand dollars less
a year. And UM women aren't equally represented in academia either.
(15:31):
In medical schools across the country, women make up fifteen
cent of department shares and sixteen percent of deems. Think
about that for a second. Yeah, that's wild as wild.
Since two thousand eight, women only are awarded about thirty
of tenured positions, and studies have found that gender bias
(15:51):
comes into play when it comes to residency evaluations, which
sets women back in average of four months, and these
are extremely important for students in the medical field, potentially
impacting fellowship placement and research awards. Other studies found that
female physicians were less likely to get help from nurses
than male physicians, and we're also viewed more negatively for
(16:13):
making the same mistakes as their male counterparts. Compared to
the rest of the population. Female doctors are anywhere from
two to four times more likely to commit suicide. That's
so sad. My mom is a doctor and none of
this surprises me. She's completely overworked. She tells me things
that her patients will say to her. You know, I
(16:34):
don't want a black woman doctor. People feel really comfortable
making sexist and sometimes racist comments about women and people
of color in the medical field. And another part of
the conversation is nurses. Nurses report rate of sexual harassment
of seventy So if you're a woman or someone marginalized
(16:57):
in the medical community, it's like you just can't get
a break. Yeah, And certainly that would contribute to that
the high dropout rate that we were talking about, and
going back to pregnancy discrimination. One in three female physicians
reported experiencing this and being unable to follow the recommendations
(17:18):
they give to new mothers. Um. I hadn't really thought
about that before, but to tell a new mother, this
is what you need to take care of yourself, and
knowing that you can't follow your own advice since we
don't have much in the way of maternity leave here
in the United States, having children and then practically zer
support from the institutions that have been designed without you
(17:39):
in mind, um, maybe even to keep you out. That
that plays into the high burn out rate as well.
And the situation is similar in both the UK and Australia,
where more women graduate from medical schools, but that does
not reflect outside of university, where they support a similar
wage gap to the United States and to study out
of Canada from three found that seventy of female doctors
(18:02):
experienced sexual harassment from patients. A similar study out of
Ireland from found that number to be six And it's
bad when I'm like, oh, only sixty um, and respondents
reported gender based bullying. And that's so bad because, as
we were just talking about, so many hospitals and medical
(18:24):
facilities are already dealing with overwork burnout understats like they
already have legitimate issues that they are facing in their workplaces.
That added, you know, bullying and gender based harassment and
sexual harassment on top of that, I mean, I can't
even imagine. Of course they're burnt out. Of course they're
leaving the industry, of course. And the New Zealand Harold
(18:47):
reported this year that one out of ten junior doctors
experienced or witnessed sexual harassment, but that there was a
culture of sexual intimidation and that many women were too
afraid to speak out against male colleagues. From that report, quote,
female staff thought putting up with a certain amount of
sexual harassment was part and parcel of being a female doctor. God,
(19:10):
doesn't that sound like so many other industries. You would
think that, you know, people who are doctors are sort
of sort of enjoyed at elevated position in society, as
they should. But it's so interesting to me that even
in this respected industry, it's the same as when you
are working in the sortvice industry, or when you are
working in and lots of other kinds of industries where
(19:32):
you just internalize that, yeah, putting up with sexual harassment.
It's just part of being a doctor when you're a woman. Yeah,
it's so infuriating that we just kind of accept it
and keep hearing similar things over and over again. But
clearly this is a problem in in a lot of countries. Um,
(19:53):
and I hope that we can start moving towards a solution,
and we do have some potential solutions. But first we're
going to stop for one more quick break for word
from our sponsor, and we're back, Thank you sponsor. Alright, So,
(20:16):
keeping women and minorities who face similar obstacles from becoming
physicians impacts patient care and the quality of care a
country can provide. And as we say so often on
this show, ultimately it's about respecting and valuing women. But
to drill in on some specifics, don't cheat to allow
(20:38):
more men to your university step one. I would think
that would not need to be spelled out in such
explicit terms. For university officials who probably have parts of
their curriculum that spell out that their students shouldn't be cheating,
they need to be told lot to cheat as well.
But here we are. You know, don't cheat. It's bad. Yeah,
(21:01):
providing support structures at all levels, like more flexible work schedules,
maternity care, merit based programs. Those are things that could
help prevent that burnout. Yeah, and then lastly, have clear
structure and pathways for reporting sexual violence sexual harassment. Now,
of course this is complicated and it comes with its
own set of complications around it, of course, but it's
(21:25):
a good step. You know, not having any clear pathway
for what to do with someone sexually harass you on
the job is not good. Yeah. I read a lot
of stories from women in the medical field who said
they didn't know who to talk to. So at least
having that and being able to make decision to go
(21:47):
report sexual harassment, that's a step in the right direction.
And our yeah, our heart goes out to all the
women in Japan kept out of Tokyo Medical University. Oh
my god, I want them to have eyes up and
like burn that place to the ground. I'm so angry
on their behalf. And yeah, and my heart beyond that,
my heart goes out to if you're overworked, stressed out
(22:09):
doctor or nurse driving to your five am shift and
you haven't slept and you you know, my heart goes
out to all of y'all. I mean, I see how
hard my mom works, as she works really hard, and
it's actually kind of thankless. People think that being a
doctor means that you're rich, and you know, all you
do is walk around the statyscople around your neck and
get handshakes all day and it's really hard. Like I
(22:31):
see how hard she works, and it's I know, it
can be kind of thankless, and I yeah, my heart
goes out to yall. I don't know how y'll do it. Yeah.
I have a lot of people in the medical profession
in my family and seeing their work hours and just
hearing about all of the stress and the things they
have to deal with that are above and beyond like
(22:52):
the job that they trained for a bit like dealing
with difficult patients. Um. I'm always kind of taken aback
by it. Yeah, it's a lot to ask of one person.
It is a lot. Yeah, we would love to hear
from any listeners in the medical field about about this stuff. Um.
And this does bring us to a listener mail. Before
(23:18):
we read the mail today, I did want to say
thanks to everyone who's written in about the changing your
Name episode. Is so many emails. I had no idea
that this was such a. I mean, I guess I
did know, but I had no idea. We heard from
people who were getting divorced, people who were depressed that
they're changing their name, people who were super happy to
(23:39):
change their name because their partner had an awesome last name.
But this, there's so many So we should do a
follow up for another episode on it because it just
raised such an interesting conversation. Yeah, I was thinking we
could probably do an entire episode where we just read emails,
people have sent in messages, people have sent in of
their story, because I found it was also personal all
(24:00):
and different people, the reasons people had for changing their
name or not changing their name or whatever ended up happening.
And yes, I apologize to all women in Canada. It
is not all women in kid that cannot change their
name legally. It's only in Quebec. So I'll probably be
hearing about that until the end of time. But that's
all right, that's okay. You know, we all make mistakes. Annie, Yes,
(24:26):
and everyone's been very kind in correcting me, which I appreciate.
I hope I didn't cause any panic of people like,
oh my god, god, I wrote the law. Somebody out
there is is if you if you need to stuff
pay your legal fees because you heard that you've broken
the law and you consulted a lawyer, let us know.
I mean, we're not gonna pay them, but let us know.
I make a personal apology video or something. I'm sure
(24:49):
that's worth legal fees, right, Okay, So our first letter
today is from Meredith. She wrote, one of the biggest
impacts fan fiction has had on me was introducing me
to the LGBTQ community. I drew up in a well off,
predominantly white community in California, where lgbt people weren't necessarily shunned,
(25:09):
but they were just not talked about. I distinctly remember
there were two gay couples in my neighborhood, but other
than knowing of their existence, it was never talked about.
When I first stumbled upon fan fiction in high school,
I quickly learned about slash VIC. I remember being uncomfortable
with it at first because heteronormativity was so ingrained in
my brain that I couldn't wrap my head around wanting
(25:30):
to pair two male characters together. At first, I would
avoid all slash fix and even gravitate towards the fix
that turned one of the males and the pairing into
a girl. I even started writing a fix where one
of the main characters was actually a girl in disguise
as a boy, so that I could pair him with
another male character. Looking back, I crunched at how heteronormative
and homophobic this trope is, But after continuing to read
(25:52):
fan fiction, I soulely became more accustomed to the idea
of queer characters and slash pairings. By the time I
entered college, the LGBT community had become normalized. For me.
I stopped considering the gender of two characters when shipping
and started only looking at the dynamic between them. I
know there's a lot of fotitization that goes on with
m l M FICK, but for me, I usually gravitate
(26:14):
towards those pairings, not because it is MLM, but because
in media we get so many more dynamic and interesting
male characters that it is just easier to find two
compatible male characters to pair together, rather than forcing the
token female to pick one of the males. Fan fix
helped me discover my own queer identity and that sexuality
(26:35):
and gender identity can be freely explored. I can hear
the diversity of authors voices through their work, and I
have learned about so many queer identities. Just the exposure
to these identities helped me identify my own and realized
that I was not the only one with these kinds
of feelings. I look forward to the day when mainstream
media embraces the diversity of identities that fan fiction already has.
(26:58):
I don't know if this has been in it's by
fan fiction at all, but just in the last few years,
we have gotten some real progress with representation in children's media,
with several cartoons such as Legend of Cora, Stephen Universe,
and Voltron having some cannon gay and by characters, as
well as disabled characters and poc. Legend of Cora introduced
me to the only acceptable love triangle trope, where at
(27:21):
first both girls fight over a boy and then decide
he is not worth it and date each other instead.
Oh my god, my favorite trope. I love it. I
love it. I used to One of my favorite shows
is Gilmur Girls, and I used to always want have
you to watch that show? I alays wanted Rory in
Paris when they were fighting over this awful guy and
they're in their high school. I was like, clearly you
two belong together. They do kiss in a later episode
(27:47):
during Supring break. Oh my gosh, I feel like I
just want to have you tell me all about guilt
for Girls. I could do it. I've seen every episode
multiple times. I mean, I think that'd be a really
fun night for me. And they wrote just Listen to
Love Your Pot about female journalists in India. The part
(28:07):
where Bridget was discussing how women face such aggressive and
gross comments when they become an online presence really resonated
with me. I recently learned firsthand how scary internet massage
andy can be when regular non pornographic photos of myself
from my private Instagram account were used to make a
fake profile on a porn site asking for abusive and
degrading comments. When I went to the police about the
(28:28):
issue and spoke out about it, I was met with
a lot of comments about quote being careful about what
goes online and that comes with the territory of the Internet.
Maybe it's my interraging feminist flaring up, but that is
such bullsh Women to be able to post whatever they
want online without fearing it will end up being used
to threaten or degrade them, and it's impossible to police
what you post. Even with the most innocent photos can
(28:50):
be grossly misused and sexualized. I'm so exhausted of constantly
policing my actions and posts to protect myself from sexist,
abusive bs that people are rarely held accountable for. Here
here Um, First of all, I'm really sorry that happened
to you. That's disgusting and not okay and just completely unacceptable.
I'm really happy that you went to the police, but
(29:10):
it's not surprising to me that the police did not
take it seriously because I think a lot of times
police departments are still sort of catching up with how
you deal with these kinds of sensitive crimes that originally online.
And yeah, you should be able to post whatever you
want online and the message of oh, be careful what
you post. If you just posted a headshot of yourself
(29:30):
dressed normally and somebody can take that and make make
a disgusting porn version of it, then it really isn't
about what you post online. That the onus isn't on
you clearly that that advice hasn't hold water. Yeah, it's
just another victim blamy way. It makes me so mad.
We shouldn't have to worry about like what does this
(29:51):
innocent picture? We don't have to worry about what any picture?
But like even just that, I wouldn't think twice about posting,
and then who knows that would be you? And again
the onus is only on the person who is doing this.
If I'm on you as the person who innocently posted
a picture online, which is your right, even if it
was like a racy picture. The only person who has
(30:13):
done something wrong is the person who has done something wrong. Yes,
So thanks to both of them for writing in. If
you would like to write to us, you can. Our
email is mom Stuff at Houston works dot com, and
you can find us on the social means. We're on
Instagram at stuff but I've Never told You, and on
Twitter at mom Stuff Podcast. And thanks as always to
(30:34):
our producer, Kathleen Billion.
Stuff Mom Never Told You News
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