Japanese university admits to changing test scores to keep women out

[Sue]

Something seemed off when Yuri (not her real name) sat down for her Tokyo Medical University entrance interview three years ago.
She says her assessors did not ask why she wanted to attend the prestigious school. They openly told her she would get in somewhere else — a discouraging approach for the young woman determined to study medicine.
When the rejection came, Yuri blamed herself. The chemistry and biology sections of the written exam had been difficult, she remembers thinking.

But then, last month, an investigation revealed that the school had been falsifying exam entrance scores for years to make sure more men got in than women. School authorities believed women would give up their careers after having kids.


https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/world...OCID=CALHeader

[ASL]

The article isn’t super clear on the matter of law at issue and seems to suggest this is mainly a widespread cultural problem. Still, it’d be interesting to know the sort of legal framework that would allow for such cultural attitudes to flourish. Is it a matter of the law being silent on this sort of thing or is it strictly a matter of a male-dominated society selectively enforcing (or not) the laws in place?

[ganzfeld]

Not sure why you think there has to be a "legal framework" to allow such discrimination to exist. As in other cases of discrimination, society does it pretty well with or without one.

There are rules and laws and a constitution (notably the 14th and 26th articles) explicitly forbidding this kind of discrimination. What happened in this case is still coming out - perhaps the kind of enforcing you're talking about. Institutionalized discrimination hides well. It's even easier to dismiss it when it's implicit and starts before birth. In explicit cases that come to light (like this or like the unfair drawing of voting lines in the US news) it's always "well, we never...!" -- scandal and wringing of hands, bowing and apologizing, comittees, hearings, trials, more rules and amendments, and then, finally, back to business as usual because, hey that was the exception, the reason there are so few women (or, in many countries, blacks or other discriminated peoples) in these other sectors and positions is, well, they had the same opportunities so I guess they just aren't as interested in being presidents or these kinds of professionals... (and other assported lies and excuses) and the problem sleeps for another generation, like a virus in the jungle. (Where did it go? Yay, no more disease! Oh, it's back. [Never went anywhere, of course. It's been there the whole time.]) It takes a concerted, long-term effort for many generations to even get close to eradicating discrimination, very hard even when people aren't actively subverting progress, which, no one ever seems to believe, many people do all the time...

Things do get better, sometimes incrementally. But sometimes they get worse, too, sadly.

[Mouse]

Hence why it’s not just a matter of hard work when it comes to entering traditionally X-dominated fields. It doesn’t how hard you work if no matter what you do, everything is stacked against you. Following the rules doesn’t do any good if the other side can change the rules whenever they damn well feel like it.