women's notebook

The government is planning to distribute this thing called 'women's notebook' in Japan.  It's a notebook that is supposed to remind Japanese women some obvious facts about our body -- that it should be checked regularly and that it's most suited to give birth before we reach our mid thirties.  The government thinks it's the best way to encourage women to have babies and save Japan from its declining birth rate.

But since women are not baby-producing machines who are willing to live for the sake of a nation's policy, and since they're not the only ones 'responsible', many women seem to have an unpleasant impression of this government's new great idea.

Some women want to get married.  Some women want kids.  And they still have difficulty getting what they want.  It's not because they are ignorant of the fact that babies are 'best before 35'.  This notebook is going to make it even more difficult for women who are over thirty and are still unmarried with no kids.  I'm soon going to be one of them.  So,

Dear Mr. Prime Minister,
I hope you're not trying to tell us that we're lazy useless citizens who are neglecting social responsibility and that it's embarrassing and wrong to be an unmarried woman without kids.


This post was actually inspired by a Sci-Fi Horror "How to be a woman".  It's set in 2050, Japan, where all women are obliged to carry a women's notebook: under the amended constitution, there is a new law that provides that single women above thirty be sent to concentration camps where they are forced to either marry a man the government chooses, or be executed, but a politician suggests it might be better to use them as prostitutes.  Abe Jr. (with a small Hitler-like mustache) is criticized from Amnesty, HRW, and countries from all over the world but Japanese men adore him, and Japan starts firing missiles when America intervenes.  I actually found it pretty realistic.