A Japanese city has caused outrage after sending pregnant women flyers telling them to “please their husbands”.
The flyers also advised women to cook and clean and to give their husbands massages. And to always smile.
Onomichi City in Hiroshima Prefecture is in hot water after it was revealed online that the flyers were being sent out to heavily pregnant women, according to Japanese media.
Onomichi City has reportedly been posting 600 of these flyers every year to seven-month-pregnant women since April 2018 but they have only gone viral on social media now.
The colourful flyers, with flowers and images of couples, had the following points to make: “There are differences in the way men and women feel and think. One of the reasons for this is the structural difference in the brains of men and women.”
They also said: “It is known that men act based on theories, while women act based on emotions”.
The flyers then recommended couples to “divide roles well”, telling pregnant women that they needed to show their husbands appreciation.
They were also told to “please their husbands”, with the flyers stressing that this could be achieved by taking care of childcare, preparing food for their husbands, giving them massages, greeting them, and always smiling.
And doing household chores.
The flyers were reportedly the brainchild of local officials based on a public survey of 100 local fathers in 2017 called ‘Attitudes (or words) from my wife that I didn’t like’.
They used the top three replies from the men to create the flyers.
The men apparently complained that their spouses would “get frustrated for no reason”.
The surveyed individuals were also apparently unhappy that their wives would take care of the new baby instead of doing housework.
But they were also unhappy when their wives would do the housework instead of caring for the baby.
After the flyers started going viral online in July, netizens expressed outrage, calling them sexist and misogynistic.
One netizen said: “What a bunch of outdated bunk. No wonder Japan rates nearly at the bottom of the gender equality index as sited in the article. Of course, this type of misogynistic attitude can be found in the US and other countries too. We have a long way to go…” (sic)
Another said: “It’s bad enough that local authorities are transmitting the idea that childcare is the mother’s job and that a third-party father’s assistance will help the mother. I would like local authorities to raise awareness that fathers are also main actors in childcare.”
And another said: “Stress is the enemy during pregnancy, so why exactly are they only attacking women?”
The Mayor of Onomichi City, Yukihiro Hiratani, has since issued a public apology on the city’s website, saying that the flyers were “not in line with the sentiments of pregnant women, childbearing mothers, and others involved in child-rearing, and caused unpleasant feelings for many people.”
The Mayor also said that the city would stop distributing the flyers as a result of the backlash.
But this was also met with some backlash, with one netizen saying in a post with 10,000 views: “Don’t just stop distributing it, please think about the fundamental, male chauvinism itself among the staff.
“Please reconsider your way of thinking, instead of treating it as a ‘misrepresentation’.
“I hope that the impression of Onomichi as a city of male predominance and female predominance will be wiped away.”
