Are the terms Office Lady and Salaryman offensive to Japanese People?

[BillyT]

Office lady - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Salaryman - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Nyororin]

Not as far as I know.

Everyone refers to themselves as Salarymen, or OL (No one ever says the full Office Lady).
There is even an "OL Fashion" magazine out there.

[BillyT]

Originally Posted by Nyororin

Not as far as I know.

Everyone refers to themselves as Salarymen, or OL (No one ever says the full Office Lady).
There is even an "OL Fashion" magazine out there.

So is it really common language then?

[lollijenn]

how would that be offensive?

[BillyT]

Originally Posted by lollijenn

how would that be offensive?

If you click the link to the definition I posted above, it seems to be a less than impressive role that many women in Japan are relegated to that's obviously the result of traditional sexism.

[Nyororin]

The thing is, any woman who works in an office is called an OL.

The head programmer at my husband`s company, a woman, calls herself an OL. It basically ends up meaning business woman. The female counterpart to a salary man.
It`s a nondescript term for white collar employment. There isn`t really any stigma attached to it.

[BillyT]

Originally Posted by Nyororin

The thing is, any woman who works in an office is called an OL.

The head programmer at my husband`s company, a woman, calls herself an OL. It basically ends up meaning business woman. The female counterpart to a salary man.
It`s a nondescript term for white collar employment. There isn`t really any stigma attached to it.

So this Wikipedia article is wrong?

An office lady, often abbreviated OL (Japanese: オーエル Ōeru), is a female office worker in Japan who performs generally white collar (or, some would say, pink collar) tasks such as serving tea and secretarial or clerical work. Like many unmarried Japanese, OLs often live with their parents well into early adulthood. Office ladies are usually full-time permanent staff, although the jobs they do usually have little opportunity for promotion, and there is usually the tacit expectation that they leave their jobs once they get married.

The rise in OLs began after World War II, as offices expanded. They were first known as "BGs" (for Business Girls), but it was later found that English-speakers used a similar acronym, B-girl, to refer to "bar girls", or prostitutes. Josei Jishin, a women's magazine, ran a competition to find a better name for the business girls. OL was chosen in 1963 from the entries.[1]

In the 1980s, being an OL was the most common job for Japanese women and OLs made up approximately one-third of the female work force.[1]

The OL phenomenon is changing as more and more Japanese women pursue higher education, especially abroad. Additionally, more businesses are being started by female entrepreneurs, who may be choosing to strike out on their own to seek an alternative to the traditional, conservative, male-dominated atmosphere of established businesses.

OL stock characters are frequently found in josei manga and anime, often portrayed as clever and wistful individuals bored with their jobs, overpressured by their families, and facing psychological issues, though they are usually attractive. The manga and anime series Ebichu, for example, features an office lady character, appropriately named OL, while the warrior characters Linna Yamazaki from Bubblegum Crisis Tokyo 2040 and Arisa and Kyouko from All Purpose Cultural Cat Girl Nuku Nuku have day jobs as office ladies. Most major characters in OL Shinkaron are office ladies.

Office lady - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Nyororin]

I wouldn`t say it`s necessarily *wrong* - as that is common.

But that isn`t what you were asking. You were asking if the term is found offensive. It isn`t.

Asking whether there is a lot of discrimination in women`s employment is opening a completely different can of worms - which has been talked about before on here.
I fall in the camp of believing that most of the women who *plan* to leave their jobs when they get married or have children prefer those positions - as in the 10 years of being in Japan I have only seen one exception to that... Out of god only knows how many that followed the pattern.
It`s not a question of whether women are being promoted or have equal standing, blah blah blah. It`s a question of whether the majority wants it. I have found most of them don`t. They`re perfectly content to have a boring low-responsibility position to make money to spend having fun (as with responsibility they couldn`t take days off to go vacationing.) or to save up for marriage. The freedom to quit whenever is pretty important.

Either way, the term itself is not found offensive.

[Suki]

I don't see what's so shameful about being a secretary

[BillyT]

Originally Posted by Suki

I don't see what's so shameful about being a secretary

It's a low paid job of little importance that doesn't require much education or skills and offers no real opportunity for advancement. In many countries people take these jobs because they do not qualify for higher up positions. However, in Japan most women, even college educated ones, are EXPECTED to take these jobs, with the assumption that they'll eventually get married and leave the workforce to become a housewife. The situation with women in the workforce is the same as it was in the US in the 1950s.