Reflections on the Gender Discrimination Scandal in Japanese Universities

Recently, an article writtenby Greg Wheeler called “The Tokyo Medical University entrance exam scandal: lessons learned” was published in the International Journal of Educational Integrity. In the article, the author outlines the news that TMU secretly cut scores of female applicants in order to reduce the number of female medical students, and such sexism is not unique to many Japanese universities. Such measures have deprived many women of the chance to attend good universities and some female college students of the right to deduct tuition fees.

At the same time, the author also analyzes the reasons why universities have been able to carry out discriminatory practices without control for more than a decade, it’s because the college entrance exam is not open.The author puts forward some constructive suggestions on how to avoid this kind of situation from happening again. He thinks that measures should be taken to improve the transparency of examinations to reduce this situation. He also suggests that the government should make corresponding policies to urge these universities.

This scandal reflects not only the defects of the education system, but also the ugly social atmosphere of gender discrimination.Today’s society should be civilized, rational and fair. A good person is always good, and that’s not directly related to gender. And As for the male and female doctors who have an advantage,in an essay published December 19 in the journal, compares the male doctors and women doctors in the treatment of patients with in-hospital mortality and readmission rate, the results showed that mortality in patients admitted to hospital 30 days (11.49% male doctor vs. 11.07% female doctor) and readmission rate (15.57% male doctor vs. 15.01% female doctor), women physicians data is lower than male physicians, difference reached statistical significance. (Tsugawa Y, Jena AB and so on, 2016). From this research, we can see that in some ways women doctors can do better than men. However, the schooldenied all female medical students for some one-sided and superficial reasons, which not only violates the concept of educational fairness, but also produces many negative effects such as damaging the rights and interests of female students. Undoubtedly, it should be corrected.

The author’s analysis of the causes of discrimination policies and corresponding suggestions are quite reasonable.By making college entrance exams more transparent, and making their scores public, and distributing the results to individual candidates, you can actually reduce the amount of manipulation that happens.At the same time, it would restore its credibility as an institution of higher learning, regain the trust of those it lost in the scandal, and raise its standing with thepublic.The improvement of the social image of these schools can also bring them more excellent students.If people want this kind of scandal to stop happening, in addition to the above mentioned improvement in the educational selection system, people also have to make improvements in the social aspect.In this case, the university’s reason is that women’s careers are shorter and leaving after childbirth would increase pressure on scarce medical resources. (The Japan Times,2018). It’s true that women haveto leave their jobs temporarily while giving birth, but that doesn’t mean their career ends after giving birth, which is definitely a prejudice.

Some women don’t return to work after giving birth, in fact, because of family and company pressure. Some companies even directly dismiss women who take maternity leave, which is undoubtedly unreasonable. The government should make corresponding restrictions, to reduce workplace discrimination against women, and make corresponding preferential subsidies, giving women more flexible work environment and more support to encourage women to return to work after childbirth, so that women workers balance work and family, and for women’s career life.More deeply, the root of the scandal is the strong atmosphere of sexism in Japanese society. Even if the admissions system changes, there is little guarantee that universities will try to restrict women elsewhere. Only by changing the nation ideologically can we fundamentally prevent the emergence of such a situation. Faced with this problem, the government can publicize the idea of equal rights between men and women, create a good social atmosphere, and formulate policies to protect the interests of the discriminated.

The education sector should integrate the idea of gender equality into the education of children from an early age so as to cultivate the next generation of citizens with a sense of gender equality. As progressive citizens, we should also pay attention to our words and actions, and jointly create a social atmosphere of gender equality and non-discrimination.Toconclude, the author summarized the contents of the entrance examination scandal of Tokyo medical university, introduced a lot of knowledge of the Japanese university entrance examination systemand the social atmosphere of gender discrimination in Japan, and put forward many constructive suggestions.The backward concept of gender discrimination should be banned in today’s rational, progressive and fair society.

Of course, the change of the whole society will be a long and arduous process. But as long as there are positive people working hard to promote social reform, we are bound to have a better future and prevent such scandals from happening again.

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