Women fight to keep their own last names
Women in Japan are fighting to overturn a law that bars married couples from having different last names, which creates complications for women who have established careers and reputations.
About 600,000 Japanese couples wed every year. The law says that after marriage a couple must have the same surname. Technically, men may take their wives’ family name. Yet in practice, only about 4 percent do.
“Being forced to change your name is nothing more than a violation of human rights,” said Miki Haga, 29. She legally became Miki Ishizawa two years ago when her husband didn’t want to change his name.
The issue roared into the public debate during the campaign for the upper house election held earlier this month, with opposition parties making gender equality a key part of their platform against Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his ruling Liberal Democratic Party.
In a striking moment, Abe was the only person on a debate stage earlier this month who didn’t raise his hand when asked about support for changing the law. His conservative party argues that the current law is equal to both men and women, and it’s a matter of tradition.
But others point out that it’s not exactly an ancient tradition. Before the current law was passed in 1898, Japanese people didn’t typically use surnames. In 1948, it became legal for couples to choose either spouse’s surname, but they still had to stick with one. And marriages to foreigners aren’t subject to the law.
Japan has the third-highest gender pay gap among Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries. Women are poorly represented in business and politics. They hold only 4 percent of managerial positions, 2 percent of seats on boards of directors and about 10 percent of the seats in the lower house.
A government survey released last year showed 42.5 percent of adults supported changing the law, while 29.3 percent opposed the move.
Others choose to live in the equivalent of a domestic partnership. Yuri Koizumi and Hiroshi Tanaka have been living together for 26 years, raising a son without getting married. Koizumi said she couldn’t accept changing the name she was born with. “It’s not who I am,” she said. Meanwhile, Tanaka, a forest science researcher, worried about what would happen to his academic reputation if he no longer used the same name as the one on his published works.
They can’t take advantage of the same tax deductions as married couples. Legally, only one of them is allowed to have custody of their son.
Courts in Japan recently have upheld the law several times. The law has prompted some people to go by their birth names in public, while using their spouse’s last name on official documents.
Abe’s solution has been to encourage employers to allow workers to informally use the last names they were born with. In November, people will be allowed to list both last names on certain government ID cards, allowing them to open bank accounts or take out loans with their surname of choice.