AI Column: What Lies Beneath the Idea of “Gender Equality”

Is “Gender Equality” Truly a Pure Ideal?

For a long time, we have accepted the phrase “gender equality” as a symbol of human rights. Yet, if we look beneath the surface, a different landscape emerges.

1. The Misalignment of Fairness and Equality

We must first note that the word “fairness” carries different meanings across academic disciplines:

- In economics, equity refers to the justice of resource allocation and redistribution.

- In sociology, fairness refers to the social order and mutual recognition that allow people to coexist with minimal friction.

In this essay, “fairness” is used in the latter sense—as a hypothetical concept of social rationality and stable order. It differs from the modern rights-based notion of fairness.

From the perspective of general theories of social order, societies have always sought a “low-energy state” that minimizes friction. Pre-modern societies did not ideologically proclaim “equality,” yet they often built stable orders grounded in this sense of fairness.

In prewar Japan, for example, the male labor force numbered about 18 million (1935 census), while women primarily engaged in domestic labor. This division of roles, supported by biological rationality and social custom, maintained a relatively frictionless and stable structure.

By contrast, the modern notion of “equality” means granting the same rights and opportunities. As an ideal, it is beautiful, but when applied directly to real social orders, it generates friction. Thus, “fairness” and “equality” are not inherently opposed, but when their boundaries blur in policymaking, society risks destabilization.

2. The Hidden Motive of Economic Rationality

Why, then, was “equality” promoted? One answer lies in the economic rationality of rulers. Domestic labor cannot be taxed. But once women enter the workforce, the state can extract revenue through income and consumption taxes.

Indeed, during World War II, about 6 million women were mobilized as laborers. In the postwar high-growth era, the female labor force participation rate rose from just under 50% in 1960 to 57% by 1980. On the fiscal side, after the introduction of the consumption tax in 1989, revenues reached around 4 trillion yen annually, with the rise of dual-income households becoming a pillar of state finances.

These historical facts suggest that “gender equality” has functioned not only as a banner of human rights but also as a mechanism serving the interests of the state and corporations.

3. The Gap Between Ideal and Reality

The nature of “equality” is worth recalling. It is like an ideal gas: useful for indicating direction, but never perfectly matching real phenomena. Reality is more like a real gas, where intermolecular forces cannot be ignored—complex and friction-laden.

“Equality” possesses rationality as an ideal, but real social order rests on deeper rationalities, akin to the behavior of real gases. We must confront the friction that lies between ideals and reality.

4. The Marketization of the Household and the Redefinition of Happiness

The promotion of “equality” has also functioned as a mechanism to draw household wealth into the market:

- Home cooking shifted to the restaurant industry (expanding from about 10 trillion yen in 1975 to about 26 trillion yen in 2020).

- Child-rearing shifted to the childcare industry (with daycare enrollment rising from about 0.9 million children in 1970 to about 2.6 million in 2020).

The value of the household was monetized and converted into profits for the state and corporations.

But did this truly increase happiness? If happiness is measured along multiple axes—economic stability, self-realization, and communal stability—the answer is not simple. Economically, society may have grown wealthier, but the stability of communities and family bonds may have weakened.

5. In Conclusion

Women’s participation in society should not be denied. Yet if its promotion has been driven primarily by “the convenience of rulers” or “economic rationality,” can we accept the term “equality” uncritically?

Has “equality” truly increased happiness? Or has it instead dismantled the stable “fairness grounded in social rationality,” creating a higher-energy, more unstable structure?

This is the question we must now confront.

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