Tarla Lambert for Women’s Agenda writes:
A medical school in Tokyo has been forced to accept more than 60 female students after admitting it had discriminated against women for the past two years.
The school admitted that in August this year, it had been reducing the entrance exam scores of female applicants to ensure the numbers of female students remained low. The justification given was that women tend to quit their careers in medicine prematurely to raise families, and thus cause staffing shortages at the hospital.
In Japan, the persistent continuation of traditional gender roles prevents women from pursuing equal opportunities at work. Far fewer women enrol in university and even if they do, they are still expected to give up their careers to be home-makers down the line.
The investigation into TMU found that all applicants’ first-stage test scores were reduced by 20 percent this year before adding a minimum of 20 points for male applicants.
