Late postwar demands for the extension of workplace protection to men are worth
noting. Instead of assuming a need to protect women because of their "difference"
as childbearers and childrearers or pursuing equality with overworked male
workers by eliminating regulations protecting female employees, some advocates
for women asked that protection in the form of shorter working hours be extended
to men to give them time to care for their children and elderly parents. Strikingly,
one suburban Tokyo city government granted the request of its employees' union
for equal childrearing leave for fathers. In 1991 it was still not clear whether this
was an isolated event or the beginning of a new trend in Japanese employment
policies.105 Regardless of the outcome, these seemed to be demands for men's or
human liberation rather than for the progress or advancement of women alone.
Despite these gains, "good wife, wise mother" still informed the policy proposals of some conservative officials. At a private meeting of politicians injuly 1990
Aizawa Hideyuki, director-general of the Economic Planning Agency, expressed
a strong desire for Japanese women to place racial and national interests above
personal gratification and to have larger families: