A career woman (キャリアウーマン, kyariaūman?) sometimes career girl, is a Japanese term for a Japanese woman, married or not, who pursues a career to make a living and for personal advancement, rather than being a housewife without occupation outside the home. The term came into use when women were expected to marry and become housewives after a short period working as an "office lady".
"Career woman" is used in Japan to describe the counterpart to the Japanese salaryman (サラリーマン); i.e., a woman who works for a salaried living. These Japanese women seek to either supplement their family's income through work or to remain independent by seeking a career as a working woman. These women want to break out of the confines of being a homemaker in a Japanese home, determined to win independence by way of their own skills and strengths, believing personal economic stability as the best way to earn their freedom.
Read more about Career Woman: Recent Times, "Women Friendly", Stereotypes
Famous quotes containing the words career and/or woman:
““Never hug and kiss your children! Mother love may make your children’s infancy unhappy and prevent them from pursuing a career or getting married!” That’s total hogwash, of course. But it shows on extreme example of what state-of-the-art “scientific” parenting was supposed to be in early twentieth-century America. After all, that was the heyday of efficiency experts, time-and-motion studies, and the like.”
—Lawrence Kutner (20th century)
“A forty-year-old woman is only something to men who have loved her in her youth!”
—Stendhal [Marie Henri Beyle] (1783–1842)