Japan has come a long way in the past 20 years. Or has it? Here are some things that used to be acceptable to do (or see) in Japan when I arrived in the early 1990s. You decide which is better: now or then.
1. In the "Help Wanted" section of this newspaper, it was common practice to list jobs for males and females separately.
2. In state schools, boys' names were listed on the school roll before girls' names. This was said to be just a "coincidence," and not a sign of giving priority to boys (no, no, of course not), but you have to wonder why they'd have either group before the other rather than just listing them alphabetically. This "coincidence" has since been rectified, however, and now all names appear alphabetically.
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