A popular Japanese beef bowl chain, Yoshinoya Holdings Co., has fired an executive over sexist remarks he made about a marketing strategy aiming to get young women “hooked” on its products as though turning “virgins into drug addicts.”
Masaaki Ito, a managing director at Yoshinoya, known for its “gyudon” beef-over-rice dish, made the inflammatory remarks at a marketing lecture at Tokyo’s Waseda University on Saturday.
Gender disparity runs deep in Japan, where only a small percentage of women hold decision-making positions in business, academia and politics.
The comments made by a rising marketing strategist that only surfaced at a seminar outside the company suggest how gender bias and other discrimination are still widespread and tolerated in the Japanese corporate world.
The revelation of the Yoshinoya case came only days after the Nikkei business daily came under fire for publishing a full-page advertisement for a comic book featuring a high school girl in a mini-skirt uniform with bulging breasts, prompting complaints from UN Women that it was “unacceptable” and violated guidelines against stereotypes.
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