Todai, Japan's most prestigious university, is Satomi Hayashi's childhood dream, but she suffers from a sense of isolation and discrimination here.

Satomi Hayashi is always studying hard and has excellent results in high school, because she wants to be like her father, becoming a student at Tokyo University (aka Todai).

But as soon as Hayashi landed in Todai, friends warned this was not good for her husband and children, because men often have low self-esteem in front of a girl graduated from a prestigious school like Todai. She searched on Google "Can Todai graduate women get married?" and realize this is a common concern.

However, that could not stop her. Hayashi, now 21 years old, was just wondering if other women were afraid of this and didn't dare to take Todai exams.

When Hayashi enrolled at Todai three years ago, less than 20% of the school's students were female. The absence of women in Todai is a consequence of gender inequality in Japan, where women are not expected to be as successful as men and sometimes they inhibit their own development.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has promoted the women's empowerment agenda, proudly declaring that the proportion of Japanese women in the workforce far exceeds that of the United States. But in fact, very few women participate in leadership positions or take the highest positions in the government apparatus.

Gender inequality can be found even in schools. Although women make up almost half of all students in Japan, the percentage is very low at the most prestigious universities.

For nearly two decades, the percentage of women attending Todai has fluctuated around 20%. Of the 7 national research institutes, female PhD students account for only about a quarter. In private universities such as Keio and Waseda, this ratio is about 1/3. These figures are too small for educational institutions in Asia. Female students make up nearly 50% at Peking University (China), 40% at Seoul National University (South Korea), and at National University of Singapore 51%.

"You can see the imbalance at Todai," said Hayashi, a literature major student. "While half of the population are female, female students at the school account for only one fifth."

To Japanese, the prestigious Todai degree is the same as that of Harvard, Stanford or MIT in the US. It opens the door to many fields like politics, business, law and technology.

More Japanese prime ministers are from Todai than from other universities, half of the Supreme Court justices are alumni of this school. Todai is also proud to be the university with the most graduate students working in parliament and winning the Nobel Prize.

"We enjoy the best quality education, so we are always a good candidate for any job," said Nobuko Kobayashi, Todai alumni and now works at multinational professional services firm EY Japan. , said. "We have become valuable thanks to our brand."

In a conversation with this year's Todai freshman, Chizuko Ueno, a retired gender research professor, said that the imbalance in student numbers is a sign of gender inequality. to the university.

"Even before the students went to university, there was a gender discrimination," Ueno said. "It's a pity that Todai is a prime example of that situation."

Professor Ueno's comments have encountered some reactions of male students in the school. On Twitter, a male student complained, "Why isn't she cheering male students like us?". Another student said that professor Ueno is "promoting feminism".

In a speech, Ms. Ueno reiterated the sex discrimination scandal at Tokyo Medical University, where she was discovered to "miss" many female contestants in the first competition over many years. According to the survey, recruiters want to limit the number of female students to 30% because they think female doctors are at a higher risk of leaving their jobs after marriage or childbirth. One year after the scandal, the percentage of female contestants admitted to the school is higher than that of men.

"We are like empty stores," said Akiko Kumada, one of the few female engineering professors at Todai and a member of the school's gender equality committee. "And right now, we don't have enough female customers."

Prof. Kumada offers a number of hypotheses that explain this situation. According to her, young girls think academic achievement is not a measure of femininity. Some girls fear behind the Todai degree is a high-pressure, stressful job position in a country with a crazy work culture like Japan. A graduate student committed suicide after confiding in friends that she was harassed and worked extremely hard at an advertising agency.

Todai has tried many methods to attract female students. They sent female students back to high school to encourage female students to enroll in Todai. When designing the Todai introduction brochure, they tried to balance the photos of male and female students in it.

Another prominent policy for recruiting female students is the housing allowance for female students whose families live outside the Tokyo metropolitan area. This is a measure to help many parents feel secure when their children attend a big city. The university provides 30,000 yen (about US $ 275) per month to about 100 female students. However, this policy faces opposition because it believes it is discriminatory against male students.

"Do we really want to give this offer to female students who have worse academic performance than men?", Kumada said.

Todai has so far been virtually exclusively available to applicants from certain high schools. More than a quarter of the students enrolled in Todai in 2019 come from 10 secondary schools, including 7 schools with only men. Many school administrators believe parents often encourage their son to study more.

"Parents often have high expectations of their sons, hoping they try their best and achieve the highest possible results," Hiroshi Ono, the principal of Tokyo Gakugei High School, where 45 students follow. studied at Todai this year, including 11 female students.

Ono said many Japanese parents "felt that getting their daughters married and staying at home would be better than encouraging them to pursue their education." At Oin Girls' School, where more female students attend Todai than any other, many girls are also hesitant about taking top university entrance exams.

"Women's life is more complicated than men," said Yukiko Saito, principal of Oin School. "They have to decide who to marry, whether to get married or have children."

To enter Todai, most students have to spend years preparing for the entrance exam. High school classes or private tutoring are not the deciding factor. Zkai, a university preparation center, has a very high percentage of Todai students. Wataru Miyahara, the center's director, said there were very few female students participating in cramming.

"It's hard to say what caused this problem," Miyahara said. "But the less Todai female students are, the harder it is for other girls to want to get into college. But for whatever reason, women are actually less ambitious than men."

Three years ago, Todai had asked high schools to recommend an outstanding male and female student to take an oral or essay entrance exam, instead of taking a university exam. However, of the 3,000 students at the university, fewer than 70 students are enrolled under this policy.

Aine Adachi, 21, who was admitted to Todai three years ago in the same way, argued that giving admissions criteria rather than just one entrance exam could encourage more women to attend college. "Judging someone's ability with just one criterion won't be fair," Adachi said.

Adachi, a law student at Todai, says she always sees being scrutinized as a minority and sex discrimination here is presented in quite sophisticated ways. Once, she and a male classmate buried their heads in a laptop at a cafe near the school to plan a club picnic. Another guy came in and observed their conversation, then said sarcastically, "This is like the boss talking to his secretary." Adachi immediately responded, "Why do you think I'm a secretary? Why can't I be the boss?"

Female students in Todai often feel isolated. When the photography class graduated, law student Kiri Sugimoto, 24, was the only girl. "What annoys me is that the male classmates see me as a special thing, a decorative rose in their photos. I don't like being treated like that," Sugimoto said.

Meanwhile, male students do not care about having female classmates. Hiroaki Kitamura, a 19-year-old engineering student, thinks that male students will not change their behavior even if the class has many girls. "It's not when we have few girlfriends in the class that we have conversations about sex," Kitamura explained. However, this student said that the class would look "more fashionable" if there were many girls.

Some male students in Todai shy away from mingling and participating in activities with girls. At the dance club in Todai, graduate student Erica Nakayama, 24, said she and her classmates were often overwhelmed by girls from other universities. She shares male students at Todai who often think female classmates are too rigid. "They said we were not cute," recalls Nakayama. "A guy once said 'The girls in Todai are pretty scary'. At that time I just laughed and ignored it, but honestly I felt hurt.