Japan beef bowl company sacks director for remark on getting women "hooked" (updated)
19/04/2022 09:06
(Adds company docking president's pay in fourth paragraph)
TOKYO, April 19 (Reuters) - Major Japanese beef bowl firm
Yoshinoya Holdings Co said on Tuesday it has sacked a managing
director who made derogatory comments about getting naive young
women "hooked" on its products, saying his conduct was
"completely unacceptable."
Masaaki Ito, a managing director at the company - known for
its inexpensive bowls of beef on rice - made the remarks at a
marketing lecture at Tokyo's Waseda University at the weekend. A
company spokesman said he could not confirm Ito's exact words.
Ito was not reachable for comment.
Yoshinoya, which in recent years has made efforts to expand
the appeal of its dishes to women, said it had stripped Ito of
all his positions with the company, effective Monday.
"His extremely unacceptable words and deeds could not be
tolerated from the point of view of human rights and gender
issues," Yoshinoya said in a statement. It later said it would
dock company president Yasutaka Kawamura's pay by 30% for a
three-month period through June.
Though Japan has taken steps towards gender equality, it
remains far behind in many ways and ranked 120th out of 156
nations in women's economic participation and opportunity in the
World Economic Forum's 2021 Global Gender Gap index.
The topic was trending on Japanese Twitter, with many
posters expressing outrage.
"Let's deconstruct this remark - he showed contempt for
women, young people, people from rural areas and his own
company's products," one poster wrote. "In short, he pretty much
insulted most of his company's customers."
The university has also apologised.
(Reporting by Elaine Lies. Editing by Gerry Doyle, Kirsten
Donovan)
((elaine.lies@thomsonreuters.com; +81-3-4563-2748; Reuters
Messaging: elaine.lies@thomsonreuters.com))