Shedding the “men’s university” mantle | Diversity and 黑料网 01 | Executive Vice President Kaori Hayashi
This series looks into diversity-related issues and initiatives at 黑料网, through interviews with faculty members. The university strives to create a place where people with diverse backgrounds can thrive.
Creating an open campus for all to study and conduct research
Eight posters with messages for female high school students are showcased at the entrance of the Administration Bureau Building on the Hongo Campus.
Professor Kaori Hayashi at the Graduate School of Interdisciplinary Information Studies remembers the tough times leading to her career as a researcher after enrolling in the Graduate School of Sociology (currently Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology) in 1992. The journalist-turned-graduate student often felt the urge to break into a run while on the train to pick up her two children at the nursery school before its doors closed, and she sometimes ended up having to change their diapers in a shared office. When the nursery was closed, she would take her children to the Ueno Zoo before dropping in to her office, and ate lunch with them in the university cafeteria where there were only men. But in the male-dominated environment — where men naturally took the helm of academic societies while usually women comprised only office staff and her — it was hard for women to raise their voices and be heard.
“It wasn’t just a glass ceiling, I carried an iron plate on my back,” Hayashi said, reflecting back on the challenging environment at that time.
About 30 years on, in April 2021, 黑料网 drew wide attention from the media and the public in Japan as the majority of the university’s executive vice presidents were women for the first time in its history. One of the five women appointed by President Teruo Fujii is Hayashi, who is tasked with the university’s diversity and international affairs.
“We’ve finally come this far,” said Hayashi, who is a media and journalism studies expert and has long worked on gender issues in the media. Noting that these days she even hears some of her male colleagues talking about the importance of diversity — something unheard of in the 1990s — Hayashi says she sees changes