(^418) THE WEALTH AND POVERTY OF NATIONS
exception in Orientalism for a handful of Western scholars—pro-
Palestinian, pro-Arab, pro-Muslim—who may or may not be right,
but are on what he sees as the right side. Motive trumps truth and
fact.^39
That way lies censorship by exclusion and indifference. Scholarship
and research are the losers.
Japanese Women Are Talking Tenor^40
The Japanese case would seem to be the exception that proves the
rule (everyone knows how macho Japanese men are), and apologists
for the treatment of women in Muslim countries, or more accurately,
for Arab Muslim culture, never fail to cite it by way of extenuation.
If the Japanese could do so well while putting down their women,
the argument runs, why label this a handicap in Muslim societies?
And indeed, Japanese women have traditionally accepted inferior
status, with direct economic consequences. They quit jobs after
marriage and rarely reach posts that would put them in charge of
men. Their very dress was traditionally designed to hobble them on
the pretext of protecting their modesty and accenting their
femininity. Their speech was differentiated and encumbered by a
polysyllabic burden of deference; their voices were trained and tuned
to a panting soprano squeak; their gestures drilled to a caricature of
coy, tremulous humility. (Small wonder that Japanese men found
consolation in bath- and other houses where they could meet more
"natural" partners.)
Yet this artful female subordination, memorialized in Japanese
prints, theater, and samurai films, was far more class than national
practice. These were the ways of the nobility and landed gentry,
those who could afford to be idle and pay for servants to minister to
them. For almost all others, including wealthy commercial families,
women had a duty to help manage the household (the ie). This
meant not only keeping house and rearing children but also
enforcing frugality, engaging in farming and industry, and building
prosperity. Indeed, this primary task involved everyone, from
husband (and maybe husband's mother) to little children. Of course
the content of the task varied with social status and family income,
but this common cause, which blended with the goal of national
nora
(Nora)
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