パンツまで..!
I think this is a good idea ;)
CNN.co.jp
2008.02.22 Web posted at: 16:13 JST Updated - CNN/AP
http://cnn.co.jp/fringe/CNN200802220016.html男女両用の患者用の「パンツ」が登場へ、スウェーデン
ストックホルム――男女平等主義を積極的に進める北欧スウェーデンで、病院の患者用に男女両用の下着の「パンツ」が開発され、今夏前にも登場することになった。
政府系の研究機関が考案したもので、コスト節減などにつながるとしている。ボクサーパンツに似たデザインとなっている。
同国の病院では通例、男性２種、女性２種が用意されている。ユニセックスにすれば、病院が一度に大量購入出来て、経費削減につながる。
また、これまでは違ったサイズごとに収納が分かれており、男女両用にすればスペースの節約にもなるとしている。
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日本的に言えば、お坊さんが女性に？！
Women priests overtake men
Published: 28 Jan 08 09:10 CET
Online: http://www.thelocal.se/9793/Fifty years after the Church of Sweden allowed women to become priests, more women than men are becoming ordained.
The first women were ordained in Sweden fifty years ago this year. Now, significantly more women than men are training to become Church of Sweden pastors. Between 1998 and 2008, 588 women and 331 men have been admitted to training courses for priests. More than one in three Church of Sweden pastors is now a woman, according to Dagens Nyheter.
The first women priests in Sweden were ordained in 1960, two years after the ban on women was lifted. The ordination of Margit Sahlin, Elisabeth Djurle and Ingrid Persson took place amid intense media scrutiny.
It was not until 1971 that Margit Sahlin became the first woman priest in Sweden to be given her own parish. Now, though, the role looks increasingly female-dominated.
全く女性がpriestになれることすら、知りませんでした。。。
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[e][気になる記事] timing is important
どうなる松坂、東京開幕戦 夫人出産と重なったら？
http://www.asahi.com/sports/update/0123/TKY200801220467.html
2008年01月23日02時35分東京ドームで３月２５、２６日にある大リーグのアスレチックス―レッドソックスの開幕シリーズの記者発表が２２日、都内であり、アスレチックスのゲレン監督やレッドソックスのルキーノ球団社長らが出席した。
松坂の登板が予想されるが夫人は妊娠中で、出産予定は３月だ。出産と試合が重なれば、立ち会うため登板しないこともあるといわれている。ルキーノ球団社長は「選手を管理している立場だけど、奥さんの予定日まではコントロール出来ない」と苦笑いだった。
If this is true, it's kind of nice : ) My Swedish male colleague is also doing something similar. Since they are expecting within the next few weeks, he's not traveling abroad until the baby's born.
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[e][気になる記事][日本] Small but a step towards a significant change
元旦の新聞広告
各紙読者の本のお好みは？
http://aspara.asahi.com/club/user/member/contentsDetail.do?oid=-32225&contentOid=247571元日各紙に掲載された出版社の広告
元日の新聞は、各紙とも力が入っています。それは新聞に広告を出す側も同じこと。元日の新聞には、名だたる有力企業のイメージ広告が目立ちます。１ページ全部を使った全面広告で、今年の商品を売り込みます。そこで、たまには「新聞広告ななめ読み」といきましょう。朝日、読売、毎日、日経の４紙に掲載された出版社の全面広告を比べてみました。他企業の広告は４紙に共通の内容を掲載していますが、出版社は新聞ごとに広告の内容を変えているからです。
朝日に全面広告を出した出版社は５社。他紙と比べてトップの多さです。朝日にだけ全面広告を出したのは岩波書店。今月発売される「広辞苑」第六版の宣伝です。岩波書店は、朝日新聞の読者を主なターゲットにしていることが、これで推測できます。
朝日と読売に全面広告を出したのは新潮社でした。朝日では、新潮文庫と、新しい文芸雑誌「ｙｏｍ ｙｏｍ 」を宣伝しています。これが読売向けとなりますと、畠中恵の時代小説「しゃばけ」シリーズだけの広告です。
小学館は、朝日、読売、毎日の３紙に全面広告を出しました。朝日では、昨年から刊行が始まった「日本の歴史」全１６巻を宣伝しています。読売向けは学習雑誌と学習ソフトです。毎日には、各種の辞典を紹介しています。
講談社と集英社は、日経も含めて４紙に全面広告を掲載しています。講談社から見ていきましょう。
朝日では、講談社が創業１００周年記念として本年１１月から「書き下ろし１００冊」というシリーズを刊行するという告知広告です。読売には、「少年マガジン」だけの広告。毎日では、各種コミックの広告でした。日経では、「クーリエ ジャポン」、「セオリー」、「月刊現代」という大人向け雑誌３誌の広告です。講談社が、４紙の読者層をどう見ているか、よくわかるラインナップです。
集英社を見ましょう。朝日には、子ども向けの出版物を掲載しています。読売では、「少年ジャンプ」など各種マンガ雑誌。毎日では、文庫と新書の広告です。これが日経となると、各種女性誌を宣伝しています。集英社は、日経新聞の女性読者をターゲットにするという、新しい戦略を打ち出したのですね。日経にとっても、「うちには女性読者も大勢いるんです」というイメージアップにつながるというわけです。
出版各社が、各新聞の読者の傾向をどう見ているか。比較すると読めてきます。
I thought the last part of this article was kind of interesting that some publishers started to place their female targeted ads on the Japanese financial paper called Nikkei. I also noticed more and more women reading Nikkei on the train when I was working out of Japan and I guess this trend is continuing. When the money starts flowing in that direction, I guess it's very much a reality, which I'm very happy to hear.
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different point of view
今年最初のエントリー！
Parents of teens 'should get time off work'
Published: 18 Jan 08 09:03 CET
Online: http://www.thelocal.se/9692/Parents of teenagers should be able to take time off work to spend with their children, politicians have proposed. The Christian Democrat politicians say that extending parental leave to the parents of older children will help combat psychological problems among teenagers.
"Everyone sees that young people are feeling worse and worse, but nobody is offering solutions. Young people themselves, their parents and the authorities are increasingly frustrated," said Emma Henriksson, a member of parliament who led the working group proposing the measures, to Svenska Dagbladet.
The proposal, which will be presented next week, would allow parents to save 30 of their 480 days of parental leave to use at any time before their child reaches 18.
"My older daughter is turning 12. She is getting more and more independent, but she doesn't need me any less," Henriksson told Svenska Dagbladet.
確かに, who said only small kids needed attention. And I'm sure for some parents maybe it's maybe a good way to reconnect with their kids. On the other hand, I'm not so sure if the kids appreciate the attention after a certain age. Maybe 18 sounds a bit too old, at least I don't think that's what I needed when I was 18. What I wanted to do was explore beyond the boundaries at the time.
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[気になるネタ][日本][a] In Japan, it's the men who want to be skinny and cute
Published: 19th November 2007
Online: http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/11/19/style/fslim.phpThere was a time when slimness was the absolute prerequisite for urban Japanese women, when designers like Shinichiro Arakawa and Yohji Yamamoto professed a flat refusal to make clothes for women who weren't fragile and thin, whose chests and hips were barely discernable through the fabric.
That aesthetic went out when the health and exercise boom came in about seven years ago - the new Japanese woman, according to the fashion critic Ikuko Hirayama, is: "strong, robust, bursting with energy. She takes care of her body but is not obsessed with being thin. She's proud of her biceps and also proud of her sexuality." Accordingly, the most popular relaxation sport for single working women nowadays is "boxercising," or the combination of boxing moves plus aerobics, which is said to increase adrenaline flow by 80 percent and is an ideal way to blow off aggression and stress.
In stark contrast, it's the men who want to be slender, vulnerable and protected. Young males between the ages of 18 and 30 make up the slimmest segment of the population and the ideal fashion weight as decreed by the apparel industry is 57 kilograms, or about 125 pounds, for a height of 175 centimeters, or 5 feet 8 inches. Many men try to adhere to that figure and some claim they want to be even skinnier.
Twenty-five-year-old Junichi Shirakawa, who works at the denim boutique 45 RPM, said that his goal is to get his weight down from 57 to 55 kilograms, although his height is 182 centimeters. "Being really skinny is essential, not just for fashion and work purposes but also because girls seem to go for thin guys," he said.
Both Shirakawa and his girlfriend like the fact that she weighs more than he does, and is the leader of the couple. "She's a lot stronger than I am, can lift heavy things and go drinking until dawn. I admire that about her, and feel protected when I'm around her," he said. Older than he by five years, it was Shirakawa's girlfriend who made the approach, started the dating process and decided what course their relationship would take.
"Frankly, I think women should be in the driver's seat. Society and relationships work better that way," he said. Shirakawa likes to wear his girlfriend's clothes and often shows up for work wearing her blouse and jeans, to the general approval of his co-workers.
Hirayama said: "For young men, wearing women's clothes has almost become a status symbol - a confirmation of being slim and pretty and, therefore, desirable. Young women, on the other hand, are less interested now in looking beautiful for the benefit of young men. They dress up for themselves, for their own satisfaction."
This seeming reversal of traditional gender roles has spawned such interesting fashion items as the "unsexy miniskirt," a term coined by the TV commentator Ryuichi Fujita. All the rage this autumn is the short, short skirt combined with boots or ballet shoes - the salient feature of this look is that it shows a lot but says nothing and is consequently "apolitical and not sexy at all," according to Fujita. Indeed, it seems that Japanese women have reclaimed sexuality as their very own and now dress to enhance their self-esteem rather than to please the male gaze, which was what a big part of street fashion had been about. Now that the male gaze is focused primarily on the men themselves, the equation of short skirts and wolf whistles just doesn't work anymore.
As Hirayama said, "The term kawaii [cute] used to be something that described women, or female attributes. Now women are more likely to use that to talk about men and what they're wearing. As a result, more young men aspire to be cute."
Indeed, young men claim to want to be pursued and then nurtured - they often hate to make the first move and often shy away from conflict. "I never fight with my girlfriend because I know I'll lose," is how Shirakawa put it. "It's just a lot more comfortable for me if I go along with everything she says."
That mind-set is reflected in men's fashion and fashion design. The trend now is for men to look like they want to be fed and/or devoured by women. One of the pioneering brands for that is Lad Musician, headed by the designer Yuichi Kuroda. Lad Musician burst onto the Tokyo fashion scene in 1995 in a glam-rock/low-slung-guitar kind of way, espousing an emaciated, tragic sexiness enhanced by clinging silhouetted tops and slim, revealing pants with no pockets and very little breathing space. Lad Musician aesthetics has grown thanks to the general weight loss among young men, and the silhouettes (especially for long-sleeved T-shirts, polo shirts and sweaters) are tighter than ever before. Young men will combine these tops with baggy jeans that are suspended 8 centimeters below the navel on terrifically flat stomachs, subconsciously channeling, perhaps, the Kate Moss look of the late 1990s. Kuroda's designs are famed for being extremely selective, shunning those who weigh more than 63 kilograms or are overly muscular.
Other brands are following suit, so that men's sizes are steadily diminishing while women's clothing sizes are getting distinctly roomier. To Nigo, who directs A Bathing Ape, Tokyo's most successful and visible street brand, this makes sense: men's designer clothes should target the thin and seemingly unfit. "Designer clothes look best on men whose bodies don't do the talking, that are silent, slim, practically invisible," said Nigo, a waif-like figure with slender, girlish wrists. "Because the clothes should do all the talking, right?
"That's why men pay money for clothes, so they won't have to say anything. Otherwise, why bother?"
飛行機の中で読んだ新聞に出てた記事です。似たような記事（男性がXSサイズを着るのがトレンドetc.）を他でも見たことがあるので、現象は恐らく実際にあることなのだと思う。うーん。
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[気になるネタ][日本][a] 夫婦の会話「３０分以下」４割、４０歳代は５割超す
Published: 25th November 2007 23:27 GMT+9
Online: http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/national/news/20071125i514.htm
平日の会話が３０分以下の夫婦が約４割に達し、このうちの３分の１は配偶者に愛情を感じていないことが、明治安田生命が全国約１０００人を対象に実施した調査で分かった。
妻の半数は離婚を考えたことがあった。同社では「日ごろのコミュニケーションを大切に」と呼び掛けている。
平日の会話時間は、「１分以上３０分以下」（３７・４％）が最も多く、「０分」（２・８％）を合わせると、４０・２％に達した。最も会話に乏しい年代は４０歳代で、「３０分以下」が夫で５０・０％、妻で５６・８％だった。
また、会話が「３０分超」の夫婦は９４・５％が「（相手に）愛情を感じている」と答えたのに対し、「３０分以下」の夫婦は６６・６％にとどまった。「３０分以下」の妻に限ると、４１・１％が「愛情を感じていない」と回答した。離婚を考えたことがある割合は、妻が４９・１％、夫が３３・０％だった。特に、５０歳代の妻の１３・８％は「よく離婚を考えたことがある」と回答。５０歳代の夫は３・４％にとどまった。
調査は１０月２６〜２９日、２０〜５９歳の既婚男女１２０６人を対象にインターネットで実施した。
人のこと言えないけど、結構怖い現象ですね・・。原因のひとつは長時間労働だと思うけれど、それだけでないこともあるのだろうなぁ・・。
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