In Japan, it can be hard to be a man, say men

Sometimes it's hard to be a woman, as the U.S. country singer Tammy Wynette put it in the 1968 global hit "Stand by Your Man." In today's Japan, though, men are also feeling the gender strain, amid a rising tide of complaints that they are being mistreated by society.

Sentiments like these are the flip side of a growing culture of assertiveness among women, who have become much more likely to speak out about aggressive behavior by men rather than suffering in silence, as their mothers did. To many Japanese men, though, the growing acceptance of female complaints implies a slur on the whole male sex. As my own cousin said recently: "Society labels us as predators while women are always the victims who need to be soothed and compensated. What do we get? Just blame and finger-pointing."