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Opinion

Japan's language gender divide hurts women at work

They are expected to use separate vocabulary and more demure tones

| Japan

Nobuko Kobayashi is Ernst & Young -- Japan -- transaction advisory services managing director and partner.

In Japanese, men and women eat differently. This is not a comment on table manners but on language: a man would ku-u, with connotations of devouring his food, while a woman may taberu or, even better, itadaku to humbly consume.

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