TOKYO // A Japanese travel agency has cancelled a service offering in-flight lectures from “beautiful” female university students after a barrage of online criticism accusing the firm of sexism.
HIS travel firm dropped the in-flight package on Wednesday — its intended launch day — with a message saying sorry after its website was overrun with a deluge of complaints.
“The company offers a sincere apology that the campaign caused unpleasant feelings to many people,” said a statement titled “Apology” on its website.
Japan is no stranger to allegations of sexism in the workplace. Efforts to boost female workforce participation have floundered, with a lack of childcare facilities, poor career support and deeply entrenched sexism blamed for keeping women at home.
HIS’ proposal to titillate — and educate — male clients is not the first time a Japanese company has offered up women for innocent company.
Men can pay to snuggle with a beautiful woman at “cuddle cafes”, shell out for an innocent walk in the park or spend an evening at “snack bars” where female companions are hired to chat, sing or light her date’s cigarette.
HIS’ service offered travellers a chance to sit next to a “beautiful girl” from Tokyo University and receive a “fun lecture” about their area of study.
According to the HIS website no premium had to be paid for the chance to sit next to a companion, instead the campaign appeared to be aimed at driving reservation traffic to the agency.
The campaign’s site posted photos of young women advertising what they could do for customers.
An ad for one of the women, apparently an urban engineering student, promised to entertain a traveller with a lecture on the development history of the flight’s destination.
HIS’ Twitter account was bombarded with complaints the campaign was “sexist”, accusing the company of treating the women like “hostesses”, a reference to females who work in bars.
“The campaign was not necessarily ‘unpleasant’ but simply sexist,” one tweet read. “The apology is nothing but unpleasant.”
The students who appeared in the ads belong to a university club intended to change the stereotypical image of its female scholars as “nerds always studying and not having fun”, the group’s website said.
* Agence France-Presse
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Tax authority targets shisha levy evasion
The Federal Tax Authority will track shisha imports with electronic markers to protect customers and ensure levies have been paid.
Khalid Ali Al Bustani, director of the tax authority, on Sunday said the move is to "prevent tax evasion and support the authority’s tax collection efforts".
The scheme’s first phase, which came into effect on 1st January, 2019, covers all types of imported and domestically produced and distributed cigarettes. As of May 1, importing any type of cigarettes without the digital marks will be prohibited.
He said the latest phase will see imported and locally produced shisha tobacco tracked by the final quarter of this year.
"The FTA also maintains ongoing communication with concerned companies, to help them adapt their systems to meet our requirements and coordinate between all parties involved," he said.
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Top tips
Create and maintain a strong bond between yourself and your child, through sensitivity, responsiveness, touch, talk and play. “The bond you have with your kids is the blueprint for the relationships they will have later on in life,” says Dr Sarah Rasmi, a psychologist.
Set a good example. Practise what you preach, so if you want to raise kind children, they need to see you being kind and hear you explaining to them what kindness is. So, “narrate your behaviour”.
Praise the positive rather than focusing on the negative. Catch them when they’re being good and acknowledge it.
Show empathy towards your child’s needs as well as your own. Take care of yourself so that you can be calm, loving and respectful, rather than angry and frustrated.
Be open to communication, goal-setting and problem-solving, says Dr Thoraiya Kanafani. “It is important to recognise that there is a fine line between positive parenting and becoming parents who overanalyse their children and provide more emotional context than what is in the child’s emotional development to understand.”