MASACO SYNDROME

On the occasion of the recent coronation of William prince of the Netherlands, the princess of Japan Masako became news again. She is the wife of the prince-heir to the throne of Japan, Naruhito, and it has been a while since she assisted to any event because of the severe depression she suffers for 11 years now.
http://elpais.com/elpais/2013/03/22/gente/1363972957_227355.html

Before she arrived to de Japanese Imperial house, she had a different story. She is the daughter of an important diplomat, she speaks five languages and graduated with honors as an economist from Harvard University; she studied law in Tokyo and worked in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; but she married the heir of the Japanese throne, prince Naruhito, and on top of everything she has not been able to give him a son.

Articulated, overachiever, speaks English, French, Russian, German and Spanish fluently, she could have been a great ambassador, but instead of that, she buried herself in an out of time and moldy environment, where she is advised to walk three steps behind her husband, not to speak unless spoken to, smile a little and greet a little.

The life of this princess doesn’t seem real in the 21st century:

She cannot leave the palace without permission, she doesn’t have a credit card, she doesn’t have unlimited access to telephone communications and to her close relatives, she doesn’t have a passport or a routine of her own.

Evidently, princess Masako’s case is extreme because she is a princess and because of the conditions of the Japanese court, that seems medieval.

But this case has made us reflect about a lot of women’s conditions in what we have called the “Masako syndrome”; because without doubt many women give up their projects. 

We do not enter a rigid imperial court, but we do enter into families with their own “way of thinking” that, slowly, impose their norms (simply the Christmas ritual of spending it in his parent’s house). Also in our work places where, because we are women, they don’t take into account our points of view.

It is true that, nowadays in the west, we can go anywhere we like, we own a credit card, but with a paycheck always a 25% less than a man’s; our freedom is relative and it is marked by our balance in the end of the month.

They do not forbid us to go out with our friends, but we have to bring up the children, the job, give attention to our parents who are old, and the day only has 24 hours, there is little time left, and when there is, we spend it catching up with things left behind. We seldom visit the sofa, which is the “sancta sanctorum” of “Mike”, from where he watches football, by himself or with his friends, or where he rests from a tiresome week during the weekends.

Women’s life is about little renunciations each day that, without causing a depression of the size of Masako’s, they create an un-cheerful mood in us that later it is externalized and appear headaches, neck tensions, bad digestions, insomnia, irritability, lack of concentration… They are not grave symptoms, but they hide a non-evident depressive state, which is the mirror in which Masako sees her reflection. She could even become a doll and Santa Claus could give her to one of our daughters for Christmas!

We invite you to think about the little renunciations, those that undermine our health and make us see that women –even in the west- are still locked away –in a palace or in a flat 70 meters square- in the invisible hands of a well-rooted patriarchy.

Let’s have something clear: To give up our own projects is the beginning of a gradual physical and spiritual deterioration.