It is not a surprise that women have to face a lot of biases in workplaces even today. And the animation industry is no different. There are fewer women than men in the creator side of the room and on the technical side. However, fans and people alike were shocked when Studio White Fox acted in a very shady manner on their hiring website. After a lot of angry reviews and talk, the studio made a formal apology and promised to be careful in the future about these practices. So here is everything you need to know about the case.
Some of this studio’s most successful anime series are the likes of Steins;Gate and Re: Zero. So, Japan introduced the Equal Employment Opportunity Law in 1972. This law promises the people of the country that there would not be any reason affecting their opportunities in applying for a job, whether they are a man or a woman. This ensures that men and women both have an equal chance of being hired.
Studio White Fox Hiring Baise Explained!
The exact incident is that Studio White Fox posted details for their hiring program. And the website said that they needed a “woman” who was “under the age of 26”. Fans and people who were interested in hiring saw this and protested against it. They claimed that the company was practicing gender discrimination in their hiring. While this is not entirely new in the animation industry, people’s growing ideas about workplaces and equality must have led to this shift in attitude.
The company has gone ahead and changed its hiring website’s page for “a person under the age of 30.” While this may bring in the question of age discrimination next, the people seem to be okay with it. Gender bias is common in Japan for a long time. Due to the traditional nature of the industry, there are more rules and regulations compared to the West.
Studio Head Releases Apology
After the backlash, the company representative and founder of Studio White Fox, Gaku Iwasa, has taken the public platform Twitter for apologizing for his mistake. He made a series of posts to explain that there was no bad intention about what happened. He also revealed that he was not aware of Japan’s Equal Employment Opportunity Law of 1972. This has led to him employing these ways to hire people for a long time.
He must have assumed that it was okay because the people were not aware enough to fight it. He also apologized for causing such a disturbance. And he promised that they would try to be open about things they did not know and that they wanted to make the workplace better.
While it is no surprise gender bias is there everywhere, it is important to see the changes as they happen. Studio White Fox and their apology will be stepping for gender and sex to matter less in an office. Hiring managers will think carefully before putting their notices. The internet has great power, in that sense, to bring sense into an organization. It is also a powerful medium for changing things. We hope that our viewers are aware of the laws in their country about equal opportunities in workplaces.