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When I come across the titles キャリアウーマン, OL, and ビジネスウーマン, I seem to have a
difficult time picturing what their position is or what they do. I'm wondering
if anyone can elaborate on how they are different.

Also, I know that there is a male counterpart to these, but are they the same
in title and position? I know that there are ビジネスマン and サラリーマン, but are these
different as well?
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2012-07-15T06:57:19.763
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2019-08-17T13:08:29.487
2019-08-17T13:08:29.487
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question
words definitions word-choice
What is the difference between キャリアウーマン, OL, and ビジネスウーマン?
From a politically correct point of view, the first two are discriminative and
should be avoided. The third one is okay. That is, キャリアウーマン has an implication
that women are supposed to stay at home taking care of the housework, and it
refers to women who, regardless of that expectation, keep a professional
career in life. OL refers to women who do deskwork as a job. Since there is
already a widely accepted word 会社員 that expresses that job, using the word OL
means that you are assuming that 会社員 should not be used to refer to women, and
are using a new word for that conecpt, which is prejudice. In fact, there is
nothing wrong with refering to female desk workers as well as male ones with
the word 会社員. ビジネスウーマン is a word that was created as a woman counterpart to
ビジネスマン for political correctness just like the English word firewoman was
created as the counterpart to fireman.

Regarding the type of job, キャリアウーマン does not specify any, but OL and ビジネスウーマン
refer to deskworkers.

I think ビジネスマン and サラリーマン are almost the same, but if you want to force a
difference, ビジネスマン and ビジネスウーマン can refer to people who own their business
whereas サラリーマン is someone who is hired.
CC BY-SA 3.0
2012-07-15T07:21:59.013
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2012-07-15T07:39:58.773
2012-07-15T07:39:58.773
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answer