At the end of each year, NHK has a ritual contest of male singers vs. female singers, but signs have been emerging of more serious gender conflict on the horizon in Japan. The diverging interests of men and women are evident in a recent book on changing attitudes toward having children and an article on new marriage patterns.
In her book "Kodomo to iu kachi (The Value of Children)" (Chuko Shincho, No. 1588), the developmental psychologist Keiko Kashiwagi looks at the phenomenon of falling birthrates in Japan. Politicians may rail against the alleged selfishness of young women nowadays, but she sees changing attitudes as the natural result of the changed situation in which such women find themselves.
One example of such mutability under changed conditions is the striking shift in child gender preference from male to female over the past two decades in Japan. A male child was long desired to carry on the family business and support the parents in their old age, but with the growth of the nuclear family centered around a company employee, a daughter is now regarded as more likely to look after aged parents -- and also as easier to raise.