Earlier this year, house builder Asahi Kasei Homes produced a video "white paper" based on a survey of 1,371 "double-income families" with children. Seventy percent of the husbands surveyed said they had been subjected to kaji-hara, or "housework harassment," by their wives.
AKH defined kaji-hara as "an attitude of finding fault with a husband's housekeeping methods." The idea is illustrated by a scene in which a man has just finished washing the dishes. His wife thanks him but adds, "I'll have to wash them again." The husband's thoughts are manifested in text on screen: "When I heard that, I decided I didn't want to wash dishes any more." Similar reactions follow in which men's house-cleaning and laundry skills are criticized. AKH concludes that too much complaining on the part of the wife only makes him not want to pitch in with housework.
Commenters on AKH's home page and other websites slammed the implication that women need to flatter husbands in order to get them to do domestic chores. Moreover, the logic of the dramatized example was offensive. "If parents complain about their child's homework habits, does that mean it's OK for the child to give up math drills?" asked one person. "If your boss lectures you on a mistake you made, should you stay home from work the next day?" said another. Mayumi Taniguchi, associate professor at Osaka Kokusai University and the founder of the Obasan (Middle Aged Women's) Party, told Tokyo Shimbun: "Traditionally, it is husbands who complain about their wives' housekeeping skills, but that doesn't mean wives quit doing housework."