My kid was rejected by a nursery school. Go to hell, Japan!!!

　　What the heck is this, Japan?
　　Isn't this a society where all 100 million people can take active parts, huh?
　　Yesterday I completely failed to get a slot in a nursery school.
　　What the hell am I supposed to do? I can't be active, can I?
　　I bore a baby and I'm saying I'll raise my child and go into society and work and pay taxes.
　　Then what are you so dissatisfied with, Japan?
　　A declining birth rate? Bullshit.
　　Who is willing to bear a child when you say, even if you have a baby,
　　it’s almost impossible to leave your child in care of nursery schools as you want?
　　I don’t care whether you have affairs or take bribes, but just increase nursery schools.
　　What a fool you are wasting tens of billions yen for the Olympics.
　　I don’t mind which emblem is chosen, but just make nursery schools.
　　If you have money to pay for famous designers, just set up nursery schools.
　　What the hell am I supposed to do now? I’ll have to quit my job.
　　Don’t mess around, Japan.

(This was written by an anonymous blogger, and it was retweeted over 2,000 times as of March, 2016.)
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Don’t you think that this is a hilarious poem*?
(* Although it seems not to be a poem but a rant or something, I translated it as an original Japanese.)

It has power and momentum. The rhythm is good too; readers can share in the writer’s resentment on the beat. This is an outstanding piece of writing in these days. I will not write here about wasting taxes on clumsy administration for nurseries or the Olympics. As a person interested in gender and language, I want to admire this piece, especially the language of the writing, which unhesitatingly seems to move beyond Japanese gender norms.

----snipped of close analyses on the poem-----

In an article in “Ten-sei-jin-go(天声人語)”, a column of the Asahi Shinbun, published on March 12th, the author writes: “Some people frowned upon the blog’s rough language. But the message resonated deep and wide among working mothers, whose shared anger needed an outlet in vituperation.” I do not know who these people that “frowned upon the blog’s rough language” are, but there were far more people who sympathized with the furious mother whose child was not accepted at the nursery school than those who criticized the roughness of her speech.

The tension, the punch, gave people a strong impression and gripped their hearts. At one time, there must have been quite a few people who lamented or condemned women as unfit and disgraceful for using coarse “male” language, which was thought to deprive them of their “femininity.” This poem, however, somehow created an atmosphere in which people are reluctant to mention such conservative, negative comments. Rather, many women seemed to feel that “Nicely said! I quite agree with you!” was a more appropriate response. An article published on March 14th in the Mainichi Shinbun features a comment by a 71 year-old housewife in Kumamoto: “I agree with it. I completely agree with it.”

I appreciate the blogger for writing the poem which gives me a bright hope that Japanese gender norms are coming to blur and change.

Original article written by ENDO Orie
Translated by UCHIBORI Naoko