Japanese male fans cleaning up World Cup stadiums earn praise, but a Japanese woman's comment goes viral: 'Do it at home'

2026 World Cup Key News

(Taipei, June 19) Japanese football fans' actions of voluntarily cleaning up stadium trash after matches this week have garnered widespread attention and praise online. However, a Japanese woman's comment criticizing Japanese men for rarely doing chores at home, calling out their "double standards," has also drawn significant attention.

Agence France-Presse reported that the International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) shared photos on social media platform X of men in the standard blue Japanese fan attire actively picking up trash in the stands after a match, commending their "impeccable sportsmanship." Similar scenes have since been shared online.

However, one retweet of FIFA's post on X directly challenged the notion that Japanese men are as good as the outside world praises. The post from the account @atsukotamada stated, "The time Japanese men spend on housework ranks last internationally." It was accompanied by a satirical cartoon, and the post has garnered up to 1.96 million views.

The cartoon depicts a male fan proudly cleaning up the stands with a trash bag after a match, but another scene shows him relaxing on the sofa at home, ignoring the mountain of clothes and the wife or mother washing dishes nearby. The post, as if addressing Japanese men, urged, "Please do it at home."

It is widely known that Japanese men contribute little to household chores. Data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in 2021, cited by Japan's Cabinet Office, indicated that Japanese women spend 5.5 times more time on "unpaid work" such as household shopping, chores, and caregiving than Japanese men. This ratio is significantly higher than in the UK (1.8 times), France (1.7 times), and the United States (1.6 times).

However, netizens have expressed mixed opinions on the Japanese woman's post. Some wrote, "Wives who are troubled by their husbands not cleaning at all should make them wear the samurai uniform (referring to the standard blue Japanese fan attire) at home too."

Others commented, "This is too much of a generalization; not all Japanese men are like this." (Compiled by Chang Cheng-chiu) 1150619

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