Japan prefecture to stop hiring female 'tea squad' for meetings www.theguardian.com

A local government assembly is attempting to shake up Japan’s conservative workplace culture by ending the custom of employing women to serve tea at meetings.
Few official gatherings in Japan have properly begun until female employees – known collectively as the ochakumi (“tea squad”) – have placed cups of green tea in front of their invariably male senior colleagues, occasionally accompanied by something sweet.
The move was not entirely motivated by a desire to challenge traditional gender roles, having been made at a meeting last month to discuss ways to cut costs, according to the daily newspaper the Asahi Shimbun.
Nakamitsu warned that failure to challenge gender roles could encourage Japanese women to seek opportunities elsewhere.
“If you don’t like the situation (in Japan), you can go out into the bigger world outside,” she said.