The term “Kensetsu Komachi,” which is often heard in the construction industry

I’m a new engineer who joined a general contractor right out of college and have only been working as a construction manager for two years. However, I’m already starting to feel out of place in the construction industry.

That’s because they’ve even coined the term “Kensetsu Komachi” in their desperate quest to attract female engineers and craftspeople.

Flip through a construction industry magazine, and you’ll find an interview with “Kensetsu Komachi.” Walk past a construction site, and you’ll see a pink banner for “Kensetsu Komachi.” “Kensetsu Komachi” is everywhere.

Are these really the right approaches?

In a corner of the downtown area of a certain regional city, construction is underway on a large-scale building.

Facing a major thoroughfare and with plenty of foot traffic, that location must have been the perfect spot to promote “Kensetsu Komachi.” They had prominently displayed a pink sign to showcase “Kensetsu Komachi.”

There, I witnessed a strange sight. At the site, accompanied by the slogan “Let’s find the Construction Komachi!”, they had actually made part of the temporary fence transparent so that people could peek inside!

By showing women actually at work, the organizers’ intention is likely to convey messages such as, “The construction industry is now a place where women can work too!” and “This is a field where women can thrive!”

"Kensetsu Komachi" is a rare creature

Setting aside the question of who would actually go out of their way to “take a peek at a construction site!”—just think about it rationally. Where are you going to find a woman who, after being put on display like a spectacle in front of a huge crowd right in the middle of a busy downtown area, would think, “I want to work in the construction industry!”?

The moment I saw the slogan “Let’s go find a ‘Construction Komachi’!” I felt sick to my stomach and got goosebumps. I just can’t understand why no one ever questioned an initiative like this.

To make this an industry where women can play a more active role, I believe it is essential for women themselves to take the lead—whether by giving interviews to newspapers and magazines or serving as the main speakers at site tours. After all, the words of fellow women are the most effective way to help people feel that the construction industry is something they can relate to.

However, asking someone to come forward voluntarily is different from exposing them. Even if the women working at that site were okay with it, wouldn’t an outsider still find it abnormal?

For a long time, the notion that the construction industry is no place for women has been widespread. On construction sites, women are seen as “rare creatures.”

Isn't this way of thinking what has led to strange initiatives like “Let’s Go Find the Construction Komachi”?

Doesn't anyone outside the industry know about "Kensetsu Komachi"?

When you work in the construction industry, you often come across the term “Kensetsu Komachi,” but it’s not at all well-known outside the industry. When I asked my female friends in their 20s about it, not a single one of them had heard of it.

I understand that the public awareness and outreach campaign titled “Kensetsu Komachi” was initially launched to change attitudes within the industry. However, this alone has merely led companies to start hiring people who had previously been rejected “simply because they were women.”

Since “Construction Komachi” is featured everywhere, day in and day out, it might seem as though their numbers have increased, but that doesn’t mean more women are thinking, “I want to become a Construction Komachi.” It’s simply gone from negative to zero.

Will the “Construction Komachi” craze be short-lived?

Is it really appropriate to resort to a simplistic image campaign that links women to construction sites in an effort to recruit them as labor? To begin with, the working conditions in the construction industry aren’t good for men either—they’ve only just begun to improve. Rather than resorting to gimmicks, shouldn’t we take a longer-term view and work to create an industry where women can thrive as a matter of course?

First, we need to create an environment where women currently working in the construction industry can continue to work without leaving their jobs. We need to make this an industry where they themselves can take the initiative to recruit other women. Isn’t that the right order of things?

Aren’t the government and industry groups rushing these reforms a bit too much? I’m worried that, if things continue this way, “Kensetsu Komachi” will end up being nothing more than a fleeting fad.

What do you all think, members of “Kensetsu Komachi”?

The God of Construction

Enta's Personal Opinion

Are you kidding me?! This is terrible.

That’s exactly the kind of thing a high-and-mighty branch manager at a general contractor might come up with, isn’t it? (Wait, am I wrong?)

Would you want to work while people are staring at you?

It kind of feels like it encourages people to interrupt work, lol.

In the end, the reason work gets delayed is always "internal company issues," as usual.