About four years ago I was waiting for a plane in London and struck up a conversation with a former American Nissan exec who had spent a long time working at HQ in Japan.

He told me the story of countless meetings in which the senior female exec (there were very few) was expected to get up and leave the meeting for a period of time to retrieve and serve tea. He personally was disgusted and said that that was only a single example. IIRC he said in response to my question about why Japan had struggled to get out of their depression: "Employing only half their labor force might have something to do with it."