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In Die Hard, Holly Gennero (John McClane's wife) uses her maiden name at work. When confronted by her husband, she claims that "This is a Japanese company. They think married women..." and then gets interrupted by John.

Was there some kind of prejudice on companies against married women?

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    To hide the marriage due to corporate sexism towards married woman?
    – Ankit Sharma ♦
    Commented Oct 16 at 19:11

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Was there some kind of prejudice on companies against married women?

Not in the sense of sexism, but one important part of Japanese corporate culture is that one is intended to think "keiretsu" (company) before family or personal life.

As explained by many locals or foreigners, Japanese culture values long hours, hard work, and full dedication to the company. It seems obvious that any married woman might have less time for the company if she has house, husband and children to take care of.

In universe, as Holly is devoted to her career, she wants to show the Japanese (no wonder that they did a background check on her!) that her (futur) divorce (thus, her maiden name back) kind of "frees" her from family obligation. She's a free woman with kids, and can work for the company as much as needed.

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    I think the Japanese company explanation might be a partially true excuse. Clearly there are (or have been) trouble in their marriage and she might have felt unhappy with the name McLane. The time the movie was made was a time when divorces were becoming common in the U.S. to an extent they hadn’t been before, and a lot of 80s movies featured troubled marriages.
    – Todd Wilcox
    Commented Oct 17 at 0:50
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    Technically, Holly is not divorced (yet) at the time of the first movie. She is separated. Hence the issue with John and the use of her maiden name. He still hopes to reconcile and her eschewing of the family name is a bad sign for the possibility of recovering his marriage. And, yes, Japanese firms were sexist and prejudiced against married women, especially in senior positions.
    – matt_black
    Commented Oct 17 at 11:46
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    @matt_black: correct, reading again, I realize my choice of words could be misleading, updated :)
    – OldPadawan
    Commented Oct 17 at 12:24

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