Character bentos, as the article states, are far from the norm. When you are talking about people who think they need to make these, they are exactly the same kind of people who are stressing out about not being able to keep up with Martha Stewart's staff in the US. As far as I can tell, that pressure is entirely self imposed. The vast majority of people in society completely ignore it.
However, when the author states that there is societal and cultural pressure to achieve a certain level, it's absolutely true. This is not just with respect to women, but also with men as well. It's a double edged sword, though. For example, with bentos, you have an entire country where in almost every household you have at least one person who knows how to make healthy food and who practices it every day. You have country of school children, all of whom eat at least one home cooked meal every single weekday. You have no opportunity to for big business to negotiate what's going to be included in the school lunch because for the most part there is no school lunch. It is objectively a good thin.
There is a price, though. Is the price too high? I'm definitely on the fence at that. I used to make bentos and breakfast for my wife and I every single morning. We have no children, but to be honest, making 2 or 4 bentos takes virtually no extra time (and, in fact, 2 is sometimes difficult to manage the really small amounts of ingredients you have to use). Of the things that working women need to do for their families, this is probably the least onerous IMHO.