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my life ^.^ unzipped - The Changing Role of Japanese Women
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December 9th, 2006
Tags:school (Related) Current Location:Main computer lab (Related) Subject: The Changing Role of Japanese Women Time: 09:46 pm Current Mood: accomplished From the Tokugawa era to modernity, the ideals of womanhood in Japan have being constantly changing and redefined. At each step in this evolution, women have gained improved status in society and human rights. American feminist often fire rounds at Japanese women for their lack of activism to gain equality with men, but this misperception that Japanese women do not hold power within their society is incorrect (Sumiko 11). By studying the progression of roles that Japanese women have taken on since Tokugawa, it becomes questionable of whether the quality of life would be favorable to women if they had accomplished equality with Japanese men from the western point of view.
Looking at the Tokugawa as the baseline of this study, woman in Tokugawa Japan were very engaged with home production. Because production was something the whole family contributed to, there was not a strict division of labor yet and men and women work along side each other in the field and at home. Women did hard labor in agriculture as well as handicrafts at home to increase the family’s income (Bernstein 20). Anne Walthall found that in cases of agriculture woman were not paid equal wages to men, being paid “half or less what men made” (Bernstein 57). Filial piety was more focused on age an indicator of wisdom and less angled toward gender, so although the father was the official head of the household, the mother held much power as well (Bernstein 24). A woman’s ability in maintaining a household was more important then her ability to mother or how educated she might be (Bernstein 5). The daughter-in-law who entered in at the bottom of the familial hierarchy had more to worry about regarding her relations with the shufu, or female head of the household then she did with any of the men in the household (Bernstein 26). Women were usually responsible for the non-skilled repetitive labor within the household. Bernstein in her introduction to Recreating the Japanese Woman says that during the Tokugawa era it was believed that “women served the family best by being uneducated” (13).
In Anne Walthall’s observations of how women were treated inside a Tokugawa farming family’s household, although boys receive more extravagant parties, the upbringing seemed to be equal. Once children came of age, it was then that more gender specific requirements were enforced. Adolescent females were expected to be “obedient and gentle, discreet in speech, clean and tidy, and industrious in woman’s tasks” (Bernstein 45). The Shingaku Movement during this era reinforced womanly ideal and preached on how woman could be good wives (Bernstein 5). Although samurai ideals taught that boys and girls should not mix after age 10, peasants did not enforce the strict regulations of the higher classes and promiscuous behavior was not unheard of (Bernstein 51). Woman were able to avoid marriage through religious service or in the case of the rich, dependence on their parent, however for the average Japanese woman, marriage was the next step in life. There seems to be no set trend of whether the woman had a choice of her husband or if she married out of the village, differing from location. It was common to marry within ones social class and there be a certain trail period where a new wife could be sent home or divorced if not found satisfactory (Bernstein 56). Remarriage and divorce were common in every class except the samurai.
Mentioned above, the Shingaku movement played a role in defining the roles of women. Tejima Toan led the way marketing lectures and seminars for boys and girls. The goal was to educate them before they became delinquent. Pulling on Japanese and Chinese classics, Shingaku focuses on the “natural” attributes of what differentiates males from females (Bernstein 93). There was a negative slant on a females “natural” behavior and women were urged to find their “original heart” in order to avoid their primal instincts. Most of the instruction for woman focused on the “wife” role she’d play in a marriage and less on the mother role, with the exception of Rakuhoku Shoko. He believed that a mother’s attitude and behavior could effect her unborn child’s development of mind and character (Bernstein 94). Beliefs taught by Toan that seemed to have less influence on Japanese society was his belief that the wife should repress her sexuality and focus on solely maintaining the house. The husband was to have relations with concubines and courtesans without fear of his wife’s disapproval or jealousy (Bernstein 98).
During the Tokugawa period, woman’s most important role within society was being a worker within the home. Anne Walthall recalls a farming family who sent back a bride even though she had given birth to a son within the first year of marriage because she failed to know the daily upkeep of a house. A woman’s ability to juggle home production and domestic care outweighed their procreative roles (Bernstein 61). This was to change once the Meiji government came into power.
New policies of the Meiji Restoration separated the public from the private, moving production and education out of the home (Bernstein 35). Kathleen S. Uno describes the new education system as a strain on the home. Children were expected to attend compulsory classes in a public school system which removed their productive capabilities for the family. Once saw as an asset, children now became dependent on their parents and an extra financial burden as supplies, uniforms and tuition were needed (Bernstein 36). The government also encouraged industry and the development of salaried workers which were mostly male. Men would leave the household daily and work leaving the woman behind to care for the family and continues their home production. Urban families were more affected then rural families (Bernstein 37). These urban wives were supported by their salary earning husbands and stayed at home to take care of finances, domestic work and childcare. Not all women became exclusive housewives though, in 1890, woman still outnumbered men in light industries like textiles 60-90 percent (Bernstein 153).
Laws that effected woman during the Meiji Restoration include, the 1980 Law on Associations and Meetings which refused to let woman attend political meetings or join political organizations. Some viewed this legislation as the government reducing the status of women to that of children, while others saw this as the government acknowledging that woman had high potential to be dangerous (Bernstein156). The Meiji Civil Code required a wife needed husband’s consent before entering into legal contract, enforced that the husband took children in divorce, and that wives who committed adultery could face criminal conviction or have that information used against them as a reason for divorce, although these charges could not be taken against a man (Bernstein 8). Compulsory education for females was 6 years by 1910 and had a compliance rate of 97.4 percent of all eligible girls (Bernstein 157). Earlier in 1899 the government had also passed a law requiring one higher school for girls be available in each prefecture, these laws narrowed the gap between male and female education. In Sharon Nolte and Sally Hastings’ article about “The Meiji State’s Policy Toward Women” in is noted that the education minister, Kabayama Sukenori fought for women’s education because he believed in “extending education to middle-class females as well as males precisely because households, which were the foundation of the nation, required good wives and wise mothers. The role of the girls’ higher schools should be to develop in young women refined taste and gentle and modest character. Women of leisure, then, should receive enough education—but no more then necessary—to fulfill their duties within the home” (Bernstein 158). This attitude is an improvement from the Tokugawa’s opinion that woman served the family better uneducated, but education standards were still not equal for boys and girls. A girls school did not provide the same educational standard of a boys school and a graduate would have much difficulty testing into a higher institution (Bernstein 158).
The Ministry of Education began marketing a new image for the women of Japan, ryosai kenbo, which means good wife, wise mother. Kathleen Uno describes this new propaganda as a new ideal of womanhood offered “in the guise of traditional” (Bernstein 38). This image was mostly focused at the middle class as lower class women would not have been able to afford staying at home. In 1907, the magazine Shimin was published by educators, military men and Home Ministry officials; they helped propagate the proper image of women by publishing articles on how woman can help their family. Advice of assisting husbands in their responsibilities, keeping the house clean and cultivating children in the arts filled its pages; a firm insistence on woman maintaining the private and men controlling the public is also present (Bernstein 164). Shimin also praised case stories of women sustaining their family be being frugal and hard work.
The government began to praise women for doing domestic labor and compare their contributions to men’s. During the Russo-Japanese war, Vice Admiral Kamimura said that becoming good wives, wise mothers was as important to Japan as fighting in the military (Bernstein 159). As the WW1 progressed woman began to help contribute to the war effort while still adhering to the prescribed image of womanhood. Woman helped as nurses, or looking after widows and families of solders, while widows tried to be self sufficient and not burden the government for welfare. Following the example set by the Empress and other royalty, Japanese women joined volunteer organizations, like the Ladies’ Volunteer Nursing Association of the Japan Red Cross (Bernstein 160). Rolling bandages, visiting the sick, seeing solders off and welcoming them home allowed women to participate and celebrate alongside the men during the war. Sharon Nolte and Sally Hastings see these activities as confirmations of women’s new role within Japan. They proved women could make contributions outside the home, they reinforced a woman’s strength in nurturing and that woman worked hard (Bernstein 161).
After WW1 came to an end, Japan was looking to continue its evolution and integration as an equal with the West. Many women reevaluated their roles and tried to vocalize their experience in the public forum. Magazines like Seito allowed a creative and intellectual outlet for women in the new Taisho period (Bernstein 176). This movement was woman trying to describe what a “new woman” really was. Four leaders appeared with different opinions on the matter. The first and most amazing was Yosano Akiko who advocated legal, educational, and social equality (Bernstein 179). Well read an educated, Akiko began writing poetry and ran away to study under her future husband, Yosano Tekken. Akiko believed that woman should be able to be financially self sufficient and be able to take on any role she wishes. Akiko demonstrates this with her own life by supporting the children and an indulgent, unemployed husband (Bernstein 184). Hiratsuka Raicho, the creator of Seito and another player in the discussion of the “new woman”, called for a more practical protection by the state of women. She believed that Akiko expected too much from the average Japanese woman and that it wasn’t possible to be able to support and control every aspect of ones life. A third voice, Yamakawa Kikue believed that women should be educated for their own benefit and not that of educating their children. Kikue hoped to destroy the system that had kept woman subjugated by men in order to accomplish equality (Bernstein 177). The last voice, and most traditional was Yamada Waka. She supported the image of ryosai kenbo and is quoted saying,
…motherhood is a woman’s heaven-ordained occupation, that a woman’s world is the family, and that for a woman to leave the family and compete with men degrades the woman and damages the family. (Bernstein 190)
The media enjoyed the commentary that flew between these women and often misunderstood the purpose of their writings which was to reach liberation (Bernstein 197).
Margit Nagy writes in her article, “Middle-Class Working Women”, of the growing trend of women entering the work force during the Taisho period between the First and Second World War. Employed as teachers, office workers, telephone operators, midwives, nurses, factory workers and domestic servants, women sought out employment out of economic necessity, desire and increased availability (Bernstein 204). Sumiko Iwao, in her book, Japanese Woman, Traditional Image & Changing Reality, offers other reasons women were entering the work force. She believes that the new education system was teaching women to consider sexual equality and to consider ideals like love to be incorporated into their marriage (Iwao 21). Unsatisfied with their roles within the marriage at maintaining the children and household, woman looked to a job to feel validation. Taisho surveys show that woman felt a struggle to fulfill themselves and yet not sacrifice their femininity (Bernstein 212).
As woman enter the work force, the media shifts from discussing “the new woman” to analyzing the “modern girl”. Mirian Silverburg offers her attempt at recreating this woman who might have been nothing more then a media sensation in her article, “The Modern Girls as Militant”. The description is specific and makes it sound like one would easily be picked out of a crowd with long, exposed legs, short hair and European chic (Bernstein 242). A dancer, flirt, and sexually active, the media worried how her behaviors would alter social norms in how the genders behaved toward one another, as well as morality. Other Japanese observing the phenomenon felt there were different types of “modern girls”. Oya Soichi saw three subcategories emerge:
The first was crafty, manipulative, and intellectualizing. She was free to go out, even sleep out, and maintained no boundaries between friends and lovers. She was a consumer, not a producer; she was like a mannequin. The second type was group-oriented, productive, and possessed of a self consciousness. But only the third girl was “one hundred percent moga.” She was identified as the daughter of heroic leftist activist who had been imprisoned countless times; she thus had no sense of family other than the police, jails, and the streets. (Bernstein 249)
From the description, one can easily see that the modern girl was a romanticized idea of where Japanese women would be headed in the future, not a social problem of the 1920s. This media shock stigmatized western fashions in Japan and isolated single, working women (Bernstein 260). However, the fear of the modern women quickly faded from memory as Japan entered WW2.
Japan’s entry into the Second World War forced them to make some decisions in what role the Japanese woman would play. The government wanted to start a pro-natalist policy, so there would be a continuous production of solders for military expansion, yet the state also needed women to fill the labor ranks to make up for the loss of men over seas (Bernstein 268). In the 1930s, the government started putting out propaganda that “emphasiz[ed] woman’s crucial role in preserving the family system” (Bernstein 271). The Showa regime even went so far as to pass the Mother-Child Protection law in 1937, a system of welfare not offered in the First World War. These were preventive measures to avoid mother-child suicides as economic conditions diminished (Bernstein 273). Feminist joined sides with the government and helped increase women’s cooperation with war efforts. They originally believed that the governments increased interest in women and their participation in public affairs would increase women’s suffrage, although it seems more likely the Showa administration was using them for promotion of government policies (Bernstein 275).
The Japanese government’s attitude toward using women as disposable assets was continued on over seas as well, in their system of comfort women. The Japanese military rounded up women from Korea, Taiwan, China as well as their homeland to sexually service military men (Yoshimi 64). These women were acquired through deception and were not permitted to leave once installed at a comfort station, ultimately making them sex slaves (Yoshimi 103). These women, at the end of the war, were abandoned and not returned to their home countries. The aftereffects of two years of constant sexual abuse left comfort women diseased, mentally unstable and unable to fit back into society where they were damaged goods (Yoshimi 193).
So as Japan fought a losing war, the women filled the labor ranks and the government took advantage of their cheap, unskilled labor. When the gun smoke of WW2 cleared and then men started returning home, three million female workers were fired and sent back to be housewives (Bernstein 292). After Japan was rebuilt, companies needed workers who could devote their lives to work. The trend of men being salary workers and women managing the household became commonplace (Iwao 80). In 1986, the new government passed the Equal Employment Opportunity Law. Yoshiko in her essay “Doubling Expectations” charges it with discouraging women to work full time because in neglects the man’s responsibility to share the division of household chores (Bernstein 294). Iwao on the other hand praises the law because it encourages employers to consider women as potential candidates. The fault Iwao finds in the law is that it does not consider males’ right to decent work hours and their right to leave early to have family time (Iwao 177).
Modern Japanese women lead vastly improved options in life from early Tokugawa ear. Author Iwoa Sumiko offered an interesting perspective that often refuted injustices that American feminist see when judging Japan from our western point of view. Iwao paints the picture of men and women in Japan as two opposing forces that work alongside, not against, one another. Her opinion is that Japanese women have more freedom because they do not have to devote themselves to a company their entire life and instead can enjoy raising children and working part time. What a difference then from when women were regarded as a economic asset and were returned to their home family if their they didn’t produce up to the expectation comments: Add some change! (Related)
Looking at the Tokugawa as the baseline of this study, woman in Tokugawa Japan were very engaged with home production. Because production was something the whole family contributed to, there was not a strict division of labor yet and men and women work along side each other in the field and at home. Women did hard labor in agriculture as well as handicrafts at home to increase the family’s income (Bernstein 20). Anne Walthall found that in cases of agriculture woman were not paid equal wages to men, being paid “half or less what men made” (Bernstein 57). Filial piety was more focused on age an indicator of wisdom and less angled toward gender, so although the father was the official head of the household, the mother held much power as well (Bernstein 24). A woman’s ability in maintaining a household was more important then her ability to mother or how educated she might be (Bernstein 5). The daughter-in-law who entered in at the bottom of the familial hierarchy had more to worry about regarding her relations with the shufu, or female head of the household then she did with any of the men in the household (Bernstein 26). Women were usually responsible for the non-skilled repetitive labor within the household. Bernstein in her introduction to Recreating the Japanese Woman says that during the Tokugawa era it was believed that “women served the family best by being uneducated” (13).
In Anne Walthall’s observations of how women were treated inside a Tokugawa farming family’s household, although boys receive more extravagant parties, the upbringing seemed to be equal. Once children came of age, it was then that more gender specific requirements were enforced. Adolescent females were expected to be “obedient and gentle, discreet in speech, clean and tidy, and industrious in woman’s tasks” (Bernstein 45). The Shingaku Movement during this era reinforced womanly ideal and preached on how woman could be good wives (Bernstein 5). Although samurai ideals taught that boys and girls should not mix after age 10, peasants did not enforce the strict regulations of the higher classes and promiscuous behavior was not unheard of (Bernstein 51). Woman were able to avoid marriage through religious service or in the case of the rich, dependence on their parent, however for the average Japanese woman, marriage was the next step in life. There seems to be no set trend of whether the woman had a choice of her husband or if she married out of the village, differing from location. It was common to marry within ones social class and there be a certain trail period where a new wife could be sent home or divorced if not found satisfactory (Bernstein 56). Remarriage and divorce were common in every class except the samurai.
Mentioned above, the Shingaku movement played a role in defining the roles of women. Tejima Toan led the way marketing lectures and seminars for boys and girls. The goal was to educate them before they became delinquent. Pulling on Japanese and Chinese classics, Shingaku focuses on the “natural” attributes of what differentiates males from females (Bernstein 93). There was a negative slant on a females “natural” behavior and women were urged to find their “original heart” in order to avoid their primal instincts. Most of the instruction for woman focused on the “wife” role she’d play in a marriage and less on the mother role, with the exception of Rakuhoku Shoko. He believed that a mother’s attitude and behavior could effect her unborn child’s development of mind and character (Bernstein 94). Beliefs taught by Toan that seemed to have less influence on Japanese society was his belief that the wife should repress her sexuality and focus on solely maintaining the house. The husband was to have relations with concubines and courtesans without fear of his wife’s disapproval or jealousy (Bernstein 98).
During the Tokugawa period, woman’s most important role within society was being a worker within the home. Anne Walthall recalls a farming family who sent back a bride even though she had given birth to a son within the first year of marriage because she failed to know the daily upkeep of a house. A woman’s ability to juggle home production and domestic care outweighed their procreative roles (Bernstein 61). This was to change once the Meiji government came into power.
New policies of the Meiji Restoration separated the public from the private, moving production and education out of the home (Bernstein 35). Kathleen S. Uno describes the new education system as a strain on the home. Children were expected to attend compulsory classes in a public school system which removed their productive capabilities for the family. Once saw as an asset, children now became dependent on their parents and an extra financial burden as supplies, uniforms and tuition were needed (Bernstein 36). The government also encouraged industry and the development of salaried workers which were mostly male. Men would leave the household daily and work leaving the woman behind to care for the family and continues their home production. Urban families were more affected then rural families (Bernstein 37). These urban wives were supported by their salary earning husbands and stayed at home to take care of finances, domestic work and childcare. Not all women became exclusive housewives though, in 1890, woman still outnumbered men in light industries like textiles 60-90 percent (Bernstein 153).
Laws that effected woman during the Meiji Restoration include, the 1980 Law on Associations and Meetings which refused to let woman attend political meetings or join political organizations. Some viewed this legislation as the government reducing the status of women to that of children, while others saw this as the government acknowledging that woman had high potential to be dangerous (Bernstein156). The Meiji Civil Code required a wife needed husband’s consent before entering into legal contract, enforced that the husband took children in divorce, and that wives who committed adultery could face criminal conviction or have that information used against them as a reason for divorce, although these charges could not be taken against a man (Bernstein 8). Compulsory education for females was 6 years by 1910 and had a compliance rate of 97.4 percent of all eligible girls (Bernstein 157). Earlier in 1899 the government had also passed a law requiring one higher school for girls be available in each prefecture, these laws narrowed the gap between male and female education. In Sharon Nolte and Sally Hastings’ article about “The Meiji State’s Policy Toward Women” in is noted that the education minister, Kabayama Sukenori fought for women’s education because he believed in “extending education to middle-class females as well as males precisely because households, which were the foundation of the nation, required good wives and wise mothers. The role of the girls’ higher schools should be to develop in young women refined taste and gentle and modest character. Women of leisure, then, should receive enough education—but no more then necessary—to fulfill their duties within the home” (Bernstein 158). This attitude is an improvement from the Tokugawa’s opinion that woman served the family better uneducated, but education standards were still not equal for boys and girls. A girls school did not provide the same educational standard of a boys school and a graduate would have much difficulty testing into a higher institution (Bernstein 158).
The Ministry of Education began marketing a new image for the women of Japan, ryosai kenbo, which means good wife, wise mother. Kathleen Uno describes this new propaganda as a new ideal of womanhood offered “in the guise of traditional” (Bernstein 38). This image was mostly focused at the middle class as lower class women would not have been able to afford staying at home. In 1907, the magazine Shimin was published by educators, military men and Home Ministry officials; they helped propagate the proper image of women by publishing articles on how woman can help their family. Advice of assisting husbands in their responsibilities, keeping the house clean and cultivating children in the arts filled its pages; a firm insistence on woman maintaining the private and men controlling the public is also present (Bernstein 164). Shimin also praised case stories of women sustaining their family be being frugal and hard work.
The government began to praise women for doing domestic labor and compare their contributions to men’s. During the Russo-Japanese war, Vice Admiral Kamimura said that becoming good wives, wise mothers was as important to Japan as fighting in the military (Bernstein 159). As the WW1 progressed woman began to help contribute to the war effort while still adhering to the prescribed image of womanhood. Woman helped as nurses, or looking after widows and families of solders, while widows tried to be self sufficient and not burden the government for welfare. Following the example set by the Empress and other royalty, Japanese women joined volunteer organizations, like the Ladies’ Volunteer Nursing Association of the Japan Red Cross (Bernstein 160). Rolling bandages, visiting the sick, seeing solders off and welcoming them home allowed women to participate and celebrate alongside the men during the war. Sharon Nolte and Sally Hastings see these activities as confirmations of women’s new role within Japan. They proved women could make contributions outside the home, they reinforced a woman’s strength in nurturing and that woman worked hard (Bernstein 161).
After WW1 came to an end, Japan was looking to continue its evolution and integration as an equal with the West. Many women reevaluated their roles and tried to vocalize their experience in the public forum. Magazines like Seito allowed a creative and intellectual outlet for women in the new Taisho period (Bernstein 176). This movement was woman trying to describe what a “new woman” really was. Four leaders appeared with different opinions on the matter. The first and most amazing was Yosano Akiko who advocated legal, educational, and social equality (Bernstein 179). Well read an educated, Akiko began writing poetry and ran away to study under her future husband, Yosano Tekken. Akiko believed that woman should be able to be financially self sufficient and be able to take on any role she wishes. Akiko demonstrates this with her own life by supporting the children and an indulgent, unemployed husband (Bernstein 184). Hiratsuka Raicho, the creator of Seito and another player in the discussion of the “new woman”, called for a more practical protection by the state of women. She believed that Akiko expected too much from the average Japanese woman and that it wasn’t possible to be able to support and control every aspect of ones life. A third voice, Yamakawa Kikue believed that women should be educated for their own benefit and not that of educating their children. Kikue hoped to destroy the system that had kept woman subjugated by men in order to accomplish equality (Bernstein 177). The last voice, and most traditional was Yamada Waka. She supported the image of ryosai kenbo and is quoted saying,
…motherhood is a woman’s heaven-ordained occupation, that a woman’s world is the family, and that for a woman to leave the family and compete with men degrades the woman and damages the family. (Bernstein 190)
The media enjoyed the commentary that flew between these women and often misunderstood the purpose of their writings which was to reach liberation (Bernstein 197).
Margit Nagy writes in her article, “Middle-Class Working Women”, of the growing trend of women entering the work force during the Taisho period between the First and Second World War. Employed as teachers, office workers, telephone operators, midwives, nurses, factory workers and domestic servants, women sought out employment out of economic necessity, desire and increased availability (Bernstein 204). Sumiko Iwao, in her book, Japanese Woman, Traditional Image & Changing Reality, offers other reasons women were entering the work force. She believes that the new education system was teaching women to consider sexual equality and to consider ideals like love to be incorporated into their marriage (Iwao 21). Unsatisfied with their roles within the marriage at maintaining the children and household, woman looked to a job to feel validation. Taisho surveys show that woman felt a struggle to fulfill themselves and yet not sacrifice their femininity (Bernstein 212).
As woman enter the work force, the media shifts from discussing “the new woman” to analyzing the “modern girl”. Mirian Silverburg offers her attempt at recreating this woman who might have been nothing more then a media sensation in her article, “The Modern Girls as Militant”. The description is specific and makes it sound like one would easily be picked out of a crowd with long, exposed legs, short hair and European chic (Bernstein 242). A dancer, flirt, and sexually active, the media worried how her behaviors would alter social norms in how the genders behaved toward one another, as well as morality. Other Japanese observing the phenomenon felt there were different types of “modern girls”. Oya Soichi saw three subcategories emerge:
The first was crafty, manipulative, and intellectualizing. She was free to go out, even sleep out, and maintained no boundaries between friends and lovers. She was a consumer, not a producer; she was like a mannequin. The second type was group-oriented, productive, and possessed of a self consciousness. But only the third girl was “one hundred percent moga.” She was identified as the daughter of heroic leftist activist who had been imprisoned countless times; she thus had no sense of family other than the police, jails, and the streets. (Bernstein 249)
From the description, one can easily see that the modern girl was a romanticized idea of where Japanese women would be headed in the future, not a social problem of the 1920s. This media shock stigmatized western fashions in Japan and isolated single, working women (Bernstein 260). However, the fear of the modern women quickly faded from memory as Japan entered WW2.
Japan’s entry into the Second World War forced them to make some decisions in what role the Japanese woman would play. The government wanted to start a pro-natalist policy, so there would be a continuous production of solders for military expansion, yet the state also needed women to fill the labor ranks to make up for the loss of men over seas (Bernstein 268). In the 1930s, the government started putting out propaganda that “emphasiz[ed] woman’s crucial role in preserving the family system” (Bernstein 271). The Showa regime even went so far as to pass the Mother-Child Protection law in 1937, a system of welfare not offered in the First World War. These were preventive measures to avoid mother-child suicides as economic conditions diminished (Bernstein 273). Feminist joined sides with the government and helped increase women’s cooperation with war efforts. They originally believed that the governments increased interest in women and their participation in public affairs would increase women’s suffrage, although it seems more likely the Showa administration was using them for promotion of government policies (Bernstein 275).
The Japanese government’s attitude toward using women as disposable assets was continued on over seas as well, in their system of comfort women. The Japanese military rounded up women from Korea, Taiwan, China as well as their homeland to sexually service military men (Yoshimi 64). These women were acquired through deception and were not permitted to leave once installed at a comfort station, ultimately making them sex slaves (Yoshimi 103). These women, at the end of the war, were abandoned and not returned to their home countries. The aftereffects of two years of constant sexual abuse left comfort women diseased, mentally unstable and unable to fit back into society where they were damaged goods (Yoshimi 193).
So as Japan fought a losing war, the women filled the labor ranks and the government took advantage of their cheap, unskilled labor. When the gun smoke of WW2 cleared and then men started returning home, three million female workers were fired and sent back to be housewives (Bernstein 292). After Japan was rebuilt, companies needed workers who could devote their lives to work. The trend of men being salary workers and women managing the household became commonplace (Iwao 80). In 1986, the new government passed the Equal Employment Opportunity Law. Yoshiko in her essay “Doubling Expectations” charges it with discouraging women to work full time because in neglects the man’s responsibility to share the division of household chores (Bernstein 294). Iwao on the other hand praises the law because it encourages employers to consider women as potential candidates. The fault Iwao finds in the law is that it does not consider males’ right to decent work hours and their right to leave early to have family time (Iwao 177).
Modern Japanese women lead vastly improved options in life from early Tokugawa ear. Author Iwoa Sumiko offered an interesting perspective that often refuted injustices that American feminist see when judging Japan from our western point of view. Iwao paints the picture of men and women in Japan as two opposing forces that work alongside, not against, one another. Her opinion is that Japanese women have more freedom because they do not have to devote themselves to a company their entire life and instead can enjoy raising children and working part time. What a difference then from when women were regarded as a economic asset and were returned to their home family if their they didn’t produce up to the expectation comments: Add some change! (Related)
my life ^.^ unzipped - The Changing Role of Japanese Women
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