Virginia Review of Asian Studies

A COMPARISON OF ROLES OF WOMEN IN BOTH JAPANESE AND

AMERICAN SOCIETY
CHEYENNE BOYCE
SPELMAN COLLEGE
The contemporary world is changing very rapidly in various spheres of life. World
economies are changing dramatically and globalization is quickly becoming an unavoidable
phenomenon that everyone is becoming more and more aware of. Consequently, it is getting
more and more important to think about what the future holds. As a student attending a womans
college, I am aware of the roles that women have held in this country, and it is very important,
especially as I begin to think about my career paths and future, to figure out where my place in
the world will be in just a few years. As markets change and political and economic power shifts,
the roles that women play in these various arenas may not be as easily determined as most may
think. Further, aside from the threat of the unknown for women in American society, since
globalization is becoming more and more important, it is imperative that I not only understand
my role as a woman here in America, but also the roles of women in countries around the world.
Aside from my deep interest in Japan, after researching the roles of women in Japanese society, I
have found that the roles of women, although they seem to be very different, do have some
similarities.
This paper will present a comparative study of the roles of women in Japanese society
and American society. In order to offer a comprehensive look at the situation, a history of the
roles of Women in both societies will be provided and an observation of current societal roles of
women in each country will be described. Since Japan and the United States interact on each
other in various ways, it will be interesting to explore what major roles of women in their
respective society play and how such roles are changing. In order to offer some reasonable
predictions of what societal roles of women will be like in the future, this paper will also explore
the causes of the changes in womens societal roles in these countries.
Before analyzing the role of women in Japanese society, it is important to think about
where the societal norms that people are subjected to come from. Proverbs play a significant role
in many cultures throughout the world including the Japanese culture and they also contribute
significantly to the Japanese way of life. In her book Asian Folklore Studies, author Hiroko
Storm explores how women in Japanese society are perceived through traditional Japanese
proverbs. Storm studied 817 proverbs and discussed what they reveal regarding traditional
Japanese attitudes toward women. Of these proverbs only 29 of these spoke positively of women
and the other negative ones dealt with the undesirable characteristics of women or their
oppressed situation. According to Storm, traditional proverbs about women can be classified into
two categories: women in general which includes inferiority, stupidity, changeability, ill-nature,
talkativeness, weakness and miscellaneous and women in specific roles or situations which
includes wives, mother and daughter in law, widows, prostitutes, intelligent women and beautiful
women. (Storm 168)

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These categories were created prior to World War II and it is important to note that the
status of wives was significantly lower among the upper class. In lower class families where the
family earned money as farmers or merchants, husbands and wives worked together to earn a
living so the wifes position in the family was important. In the latter half of the 19th century, the
Meiji government changed the political and social structure of Japan in an attempt to catch up
with the more advanced nations of the West (Storm 170) However, during this time period they
were not concerned with the position of women.
The first movements toward human rights for women in Japan began after the Meiji
Restoration in 1868. Unlike in America, during the late 19th century supporters of womans rights
did not advocate for political inclusion or voting rights. They were fighting for reforms in the
patriarchal society that allowed for the oppression of women. Womans education was one of the
first things that supporters worked toward and it was somewhat easily achieved because policy
makers believed that education was important for the preservation of the state because it would
prepare girls to become effective wives and mothers capable of producing diligent, patriotic sons.
Although these were not the same ideas that supporters had the availability of education allowed
for more advancements for women in Japanese society. Prior to the late 19th century, patriarchal
cultural practices such as prostitution and polygamy subjected women to abuse and sexually
transmitted diseases. During this time major advancements were made in this area as well.
As a woman who is a part of American culture but who is very interested in Japanese
culture, I thought that it would be beneficial to explore a comparison between women in both
societies. Western countries have a certain image of what women in Japan are like and although
this image may be true to a certain extent, after reading an article written by Seth Friedman,
Women in Japanese Society: Their Changing Roles, I learned that there are two distinct
Japanese societies, public and private, and women play different roles in both of these societies.
In the private family role women are often quite dominate and more dominate than the male
members of the household. The women in Japan are very dedicated to their families and it is very
important that they raise children who function is society well. Because of the Confucian
influences on the Japanese culture that emphasizes the supreme position of the male, and a
hierarchical power structure the role of women in public Japanese society is different.
Throughout much of my research I found that the information was somewhat dated. For
example, the information on how women are perceived through Japanese proverbs was based on
research that was done in 1989. In an effort to find more updated information, I decided to focus
on a topic that is very current and is impacting societies across the world every day.
Globalization is the theory related to the growing interconnectedness of the world.
When most people think of globalization, they think about the expansion and
interconnectedness of the worlds economies, however, globalization also affects societies
socially, culturally, and politically. As the world becomes more closely linked together, it is
important to analyze how various societies are changing and realize what the causes of those
changes are. One group that is often over looked when analyzing the effects of globalization is
the civil working force among Japanese women. As a result of social and political globalization,
there has been a development of feminism which included the increased salience of non-state
identities, the opening up of opportunities for effective political activity at a local level, a raised
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international profile of womens rights, and the potential for activists to use international law to
organizer transnationally. (Bishop 2002) Although, women in Japan do have potential to reach
empowerment through globalization, it is important to note that the Japanese government
includes a political party and trade union system that effectively excludes women. In order to
reach their feminist goals Japanese women have had to adapt and adjust their strategies to the
existing national and international institutions as well as notice how globalization is in fact
changing these institutions as well. In this section I would first like to look at the role female
labor workers have traditionally played in party and trade union politics in Japan.
Japanese women have been able to hold political power in the past. In Japans first postwar election in 1946, 39 female deputies were elected. However, when the Japanese political
system was reformed and the Liberal Democratic Party had control, their priority was Japans
economic growth, and because election tactics consisted mostly of establishing strong links with
the corporate elite women were mostly excluded. (Bishop 2002) As time progressed, women
faced challenges in elections also because women were often only elected if they had the support
of a trade union and women only make up 28 percent of trade unionists in Japan. (Miura 2001)
Further, when the number of Diet seats decreased in the 1970s and with voters reluctant to vote
for women it became more difficult for women to gain positions.
One of the differences between the American feminist movement and the Japanese
feminist movement, when it comes to political representation, is that while Japanese women
were campaigning for equal labor rights from the 1950s-1970s, they received little attention
because the topic was simply not a high priority topic in Japanese society. This was partly
because Japanese womens labor market participation at this time was less than in Europe and
the US and as a result, Japanese women were less conscious of the gender-based division of paid
labor than their western counterparts. (Bishop 2002) Along with lack of action from the
government, gender roles in Japanese society have also played a role in the unfair labor
conditions for Japanese women. In the mid-1980s the Nakasone government cut education,
welfare, and environmental spending for day care centers and school lunches. These were jobs
that were often held by women and these cuts were detrimental to the way of life for these
women. Many of them were forced to leave their jobs or give up social activities. Electoral and
parliamentary institutions in Japan are male-dominated and the policies that are often pursued are
not beneficial to female workers.
Despite the difficulties women have to face as time has progressed women have been
able to gain some benefits. There are many womens groups that lobby the government and
through United Nations intervention there was an increase in feminist activities and an increased
awareness of gender equality issues throughout the general population. Between 1988 and 2001
there has been increased representation of women in the Diet and local assemblies which is a
sign that Japanese voters are more willing to accept female politicians. (Bishop 2002) As women
become more active in Japanese politics, they are becoming more boisterous in assembly and
although they are often criticized for their un-lady like ways these women are opening doors for
women everywhere throughout Japanese society.
According to the theory of institutional dynamism, one of the catalysts for institutions to
become dynamic is that changes in the socioeconomic context or political balance of power
produce a new situation where old institutions begin to serve different ends as new actors gain a
foothold within them. (Bishop 2002) In Japan local governments have come to be champions of
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initiatives towards gender equality as supported by womens networks, feminist deputies gain
representation. There have been several policies to help improve the position of women in
society. One of the most important policies was the Basic Law for Gender-Equal Society which
was passed in June, 1999. The basic goal of this law was to clarify basic concepts related to
formation of a gender-equal society. Under this law, the central government, local governments
and Japanese citizens are required to make efforts to move toward achieving gender-equality in
all areas of society. This law has been enacted in many ways. For example, in Tokyo the local
government can request private companies to report on the status of their implementation of
gender equality. (Hashimato 2001) In the Gifu prefecture research was conducted on the sexual
division of labor in the workplace and at home and in Fukui City officials concentrated on
improving womens political participation. (Bishop 2002)
Feminist groups along with the United Nations have also worked to pass many other laws
that have been influential. Japan has also acquired a large sector of organizations with the goals
of preparing women for politics. Moriya Yuko believed that women would be empowered if they
entered the decision making-fields they were often excluded from and in 1996 she set up the
World Womens Conference Network which aimed to promote international exchange among
women and she also founded a school for aspiring female politicians. The schools goal is to
have 50 percent of the representatives be women and the school is successfully beginning to
reach that goal. Although Japan is making major moves toward female equality in politics, in
2000 the United Nations Gender Empowerment measure, which records womens participation
in political and economic decision-making, ranked Japan and 41 out of 70 countries judged to
have high human development (Bishop 2002) and as a result women in Japan still have many
challenges to overcome.
Japanese Feminist Movements
In order for change to occur in a society there has to be an issue that people feel deeply
enough to work toward solving .These was the situation for women in both American and
Japanese societies. Because of its status as an Asian country, many Americans have a strong
disassociation to the country. They think that the Japanese look differently, think differently, and
have no relation to anything in American society. However, after researching both feminist
movements in the countries it is clear that the countries are not so different after all. During the
Japanese feminist movement, there was a major emphasis on womens organizations because
Japanese cultural practices often structure activism and political participation along gender lines
which often prevents women from participating. According to Florence Passy, author of a paper
on socialization, recruitment, and the structure/agency gap, she believes that the organizations or
networks fill a vital gap between structure and agency in that they socialize and build individual
identities; recruit individuals who are sensitive to a particular political issue, and allow them the
chance to participate; and shape individuals preferences before they decide to join the
movement. In short, these organizations are responsible for recruiting women with similar
interests and preparing them to be active and informed participants in the political arena when it
comes to overcoming the challenges women face. (Passy 2000)
Similarly to the feminist movement in the United States in the 1880s Japanese women
participated in workplace strikes and then in the 1920s an active womens suffrage movement
emerged that successfully got a Bill passed in the House of Representatives that gave women the
right to vote in 1930, however, it was not ratified due to the Manchurian Incident in 1931, and
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ratification was indefinitely postponed. Other groups were created but none of them were
successful in passing major legislation.
There were two major groups during the Japanese post-war womens movement. The
Japanese Communist Party Central Conference on Working Women movement supported the
Marxist idea that the oppression of women could be solved with the achievement of a socialist
society and they concentrated on organizing women into trade unions, rather than protesting
against the more complex conditions of women in post war Japan. This movement is still active
today especially when it comes to campaigning for the rights of part-time workers. The other
group was actually composed of multiple womens groups called Fujin Kaikan which was more
conservative and the women organized non-challenging cultural activities, such as taking
language or cooking classes. (Bishop 2002) Again, although these groups were successful they
did not create any major change and none of their activism became high profile.
October 21, 1970 is when activism around womens labor rights really came into public
consciousness. The women of the Womens Liberation Movement held a march where they
protested a range of issues and chanted slogans such as, Mother, are you really happy with your
married life? and A housewife and a prostitute are raccoons in the same den. (Bishop 2002)
The women who were apart of this movement were young female workers and students who had
been active in the New Left, anti- Vietnam War movements who were upset with the fact that
during this movement men seemed to be hypocritical in the fact that they rejected authority but
only permitted women activists to do things such as typing during the movement. Although
participants in this movement were often ridiculed and attracted little public sympathy when they
did things such as marching in pink helmets demanding the legalization of the contraception pill,
they did raise awareness about economic growth leading to womens greater participation in the
workforce and established academic womens studies. In the second half of the 1970s, groups
emerged that were more directly focused on working within the government system and
influencing government policies and actions. These women were more likely to be lawyers, Diet
members, labor movement activists and members of political parties and as a result these groups
were considered more legitimate in the eyes of the general public and among elites when the
United Nations International Womens Year forced the Japanese government to act on the
problem of gender discrimination.
Over the years many more womens groups were created and multiple conferences were
held with various governmental organizations to raise womens rights awareness. Books have
been written about the movements, womens centers have been built and many women are still
active participants in some of these groups today. Many use their meetings for selfenlightenment, teaching, collection and distribution of information, consultation, surveys and
research and to exchange views about the goals of the various groups. In an interview with
Komatsu Makiko, an activist for womens labor issues and the author of the second ever women
studies textbook in Japan, after attending the United Nations conference in Nairobi where the
Forward Looking Strategies for the Advancement of Women was passed, she said that attending
the conference introduced her to feminism in other countries, that she was deeply impressed and
had come to deeply consider the relation between multi-culturalism and human rights. (Bishop
2002) During the time of the Japanese womens movements there were many other womens
movements were going on around the world. In fact, the first UN conference on gender equality

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took place in Mexico City in 1975. Another country that had a very powerful womens
movement was the United States.
Similarly to the womens movement in Japan, the American feminist movement had a
slow start and there were many attempts at reform before various groups were successful. After
the American Revolution the principles or liberty and quality were not carried over to the rights
of women. There were very few educational opportunities, women were not allowed to vote and
women could not own property. Women began to actively vocalize their lack of equality in the
1830s. Many of them were a part of the antislavery movement and while they were fighting to
end slavery they realized that they faced oppression themselves. Angelina and Sarah Grimke
along with Elizabeth Cady Stanton are considered the founders of the womens movement.
Stanton is considered one of the most pivotal people of the movement because she helped plan
the first womens rights convention in Seneca Falls in 1848 and she also drafted the Declaration
of Sentiments which asserted the self-evident truth that all men and women are created equal.
Some of the goals of the convention included reforming marriage and divorce, expanding
property rights for women, and most importantly securing the right to vote. Throughout the rest
of the century, Stanton, along with Susan B Anthony, worked on emphasizing the right to vote
and then they gave control to the National American Woman Suffrage Association run by Carrie
Chapman Catt who believed that the right to vote could be won on a state by state basis. Over the
years leadership in the movement was passed down to many different women and they all
worked to achieve the various goals of the many organizations that were created with an
emphasis on womens rights. Under Alice Paul and the National Womans Party women gained
the right to vote through the 19th Amendment in 1920.
During World War II, many women were forced to go into the workforce and after the
end of the war many of them had become too accustomed to working and did not want to lose
the benefits of a paycheck and employment. This led to an increase emphasis on womens labor
rights, similar to what Japanese women were working toward. Second Wave Feminism began in
the 1960s and continues to exist currently. In the 1960s with the publishing of Betty Freidmans
The Feminine Mystique women who were discontent with their societal roles were given a voice
and in the Third wave feminist movement is believed to have started in the 1990s.
The movement started as a response to what women thought were the failures of the
second wave. The class distinction that exist in American society causes the gender identity
marker of female to be broken and this creates separate groups of women who believe they are
fighting and working toward different things. For example, the problems of white middle class
women are not the same as the problems that an African-American lower-class women faces and
these problems should not be attempted to be fixed with the same solutions. Currently in
America there are still womens liberation organizations that work toward equality for women in
general. The main differences between the womens liberation movement in Japan versus the
movements in the United States is that the organizations had to work within different societal and
cultural norms, however, their overall goals and ways of reaching these goals were very similar.
The concept of globalization has played a huge role in Japanese womens movement.
With the help of the United Nations, Japan was able to work with other countries and
organizations around the world to improve womens rights and make sure the rights they fought
for in Japan are experienced by Japanese women throughout the world. For example, in 1995 the
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Asia-Japan Womens Resource Center was established in Tokyo to provide a basis for the
activities of the Asian Womens Association, an organization that communicates with groups
elsewhere in Asia to engage in joint activities around the issues of migrant women, prostitution
and trafficking of Asian women, Asian brides and international marriages, and women workers
employed by Japanese multinational companies. (Bishop 2002)
The support of other countries has definitely helped keep momentum for womens rights
movements going. In fact, in 1996 Japanese womens groups were able to work with the United
States National Organization of Women in 1996 to help them combat sexual harassment in the
Japanese Mitsubishi Motor Company. It has been said that the case could not have been won if
the groups had not come together. Both of these examples show how the interconnectedness of
the world has made it possible for Japanese and American groups, along with womens rights
groups throughout the rest of the world, to communicate and collaborate on solving the problems
that many of them share.
Womens rights movements have worked to successfully to gain women rights to do
everything from being able to participate politically to owning land in both Japan and the United
States and these movements are still actively working to gain women equal rights today. Because
of the social norms that exist in both countries, but especially in Japan, women had to pursue
methods that were sometimes unconventional to make their voices heard and they found that
forming groups and organizations were the most successful. The effects of globalization have
aided in making stricter policies and creating a better circuit of communication that womens
rights organizations across the world can use to improve their strategies and agendas. Equality
for women has improved significantly over the centuries in both Japan and the United States and
as a women interested I pursuing careers in both of these countries I look forward to the changes
that will continue to be made and to seeing what role I will play in these changes.
Works Cited
Storm, Hiroko. Women In Japanese Provebs. Asian Folklore Studies 51.2 (1992): 167-182.
JSTOR. Web. 12 Feb. 2012.
Bishop, Beverley. Globalization and Womens Labour Activism in Japan. Electronic Journal
of Contemporary Japanese Studies. 2 (2002): n. pag. Web. 12 Feb. 2012.

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