Feminism in Japan

History of the feminist movement in Japan

Feminism in Japan began with women's rights movements that date back to antiquity. The movement started to gain momentum after Western thinking was brought into Japan during the Meiji Restoration in 1868. Japanese feminism differs from Western feminism in that less emphasis is placed on individual autonomy. Prior to the late 19th century, Japanese women were bound by the traditional patriarchal system where senior male members of the family maintain their authority in the household. After the reforms brought by Meiji Restoration, women's status in Japanese society also went through series of changes. In 1970, in the wake of the anti–Vietnam War movements, a new women's liberation movement called ūman ribu (woman lib) emerged in Japan from the New Left and radical student movements in the late 1960s. This movement was in sync with radical feminist movements in the United States and elsewhere, catalyzing a resurgence of feminist activism through the 1970s and beyond. The activists forwarded a comprehensive critique of the male dominated nature of modern Japan, arguing for a fundamental change of the political economic system and culture of the society. What distinguished them from previous feminist movements was their emphasis on sexual liberation (性の解放). They did not aim for equality with men, but rather focused on calling for men's liberation from the oppressive aspects of a patriarchal and capitalist system. In 1979, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly. The Japanese government ratified it in 1985.

In 1919, with the help of Ichikawa Fusae and Oku Mumeo, Raicho Hiratsuka created the New Woman Association: Shin Fujin Kyokai. Their goal was to achieve rights of protection and inclusion through identifying a female class. In November 1919, Hiratsuka delivered a speech at the All Kansai Federation of Women's Organizations titled "Toward the Unification of Women." It stated that if women had rights, they would be able to be part of the state and help determine its future. They prepared petitions and any opposition was met by arguing that such measures would enable women to become better wives and mothers.

The Red Wave Society, Sekirankai, was the first socialist women's association. Yamakawa Kikue and others organized the association in April 1921. The Red Wave's manifesto condemned capitalism, arguing that it turned women into slaves and prostitutes. Rural families were forced to contract their daughters to factories due to financial difficulties. These girls were required to live in dormitories, unable to leave except to go to work. They worked 12 hour shifts in poor conditions. Many caught brown lung, a disease caused by exposure to cotton dust in poorly ventilated working environments, and other illnesses related to working in textile factories (Ravina). The state refused to enact legislation needed to protect women in the factories. There were no on call doctors in the dorms and no medical compensation for contracting brown lung or any other illnesses. After the contract ended, they returned to the countryside to be married. The Red Wave Society mainly focused on suffrage and women's rights. Shortly after its founding, women from The Red Wave Society took part in a demonstration on May 1, 1921. Preparation for this event prompted the creation of the first draft of the Red Wave Society manifesto to be written by Yamakawa Kikue. Kikue openly lived as a staunch socialist as early as the 1910s and believed in the complete abolition of capitalism. Kikue's socialist views were presented in the manifesto as well. This manifesto was printed and scattered during the protest with the hope that the leaflets would prompt other women to support The Red Wave Societies cause. All the women who attended this event were placed under arrest by police. Other groups were formed concentrating on their own demands. Some women pushed for political rights while others looked to end prostitution. Housewives campaigned to improve their roles at home. After the devastating 1923 Great Kantō earthquake, Kubushiro Ochimi, a member of the Women's Reform Society, and many other women, turned to the relief effort. Socialists like Yamakawa, middle class Christians and housewives worked together to organize and provide relief activities.

On September 28, 1923, 100 leaders from many organizations came together to form the Tokyo Federation of Women's Organizations: Tokyo Rengo Funjinkai. They divided into five sections: society, employment, labour, education, and government. The government section focused on women's rights and discussed ways to gain membership in the state. The leader of the government section, Kubushiro Ochimi, called a meeting in November 1924 for women interested in working for women's rights. The meeting created the principal women's suffrage organization called the League for the Realization of Women's Suffrage (Fujin Sanseiken Kakutoku Kisei Domei). When women in Japan got to vote for the first time on April 10, 1946, it showed that they were truly citizens and full members of the state. Women like Hiratsuka Raicho, Yosano Akiko and Kubushiro Ochimi worked extremely hard to achieve self transcendence and self actualization. With the commencement of Japanese women not only gaining the right to vote, but to run for office as well, many women began to become more politically involved. This resulted in the election of 39 women into the Japanese governments National Diet in the spring of 1946 and the first female Japanese Ministry Bureau Chief was elected the following year in 1947.

According to oral history studied by Thomas R. H. Havens, traditional paternalistic norms proved a barrier when the government wanted to exploit woman power more fully for the war effort. Compulsory employment in munitions factories was possible for unmarried women, but social norms prevented married women from doing that sort of work, in sharp contrast to Russia, Britain, Germany and the United States. The absence of so many young men dramatically disrupted long standing patterns of marriage, fertility, and family life. Severe shortages of ordinary items, including food and housing, were far more oppressive than governmental propaganda efforts. Japanese women nonetheless obediently followed orders, and there were no serious disruptions such as rioting over food shortages. Forced prostitution for the benefit of Japanese soldiers created the "comfort women" program that proved highly embarrassing to Japan for decades after the war. Non Japanese women from colonies such as Korea and Formosa were especially vulnerable. Beginning in the late 20th century cultural historians turned their attention to the role of women in wartime, especially the Second World War. Sources often used include magazines published—by men—for female readers. Typically fictional and nonfictional stories focused on social roles as mothers and wives, especially in dealing with hardships of housing and food supplies, and financial concerns in the absence of menfolk at war. Problems of fashion wartime were a high priority in such magazines in all major countries. Historians report that the Japanese textile and fashion industries were highly successful in adapting to wartime shortages and propaganda needs. Magazines for teenage girls emphasized they must follow nationalistic demands that compelled them to give up their adolescent freedoms and transform themselves from "shōjo", which connotes adolescent playfulness, into "gunkoku shōjo" [girls of a military nation], with significant home front responsibilities. Evacuation of women and children from the major cities, out of fear of Allied bombing, was covered in detail to emphasize willingness to sacrifice for patriotism portrayed through fiction, news articles and photographs. The government controlled all the media, and supervise the popular magazines so their Content would strategically spread the government's goals and propaganda. The descent into war marked a severe increase in government propaganda and censorship as early as the Manchurian Incident in September 1931. A subcommittee including two women, Beate Sirota Gordon and economist Eleanor Hadley, were enlisted and assigned to writing the section of the constitution devoted to civil rights and women's rights in Japan. They played an integral role, drafting the language regarding legal equality between men and women in Japan,<! The end of World War II also marked a surge in popularity for the Women's Review (Fujin Kōron) magazine. This magazine featured articles from socialist authors like Yamakawa Kikue calling for equal financial and social rights for not only women, but the lower class in general. This law was overturned with the imposition of the new Japanese constitution in 1946.

The fight for reproductive rights in Japanese Feminism can be traced back as early as the 1920s with the work of socialist activist Ishimoto Shizue. Shizue relocated to New York City with her husband and collaborated with American activist Margaret Sanger who was currently advocating for women's reproductive rights in the United States. Both women believed that both the lack of reproductive rights and the wage labor currently affecting women could be alleviated with the implication of socialism. Birth control had not yet become a solidified concept in Japan, and upon her return in 1921 Shizue had a two part article regarding birth control education published in Tokyo. Despite attempts by several leftist groups to popularize it, the topic of birth control and contraception was still considered a heavily taboo topic. This changed with the arrival of Margaret Sanger in April 1922 who was visiting Japan to give a lecture at the request of the Kaizo Publishing Company. This openly sexual lecture brought openness to the previously disapproved concept of women's rights not only with reproduction, but socially, financially, and politically as well. This visit from Sanger causing the resurgence of sexual openness is often referred to as "The Black Ship of Taisho". A multitude of feminist essays and texts were translated and published during the Japanese women's liberation movement in the 1970s. Another activist to receive much media attention in Japan was Misako Enoki. Enoki was a pharmacist who organized activists to push for the legalization of the birth control pill. Her approach was to generate media attention by forming a protest group called Chupiren, who wore pink motorcycle helmets and took part in publicity stunts such as confronting unfaithful husbands in their offices. Abortion in Japan, which is less stigmatized, is frequently used as the alternative. The Japan Family Planning Association, an affiliate of the International Planned Parenthood Federation, was established in 1954. Matsui Yayori, a women's rights activist, writer, and retired journalist, was a well known organizer of the "Women's International War Crime Tribunal" in 2000. The panel held a symbolic trial to judge the war crimes committed by Japanese soldiers and officials against the collective victims of the 'comfort women' system that was active during World War II.

Prominent feminist academics in Japan in recent decades include the sociologist Chizuko Ueno and feminist theorist Ehara Yumiko. In 2018, Japanese bullfighting organizers lifted a ban on women entering the bullfighting ring.

Women's speech in Japan is often expected to conform with traditional standards of onnarashii (女らしい), the code of proper behavior for a lady. In speech, onnarashii is exhibited by employing an artificially high tone of voice, using polite and deferential forms of speech more frequently than men, and using grammatical forms considered intrinsically feminine. Feminists differ in their responses to gender based language differences; some find it "unacceptable," while others argue that the history of such gender based differences is not tied to historical oppression as in the West. In Japan, marriage law requires that married couples share a surname because they must belong to the same koseki (household). Although it has been possible since 1976 for the husband to join the wife's family under certain circumstances, 98% of the time it is the woman who joins the man's family and therefore changes her surname. Men may take the wife's surname "only when the bride has no brother and the bridegroom is adopted by the bride's parents as the successor of the family."

A manual widely spread throughout Japan from the Edo period to Meiji period was Onna Daigaku, Great Learning for Women, which aimed to teach women to be good wives and wise mothers. Women were to maintain the strict family system as the basic unit of Japanese society by unconditionally obeying their husbands and their parents in law. They were confined to their households and did not exist independent, and were essentially subordinate to their father's or husband's family. There were customary practices to divorce women based on disobedience, jealousy, and even talkativeness. During the feudal era, women lucky enough to be educated were instructed by their fathers or brothers. Women of the higher class were discouraged from becoming educated more than women of the lower class. The men in the higher classes enforced social norms more strictly than men in lower classes. This made women of higher class more likely to be bound to the norms. Jusanya [Thirteenth Night] is about two families joined by marriage. The woman is of low class and the man, a high ranking government official. Through marriage families can secure their well being and it was the only way to move upward in society. The woman sacrifices herself for her family to endure cruel and humiliating taunts from her husband and is unable to protect herself due to social norms. Ichiyo's stories offer no solutions beyond explicitly depicting the conditions of women. According to some, her four and a half year long career marks the beginning of Japanese women's self awareness. Without attachment to the world, excluding the patriarchal society, women can find inner strength. Ito Noe (1895–1923) became editor of the magazine after Hiratsuka left due to pleading health issues in 1915. She explored women's rights to abortion, which remained a hot topic until the magazine's end in 1916. Ito married an anarchist, Osugi Sakae. Both became political prisoners, then were murdered by military police in the aftermath of the Great Earthquake of 1923. Hayashi Fumiko (1904–1951) was the antithesis of Okanmoto Kanto. Hayashi was naturalistic describing life as an experience (Reich, 286). Her stories are about economic survival of women without men. However, the endings return to male society with no solution. She is the next most popular writer after Higuchi Ichiyō. Government opposition increased, deeming the content "harmful to the time honored virtues of Japanese women", and banning five issues of Seito (Raicho, 218). The first issue to be suppressed was a story, "Ikichi" ["Life Blood"] by Tamura Toshiko, about the reminiscences of a woman and a man who spent the night at an inn. Hiratsuka Raicho's issue was banned because it challenged the family system and marriage. Ito Noe's "Shuppon" ["Flight"] is about a woman who left her husband and then her lover betrayed her, another issue that was banned.

Manga is an especially popular medium among women writers in Japan; some argue that women use the form to "[deconstruct] traditional outlooks on sex and childbearing."

Magical girl is a subgenre of Japanese fantasy media (including anime, manga, light novels, and live action media) centered around young girls who possess magical abilities, which they typically use through an ideal alter ego into which they can transform.

Japanese women's groups began campaigning against institutionalized prostitution in the 1880s, and banded together in 1935 to form the National Purification League (Kokumin Junketsu Dōmei). Early activists tended to express disapproval of the women who were prostitutes, rather than of the men who managed such services, particularly in the widespread military brothel system. Later Japanese feminists expressed concern about the management of sexuality and the reinforcement of racialized hierarchies in the military brothels.

Japanese feminists began to argue in favor of birth control in the 1930s; abortion was allowed by the government in 1948, but only for eugenic purposes. Women who gave birth to many children received awards from the government. The Family Planning Federation of Japan, an affiliate of the International Planned Parenthood Federation, is Japan's main reproductive rights organization, lobbying for the legalization of oral contraceptives and for the continued legality of abortion, and disseminating educational materials on family planning.

Traditionally, women in Japanese society have possessed most power as mothers. Some feminists argue this type of power only upholds a patriarchal system. At least one responds that to the Japanese, to make such a claim is to hold parenting and household duties in relatively low regard:
Blockquote|text=In any East Asian culture you will find that women have a very tangible power within the household. This is often rejected by non Asian feminists who argue that it is not real power, but Japanese women look at the low status attributed to the domestic labor of housewives in North America and feel that this amounts to a denigration of a fundamental social role—whether it is performed by a man or a woman. However, unions had little effect on the conditions of women. Unions stayed in the male domain. Throughout most of the century, few women were allowed to hold office, even in unions with primarily female membership, and until at least the 1980s unions often signed contracts that required women workers (but not men) to retire early. In 1986, the Women's Bureau of the Ministry of Labor enacted an Equal Employment Opportunity Law, the first "gender equality law formulated mainly by Japanese women." It refers to a set of policies implemented in Japan to reduce gender gaps in the labor market. These policies include increasing female labor participation, women's presence in the labor force, and childcare provision. At the start of his administration in 2012, Prime Minister Shinzō Abe announced the implementation of an economic strategy, known as Abenomics, which included a number of policies aimed at increasing sustained female labor participation in Japan. The idea behind the introduction of these policies was that increasing women's presence in the workforce would boost Japan's economic growth. The motivations for these policy measures were, on one hand, Japan's low female labor participation rate in 2013, relative to other high income countries: 65% compared to the US (67.2); Germany (72.6); UK (66.4); and France (66.9). On the other hand, increasing female labor participation is expected to increase the fertility rate and alleviate the aging population problem, which is a major concern of the Japanese government. The fertility rate in Japan is now at 1.25, when the rate needed to ensure population replacement is 2.1.

Regarding the female labor participation rate, Prime Minister Abe committed to a goal of 73% by 2020. Business organizations such as the Japan Association of Corporate Executives (Keitai Doyukai) and the Japan Business Federation (Keidanren) have expressed their support to the Government's policy with the hope that increasing female labor participation will lead to more adaptability to changes in the global economy. For the same year, 9.04 percent of male applicants passed the entrance exam while only 2.91 percent of female applicants were successful. This shows that men were accepted 3.11 times higher than that for women. While men were accepted at a level of 2.02 times higher than that of women in 2018 at the department, the rate was 0.87 times in the following year, meaning that women had been accepted in a higher rate. With this news as a trigger, other universities such as Juntendo University (Japan) were found to have set different passing levels for male and female applicants and manipulating exam scores for female applicants so they can have more male medical students in their favor. The segregation towards women applicants derived as the school wanted to keep the female population low, from the concern that female applicants have a high possibility to quit their jobs or leave the medical industry after having children or once they start a family in the future. Although this news was about university administration, this is also an issue for general employees in the workforce as well. In fact, studies by OECD show that more than 70% of Japanese women quit their jobs or stops working for more than a decade and do not come back after giving birth to their first child, whilst it is about 30% Though the numbers of women employees have been improving in recent years, policy changes and equality in society is still in progress.

Since the implementation of the Equal Employment Opportunity Law in 1986, the largest increase in female labor participation has been in the sector of part time jobs. For women who are rejoining the workforce after taking some time off it to raise their children, this means that they disproportionately obtain jobs with lower salaries and precarious contracts. On 31 July 2016, Yuriko Koike became the first female governor of Tokyo. She was re elected in 2020.

There is a shortage of childcare facilities to accommodate at least 23,000 Japanese children who are in waiting lists. This will be done by a combination of renting childcare facilities, subsidizing childcare businesses, supporting new childcare providers to attain registration, and hiring new childcare workers. The goal set for this aspect of the policy is to provide childcare facilities for 400,000 children by 2017.

There seems to be some international consensus about the effectiveness of promoting female labor participation as a means to increase economic growth. In 2012, the IMF pronounced that a 7% increase in the rate of women in the workforce could lead to a 4% increment in the GDP.