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Home › Forums › Core Seminars › Modern East Asia, Fall 2020 › Session 5 (10/24) - The Recovery and Challenges of Success in Japan
Maria Cardenas.
cgaoJapan’s economic rise after World War II is well known and the country cemented its return to the global stage with the 1964 Tokyo Olympics and pop culture successes. In this K-12 educators' workshop we’ll look at the roles women played in transforming Japan and their place in contemporary Japanese society. What progress has been made? What challenges persist? We’ll also look at Japan’s Olympics history (including the cancelled 1940 games and the postponed 2020 games). How and why do such events matter?
Prof. Elyssa Faison teaches modern Japanese history at the University of Oklahoma . Her research focused on women in changing Japan. She’s now looking at the legacy of the 1945 atomic bombings and the cold war that followed. Her first book was Managing Women, Disciplining Labor in Modern Japan. She’s now working on Atomic Memories: Legacies of the Cold War in Japan and the United States and using the story of Yamakawa Kikue to illuminate the social and political history of Japan from the late 19th century to the late 20th century.
Required Readings
Prof. Michael Strausz teaches Japanese politics at the Texas Christian University. His research focuses on Japanese politics, particularly Japan’s immigration policy, as well as the role of norms in international politics. He graduated from Michigan State University’s James Madison College and earned his Ph.D. in political science from the University of Washington in Seattle. He has written the book Help (Not) Wanted: Immigration Politics in Japan (SUNY Press).
Required readings
Maria CardenasThe video had a lot of details about Women’s role in Japanese society. The role of women changed from the “3 Confucian- Subordinations for Women” all the way to how women gained their independence in 1947 after World War II. Japan also went through women’s movements that wanted change to happen. For example, the 3 strands of Women’s Movements in Japan were: feminism, motherhood protection, and social feminism. The Americans wrote Japan’s Constitution, and the video stated that the Constitution hasn’t been changed.
A good lesson can be to compare and contrast the United States Constitution to the Japanese Constitution. An article to focus on in the Japanese Constitution is Article 24 because it writes equal rights into the Constitution. In comparison to the American constitution that doesn’t state anything about gender equality. Some questions to ask can be: Why did the Japanese Constitution include something about equality when the American constitution doesn’t?, How do you think Japan felt about Americans writing their Constitution?, or Why did the Americans involve in writing the Japanese Constitution felt the need to include an Article about equality between the sexes? Why do you think Japan hasn’t been successful in changing the current Constitution?
Maria CardenasIn the article “Womenomics’ in Japan: In Brief” it states, “Confronted with decades of economic stagnation, strict immigration controls, and a rapidly aging population, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has launched an ambitious plan—widely known as “Abenomics”—to restart Japan’s economy.” The Japanese Prime Minister wants change to happen in the workforce so that it can help boost the productivity. Japan is behind other countries in gender equality like in the workforce. The number of women being represented in government positions is very small.
The article says that a greater participation of women in the workforce could increase fertility rates in Japan. But where is the connection there. The article also stated how Japanese women are marrying at an older age, or they are deciding not to marry. Women may decide not to marry because of all of the responsibilities they would have as a housewife. Some women are not working because they do not have anybody to take care of their children. The article stated how there are families that are in waiting list for childcare. Why has the Japanese government not made things possible for more women to join the workforce? or. Why hasn't the government made it possible for women to compete against men for management positions?
Thomas PinedaI also thought that would be an interesting fact to focus a lesson on- that the Japanese Constitution written in 1947, with the contributions by Americans, included equal rights for men and women (as opposed to the US Constitution). Students could directly compare and contrast both original documents and weigh the pros and cons of each. While the explicit statement about gender equality is definitely an improvement over the US document, it would be interesting to see the full Japanese Constitution and compare other parts. While the Japanese Constitution is almost a full 200 years younger than the US, which might account for the emphasis on equality, I'm interested to find out if society around the mid-1900s also reflected that same emphasis on equal rights.
Maria CardenasIn the article, “Career Women in Japan Find a Blocked Path,” by Martin Fackler, the percentage of women who work in management positions in Japan is 10.1% in 2005, while in the United States it is 42.5%. Women also stop working because of the demanding work hours and if they are mothers they won’t be able to work the demanding hours. Companies are able to discriminate because they aren’t being punished. Some companies have done small changes to hire more women in management positions. In the article it says, “Birthrates here are declining because of a lack of equality for women,” said Ms. Inoguchi.” I find it interesting that this document also says that countries with greater workplace participation have higher fertility rates. How is one thing connected to the other?
Thomas PinedaAfter viewing the first video and thinking that society in Japan would closely reflect the the values written into their constitution, the second video and required readings shed more light on cultural values after the 1950s. (Spoiler alert) Like the constitution and former Prime Minister Abe's "Womenomics" movement, these ended up as ideas on paper but did not actually materialize so well into the workforce, makeup of political office holders and so on. A lot of the numbers presented in the articles, such as percentages of female office holders or in mangerial positions, would be useful data to look at in my middle school Math classes during Ratio & Proportion lessons. Finding a way to compare these percentages or ratios (male to female or female to total population) would shed light on the cultural landscape of politics or the workforce in Japan, and then could be easily researched and compared to other nations (using rankings or data from the World Economic Forum's Gender Gap index).
Katherine CanebaThe topic of women in Japan has been an enlightening subject for me through my learning for this session.
Firstly, I found it so surprising that the modern Constitution of Japan was written by the Americans, with gender equality explicitly stated. However, despite appearing to be progressive on paper, the practical reality of Japanese society is strongly patriarchal. I was also shocked (but, sadly, not surprised) to learn that Emperor Naruhito’s daughter had been denied the throne at the last minute because Naruhito’s younger brother had a son just before the government would have legalized female succession in modern, post-WWII Japan. Patriarchy will do whatever it takes to sustain itself, even to the point of moving down the line of succession to someone further removed just for the sake of having the next emperor be a male.
Continuing on the subject of the oppression of women by the patriarchy, it was also shocking to me that oral female contraception only became legal in Japan in 1999, which was decades after it became legal in the US.
Lastly, the analogy of Japanese men using women as “toilets” (e.g., passive recipients of the bodily fluids of men) disturbed my sensibilities because it was so apt: men seem to have been using women as objects of sexual pleasure and as vessels of reproduction.
Essentially, men in societies all over the world have long sought to control women by controlling their reproductive systems, and Japan is no different. This greatly impacts my role as a school nurse because young people all over the world, including in the US, are growing up in patriarchies, which in turn impacts their health and their life decisions. Society tells women that their individual identities, hopes, and dreams are secondary to their socially prescribed roles of wife and mother: teenage girls do not dream of ambitious careers because they are told to know their place. And society tells men and boys that women are meant to be homemakers and raise the children while they are away from home, working inhumane hours, and are never truly present in their children’s lives. Things are slowly changing, but they have a long way to go.
Katherine CanebaJapan, South Korea, and other countries that rank very low on female participation in the workforce seem to have policies in the government and private sectors to disincentivize women from having children. I think that this is key to both issues of falling birthrate and a small female labor force: women are forced to chose either a career (in which they are sadly paid far less than their male counterparts) or childbearing because their companies and the government make it too unrealistic to pursue both. A thriving workforce that also sustains the population growth must include a high percentage of working women. I think that it is a good thing for young people to go through the education system and see that the majority of teachers are women (particularly in primary education), and these women tend to have families and children of their own. Education and health care are both caregiving sectors, which tend to attract many women due to our socialization to be nurturers. I hope that we in education and health care can be positive examples for these students.
In most recent international news, the #KuToo Movement (kudu [“shoes”] + kutsuu [“pain”] + #MeToo) has raised awareness of the pressure on Japanese working women to conform to painful societal expectations of dress: another form of controlling women’s bodies. (But in fairness, Western societies like the US also have the implied dress code for women in certain professions like business and law to wear painful high heels and skirts to work in frigid air-conditioned office buildings, while their male counterparts can comfortably wear low-heeled leather-soled shoes and long pants.) This week’s topic also reminds me of my Japanese friend who is a young salarywoman in Tokyo: she describes a poor work-life balance and no meaningful length of vacation time for traveling or entertaining friends visiting from abroad.
To learn more about the human perspective of being a young woman in Japan, I encourage people to watch the Netflix animated show <Aggretsuko> (created by Sanrio), which strikingly illustrates many of the points that Dr. Elyssa Faison brought up in her lecture. The show features an anthropomorphic red panda named Retsuko who is a corporate accountant in Tokyo in a world of other anthropomorphic animals. Her boss calls her “Short-Timer” because he pegs her as a typical young woman who intends to quit her job whenever it is that she gets engaged or married, and he always expects her to serve him tea in the mornings, even though there are other women in the same department that he could have assigned this role. And they did, indeed, have a female employee in the same department who left the company when she got married. And furthermore, Retsuko’s two best friends are older women in managerial positions in the company, neither of whom are married or have children (one was married for 3 months and then divorced her husband because she did not like being subservient to him). Throughout the show is Retsuko’s hobby of death metal screaming as her main form of stress relief (performed secretly in karaoke rooms at first, then gradually more and more publicly as she lets her friends in on her hobby), as well as her overarching desire to find meaning in her life beyond being an ordinary office worker in search of eventual marriage and children.
Betsy TelleIt is disappointing to learn how few women are in managerial positions in Japan. The article mentions that many women are not able to continue in management tracks because they are not able to work the long hours once they have a child. It seems that in Japan they see the issue with having to choose between family and work. It does not seem like they perceive the required 12+ hour work days as an issue. These required hours not only make it impossible to be a mother caregiver and employee, but that means that there are countless absentee fathers who are not able to be caregivers to their children.
Susie SuhIt is quite interesting to see the facts and reactions to facts about the gender disparity in Japan in terms of the workforce and politics. Yes, in spite of the relative equality in terms of health and lifespan, women in Japan are still experiencing discrimination because of societal expectations and limitations. What's more intriuging for me to compare is how even in what we consider to be more gender equal places like the U.S. has shown to be vulnerable to those same effects depending on economic and political situations. For instance, with Covid-19, it is estimated that more women will be affected in terms of sacrificing careers and other opportunities to stay home and take care of their families. Women are always taking the brunt of these socio-economic shifts in terms of sacrifices to career for the sake of their home life. Emotional labor and household labor are expected to be carried on by them despite outside scenarios.
I think it is prescient to have students analyze these global phenomenons in terms of gender/class inequality and compare them to the situation at home in the U.S. How different is it really? How secure are we in our comforts and exactly who gets to luxuriate in those comforts?
It's a fantastic way of looking at our own history and how far or little we have come, using another country as the mirror to reflect our own actions.
Brigid SchmidtWhile we have learned throughout history that women in many cultures were not seen as equal to men, however, listening to Prof Faison talk about the Three Confucian "Subordinations" for women in Japan was somewhat sad to hear. This said that in childhood, a girl was to be subject to her father and once she was an adult, she was to get married and would become subject to the will of her husband. Her role was to be a dutiful wife, bare "male" children preferably, and when she got old, she would be subject to the will of her son. Throughout this lecture, it seems that Japanese women were only really valued for being mothers and not much else. However, one woman who proves a woman's value is Tsuda Umeko. In the late 19th century she was sent to Washington DC to live with an American family and to learn from Western culture. She spent most of her childhood in the US and came back to Japan when she was 18 years and decides to build a school for women (Tsuda Women's College) which is still a prestigious university today. She becomes part of the new trend of “Good Wife, Wise Mother” pushing for women to get an education so they can educate their children and be in control of their household. For the time it was a more modern approach. My students have a biography project coming up, so she could be an influential woman to put on their list to choose from.
Khrystle San DiegoI found it very profound that the Japanese workforce was more in favor of the men. Just like in the United States, many women experience various different forms of discrimination. Though the United States has come a long way in terms of gender equality, Japan is showing some change in their views. Japan has experienced numerous movements in support of women and their rights (specifically socially, motherhood-wise, and overall feminism).
It is evident that in Japan, they have a lower percentage of women in the workplace - specifically in management and goverment positions. This is due to the fact that it is difficult in the Japanese culture for women to work over 12 hours while also attending to the familial activities and responsibilities of the home. Japan emphasizes the power of the patriarchy while on paper they promote "equality."
An activity I would have my students do is to graph the percentages of women and men in the workplace across the years. Then I would begin a discussion on what they notice and possibly make inferences for the next 100 years and what they think will happen next if we follow the trends.
Khrystle San DiegoI could also relate to the article in regards to Japanese women "marrying at an older age." As women are becoming more independent and rising in the workplace, the idea of getting married, starting a family, and building a home ends up on the back burner. I was married at 28 years old (which may be young to some), but if I followed the ideal plan for my life, I would have been married a little younger and have finished having children by 30. I totally understand the struggle these women are feeling as I ended up focusing on my career first which then prepared me to have a stable married life.
I still don't understand why they say that the women participation in the workplace increases fertility rates. It doesn't make sense. If anything, being in the workplace increases stress levels which then affects one's fertility. I don't think the Japanese government is particularly focused on integrating women in the workplace because the patriarchy is still very prominent and favoritized. They may see women in power as a threat to their current system.
Thomas PinedaFollowing up with some infographics that are presented in the World Economic Forum’s website, Japan is near the bottom of one index, of percentage of females occupying board of director seats in companies. Japan is at roughly 6%, China is at 9% and South Korea is at 2%. In terms of their overall rankings of the top 10 East Asian & Pacific countries, in order from the best, New Zealand, Philippines, Laos, Australia, Singapore, Thailand, Mongolia, Indonesia, Viet Nam and then Cambodia. I wonder if it has to do with governmental and cultural roots in Confucian principles and subordination of women? With the exception of Mongolia, most of these are South East Asian countries, so I wonder if there is also a geographical reason as well.
Maria CardenasIn the article, “Prince under pressure: this teen is second in line to Japan’s throne” it says, “Japan only allows males to ascend the ancient Chrysanthemum Throne and changes to the succession law are an anathema to conservatives backing Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.” Emperor Naruhito only has a daughter and she is not next in line for the throne. Can the succession rule have an effect as to how women are seen in Japanese society?