Japanese feminist debates : a century of contention on sex, love, and labor
Ayako Kano (Author)
Japanese Feminist Debates: A Century of Contention on Sex, Love, and Labor charts the varied terrain of controversies on questions of gender and sexuality that have animated women and men in modern Japan. It describes the rondan, a public sphere in which academic, journalistic, and political voices have sparred over issues that remain disputed to the present day: prostitution, pornography, decisions about reproduction including birth control, abortion, and prenatal testing, the balance between motherhood and employment, definitions of labor, paid work, and care, the relationships between individual and family and state. I argue that these feminist debates explain an important paradox: Why Japan is such a highly developed nation yet ranks dismally low in gender equality. Part of the answer lies in the contested definitions of gender equality and women's liberation. Starting with the Seitō (Blue Stocking) group in the Meiji period and ending with womenomics, promoted by Abe Shinzō, and including accounts of women's lib, state feminism, and the conservative backlash, this book traces the struggles over these definitions over the last hundred years of modern Japanese history. It also situates these debates in relation to modern Japanese social policy and comparative discussions about Asian welfare regimes. -- Publisher's website
Print Book, English, 2018
University of Hawai'i Press, Honolulu, 2018