The feminist movement, gender relations and the Japanese university

Abstract

This interview may allow a better approach to the Japanese feminist researcher Chizuko Ueno: first in her analysis of the place of women in a society mainly ruled by men and also in her idea of the way to account for historical issues without ignoring any longer the many-sided possible approaches. Gender segregation being deeply rooted into the Japanese society, gender studies could be inserted but slowly into universities. Nevertheless there were some successful achievements. Not only did gender studies receive academic status but above all the feminist activism of the Japanese researchers brought into the bright daylight the historical facts that the men had prudishly concealed from the public.

Keywords:

• gender studies
• Japanese society
• patriarchal citizenship
• multidimensional history
• feminism

Notes

1. Though nearly half of high-school students go to the higher college and university level, girls tended to choose a short course (two years) rather than a long course (four years). This ratio was reversed in the nineties, but still girls are fewer than boys at the four-year university level.

2. Christine Delphy's article entitled ‘L'ennemi principal’ was published as early as 1970, which was the first year of the Women's Liberation Movement. The title appeared again as L'ennemi principal. Economie politique du patriarcat, vol. 1, Editions Syllepse, Paris, 1998 and L'ennemi principal. Penser le genre, vol. 2, Editions Syllepse, Paris, 2001.

3. The first subject was Olympes de Gouges during the French revolution, which implies the success of the individualism; the second one is Jeanne Deroin after the 1848 Revolution, which is the universal suffrage for men; the third one Hutertine Auclert during the Third Républic; and the last one is Madeleine Pelletier. A few commentaries appear about Louise Weiss's political activities.

4. Chizuko Ueno refers to the case brought at a local tribunal of Tokyo district by a Korean survivor, Son Shindo. She brought her case for formal apology and individual compensation by the Japanese government in 1993, but failed at the Supreme Court in 2003.

5. Extramarital births constituted 1.93% of all births in 2003 in Japan.

6. Ueno 1995.

7. In Japan, there is a revisionist movement which claims that the post-war history textbooks are victor-centred and thus damage Japan's national pride. They formed a Society for New History Textbooks in 1996 and tried – sometimes successfully – to withdraw from history textbooks any references to the massacres carried out by the Japanese army (the Nankin massacre – 300,000 dead – the comfort women). The commission for the reform of history provides that war crimes are pure fiction and that the war in the Pacific was a war of liberation.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Chizuko Ueno

Chizuko Ueno is professor in the Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology at the University of Tokyo. An interview in Paris, 19 March 2003. Revised and completed by C. Ueno in 2009