Women's movements in Japan: the intersection between everyday life and politics

Abstract

This article discusses how women's movements in Japan function as political agents that change the political status quo. Japanese women's movements can be seen to comprise three groups: elite-initiated, feminist and non-feminist participatory. Despite differences in their outlook and attitudes, they share two common characteristics. First, their identities tend to be centred on motherhood. The language of motherhood has been a key idea behind Japanese women's mobilization. Second, their campaigns link women's demands with politics. Women's movements provide Japanese women, who are largely excluded from formal political processes, with an alternative channel for political participation. When they exercise practical influence on politics, they make effective use of channels both outside and inside formal political institutions, i.e. non-institutional and institutional channels. In the former case, the traditional style of Japan's policy-making makes political influence possible for the women. Use of institutional channels means electing female candidates to political office. Women's movement organizations provide those candidates with support for their election campaigns. It is clear that women's political involvement at the grassroots level has contributed not only to improving women's social conditions but also to developing a more democratic political system in Japan.

Keywords:

• feminist
• non-feminist
• motherhood
• political agent
• grassroots
• democracy

Acknowledgment

I am grateful to Lucy Delap, Sowon Park, Chris Pickvance and John C. Campbell for their useful comments on the substance of this article. I also express thanks to Diana Khor and Zoe Morris for their assistance in preparing the text for publication.

Mikiko Eto is Professor of Political Science, Hosei University. Recently, she has been involved in cross-national research on the impact of women's voluntary organizations on civil society and democracy in the UK, the Nordic countries and Japan. She is also interested in gender-generational gaps and conflict between women, younger men and older men in the Japanese welfare state. She may be contacted at [email protected]

Notes

1. The HDI is compiled from three indicators: longevity measured by life expectancy; educational attainment; and standard of living measured by real GDP per capita (PPP$).

2. The GEM assesses the female share in professional jobs, managerial employment and politics.

3. Women's labour-force participation in Japan forms a so-called M-shaped curve when graphed: the participation rate of women in the 20–4 age group is the highest at 72.4 per cent; it declines among women aged 25–34, with the lowest rate at 56.7 per cent in the 30–34 age group. The participation rate of women aged 45–49 then constitutes a second peak at 71.8 per cent (Gender Equality Bureau, Cabinet Office in Japan 2001).

4. I define a women's movement as a kind of social movement which is initiated by women and of which the majority of participants are women. A social movement can be defined, following Tarrow, as the ‘sequence of contentious politics that are based on underlying social networks and resonant collective action frames’ and which ‘develop the capacity to maintain sustained challenges against powerful opponents’ (1998: 2). In another book, he adds to this definition: social movements are ‘public, collective, episodic interactions among makers of claims when (1) at least some of the interaction adopts non-institutional forms, (2) at least one government is a claimant, an object of claims, or a party to the claims, and (3) the claims would, if realized, affect the interests of at least one of the claimants’ (Tarrow 2000: 275).

5. The four issues were the Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 1974, the Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978, Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 and the Retirement Equity Act of 1984.

6. For example, Fusae Ichikawa, Shigeri Yamataka and Muneo Oku.

7. Adopting Dehlerup's (1986: 6) broad definition, I identify feminism as a doctrine and social movement whose primary goal is to remove the discrimination against and oppression of women and to change the male domination of society. In the West, as is well known, feminism is divided into two waves. The first wave, in the nineteenth century, is called the women's rights movement and was based on liberalism, while the second wave, in the 1970s, was ideologically led by radical feminism and was manifested in the women's liberation movement. Radical feminism is characterized by its refusal to accept the traditional [Western] definition of ‘woman’ (Crow 2000: 2) or established norms of sexual relations between men and women in the private sphere.

8. Japanese women's labour-force participation in 1975 as a proportion of the overall female population aged 15 years and older was 45.9 per cent, and rose approximately 5 points to 50.1 per cent in 1990 (Gender Equality Bureau, Cabinet Office in Japan 2001).

9. Mikanagi (1999: 69) offers two other reasons for feminism's lack of impact: first, many women regarded women's liberation activists as ‘deviants’ because the mass media often presented their actions in a distorted way; and, second, the movement became obsessed with internal power struggles. However, media dissemination of an exaggerated image of women's liberation was common in Western countries, too. In the Japanese case, the low rate of full-time working mothers should be seen as the most important explanation.

10. For example, South Korea introduced a quota system to increase female candidates by over 30 per cent on proportional representation electoral lists, and a political party in Malaysia takes positive action to recruit young female candidates.

11. Six feminists are: Ryōko Akamatsu, a former Minister of Education; Aiko Ohgawara, business executive; Ruri Kawashima, Director of the Japan Society; Mitsuko Shimomura, journalist; Yōko Hayashi, lawyer; and Yoriko Meguro, Professor of Sophia University.

12. WINWIN was inspired by EMILY's List in the United State. EMILY's List, the EMILY of which is an acronym for ‘Early Money Is Like Yeast’, is the largest organization to provide election campaign funding for female Democrat candidates for congressional seats. The information about WINWIN is based on its newsletters Nos1–41 and its website, http://www.winwinjp.org.

13. Interview with Teruyo Amari, a reporter for the feminist newsletter femme politique, on 19 June 2003.

14. The three women are: Keiko Higuchi, commentator; Takako Sodei, Professor of Ochanomizu Women's University; and Yukiko Okuma, journalist.

15. These two are Higuchi and Sodei.

16. Their names are listed in the records of the proceedings of relevant advisory councils. The records can be found on the website of the Gender Equality Office, Cabinet Office, www.gender.go.jp.

17. A few male left-wing activists supported a group of women in setting up the Life Club, and these male members ran the organization in its early years. Thus it was pointed out that practical power over the group was actually held by men (Sato 1995: 166). However, nowadays, female members, who had gained experience and acquired a great deal of expertise, hold real power in the movement, taking responsibility for all its activities (Ito 1995: 233–4).

18. Interview on 23 June 1999 with Atsuko Ikeda, a core member of the Life Club in Tokyo, who served three terms in the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly.

19. The local government system in Japan is a two-tiered structure comprising prefectures and municipalities. Local governments function with a governor of the prefecture or a mayor of the municipality in charge of the executive, and with an assembly as the legislature. The assembly members as well as the governor and the mayor are elected by adult residents once every four years. Most of the Life Club groups' assembly members belong to municipal councils; at the prefectural level, they have only three Tokyo metropolitan and four Kanagawa prefectural assembly members as of 2001.

20. There are twenty-one Network groups with a total membership of 2,500 in Tokyo and seventeen Network groups with a total membership of 3,400 in Kanagawa.

21. Interview with Atsuko Ikeda on 12 October 1999.

22. Interview on 19 June 2003 with Yoko Harada, a member in charge of WINWIN's secretariat,