Japanese Women: New Feminist Perspectives on the Past, Present and Future

This volume presents, for the first time ever, a wide-ranging collection of essays on women in Japanese society written by Japanese women themselves. Drawing upon their day-to-day experiences as daughters, sisters, wives, mothers, students, and professionals living and working in Japanese society, Japanse scholars/writers describe and analyze the historical background, current status, and future prospects for Japanese women. Essays focus on the family, language, art, education, religion, the work place, and politics, and highlight the changes in attitudes and consciousness that are taking place in Japan today. This body of scholarship is unrivaled in scope; there is no comparable collection.

*Included in Japanese Women*

-Historian Sachiko Kaneko describes the struggle for women's suffrage and changes in the family system from the Meiji period through the late twentieth century in "The Struggle for Legal Rights and Reform."

-Orie Endo, in "Aspects of Sexism in the Japanese Language," analyzes unequal gender status and relationships in the language.

-Midori Wakakuwa reveals how "Three Women Artists of the Meiji Period (1868-1912)" escaped the confines of the paternalistic family system.

-In "Pornographic Culture and Sexual Violence," Kuniko Funabashi studies mass-produced visual media and discusses false notions of femininity and masculinity that have shaped behavior and promoted sexual violence in Japan.

-Mioko Fujeida profiles key figures in the early feminist movement during the Meiji-Taisho period in "Japan's First Phase of Feminism."