Introduction
Among the developed countries, Japan is infamous for having the most gender inequality. For example, in 2011, only 43% of women, in Japan, worked in a nonagricultural sector. That same year the United States had 48% of women working in a nonagricultural setting (datatopics.worldbank.org). Even the Japanese acknowledge that men and women are seen in different lights. While the societal differences between Japanese woman are clear, the factors that cause these women to remain within the boundaries set by society and gender roles is harder to understand. Some believe that these women don’t feel oppressed at all. While others feel there is no room for women in Japan to breathe. Those outside of Japan might gain a better understanding of the situation in which these women live by examining the historical role of woman as mother. The role of women in historical Japan has affected societal norms today but is there anyone to blame for the inequality that is a contested issue, especially in the West?
How Americans Typically View Japanese Women
Equality, as defined by the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, is “the quality or state of having the same rights, social status, etc.” In America, people are continually fighting for the ideal of equality, especially as it pertains to men and women in the workplace. It is believed that women and men can work equally and should be paid equally. This belief is so strongly ingrained in Americans that they hold other developed countries to the same standards. Japan has a male dominated workforce making it challenging for women to get full time jobs. Therefore, Japan is seen as having severe gender inequality based on this American ideal of workplace equality. With this generalization in mind, ...
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Known for her work as a historian and rather outspoken political activist, Yamakawa Kikue was also the author of her book titled Women of the Mito Domain (p. xix). At the time she was writing this work, Yamakawa was under the surveillance of the Japanese government as the result of her and her husband’s work for the socialist and feminist movements in Japan (p. xx-xxi). But despite the restrictions she was undoubtedly required to abide by in order to produce this book, her work contains an air of commentary on the past and present political, social, and economic issues that had been plaguing the nation (p. xxi). This work is a piece that comments on the significance of women’s roles in history through the example of Yamakawa’s own family and
Many ancient laws and beliefs show that women from all around the world have always been considered inferior to men. However, as time went on, ideas of equality circulated around and women started to demand equality. Many women fought for equality and succeeded in bringing some rights. However, full equality for women has yet to be fulfilled. This issue is important because many women believe that the rights of a person should not be infringed no matter what their gender is, and by not giving them equality, their rights are being limited. During the periods 1840 to 1968, total equality for women did not become a reality due to inadequate political representation, economic discrepancy, and commercial objectification.
Recently the concerns of women around their equality in society has become a hotly debated topic in the public spot light. Much of the debate concerns women and the ingrained sexism that permeates most cultures. Many women's activists feel that this ingrained sexism has widened the gap between men and women in a political, social, and economic sense. And for the most part they do have strong evidence to support these claims. Women have suffered through millennia of male dominated societies where treatment of women has been, and in some cases still is, inhuman. Women are treated like subhuman creatures that have only exist to be used for procreate and to be subjugated by men for household use. It has only been very recently that women have become recognized as equals in the eyes of men. Equals in the sense that they have the same political and social rights as males. While the situation has improved, women still have to deal with a male oriented world. Often women in the workplace are thought of as inferior and as a liability. This can be due to concerns about maternity leave, or women with poor leadership skills. But also in part it is due because of the patriarchy that controls all aspects and dynamics of the culture, family, politics, and economy. Even developed countries like The United Kingdom, United States, Germany, and France, could be classified as a patriarchies. These countries may not agree with this notion because of expansive, but not complete changes, that have gradually equalized women in society. However, there are developed countries that openly express a patriarchy and have enacted little societal changes to bring equality to women. Japan is one such country, and t...
It is no doubt that Winnifred Eaton; the author of “A Half Caste” is a genius when it comes to using literary masquerade in relation to her treatment of Japanese women and mixed race. She is Otono Watanna in disguise. Through her pen name, she was able to shed light on issues relating to the Japanese race, or more specifically, the Japanese Caucasian persons. Watanna has successfully raised the representation of the Japanese women as being submissive under the men authority, Western or Asiatic. Watanna portrayed this image through the interaction between the half-caste Japanese women and Western characters. This view is demonstrated through her fictional prose of “A Half Caste,” “A Contract,” and her nonfiction work “The Half Caste.”
(Blau and Kahn 2006) jt was also noted that social psychological influences also appeared to explain the gap that existed. Research notes that in less-developed economies such as parts of Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, North Africa, parts of Latin America and the Carribean; women
In this essay, I will be discussing the statement “Gender Inequalities exist and removing them is fundamental to development”. I will focus on how continents compare in their overall rankings taking in consideration health & survival, education, economic participation and political empowerment, with including a case study for an LEDC and MEDC country.
In Japanese culture, it was a common ideal to view women as incompetent of being the head of a household (Yoshimi 200). Asian Women were subjected to discriminatory attitudes towards them by men, which left them with almost no opportunity to avoid a life in low social classes. In 19th century Japanese society, an unmarried woman was no doubly associated with low-end occupations that had significantly low wages (Yoshimi 70). The disadvantages associated with being a woman of a low social stature created an unfortunate history of prostitution among Japa...
The cause of this is the way that gender roles are now being protrayed in their country. For Japanese woman, they are currently not being displayed as the...
The Fifteen-Year War was a time of great turmoil and uncertainty in Japan. Various facets of the country were tested and driven to their limits. During the occupation, race and gender began to evolve in ways that had not exactly be seen before. War had a tremendous impact on every part of the life of a Japanese citizen. Both men and women began to fill roles that were completely novel to them. Race became a part of the definition of who people were. As the war progressed and American troops landed on Japanese soil for occupation, more drastic changes occurred. Economic hardship and rations befell the people of the Land of the Rising Sun. Prostitution began to rear its ugly head and rape transpired. Through memory, research, and vivid creativity, the evolution of Japan during the Fifteen-Year War can be analyzed with great scrutiny.
...action with others… especially men. This supplies final substantiation of the authors' argument, that women continue to be oppressed by their male-dominated societies. It is a bold undertaking for women to ally and promote a world movement to abandon sexist traditions. Although I have never lived in a third world or non-Westernized country, I have studied the conditions women suffer as "inferior" to men. In National Geographic and various courses I have taken, these terrible conditions are depicted in full color. Gender inequality is a terrible trait of our global society, and unfortunately, a trait that might not be ready to change. In America we see gender bias towards women in voters' unwillingness to elect more females into high office, and while this is not nearly as severe as the rest of the world, it indicates the lingering practice of gender inequality.
Deal, William E. 2006. Handbook to Life in Medieval and Early Modern Japan. Facts on File, Inc., 2006. eBook
Shan-Loong, M. L. (2000, March 14). Tradition & Change –. Gender Roles in Japan. Retrieved
Women have always been essential to society. Fifty to seventy years ago, a woman was no more than a house wife, caregiver, and at their husbands beck and call. Women had no personal opinion, no voice, and no freedom. They were suppressed by the sociable beliefs of man. A woman’s respectable place was always behind the masculine frame of a man. In the past a woman’s inferiority was not voluntary but instilled by elder women, and/or force. Many, would like to know why? Why was a woman such a threat to a man? Was it just about man’s ability to control, and overpower a woman, or was there a serious threat? Well, everyone has there own opinion about the cause of the past oppression of woman, it is currently still a popular argument today.
The purpose of this essay is to talk about how Japanese American are a minority group in the United States that has received unequal treatment for my Cultural Diversity class. To achieve this, I read Race, Class, and Gender in the United States: An Integrated Study, used the National University Library to search for information about Japanese experiences from 1900-2015. Japanese Americans faced prejudice, discrimination, and segregation from 1900 to 1960’s. I explain how Japanese Americans fit into the five essential properties of a minority group. These are physical and cultural characteristics, unequal treatment, endogamous, subordinate status, and involuntary membership in a minority group.
This international development goal is to expand women’s opportunities by providing them with the rights that they are entitled to (World Bank, 2011). The World Bank (2011) states that it is essential to empower women and girls by: improving education, increase literacy rates, increase early childhood development intercessions, increase women’s labor force participation, improve women’s access to financial resources, ending gender based violence, promote women’s political rights, and lastly, to improve reproductive health. In achieving these goals, gender equality can exist by the year 2015.