Women's Issues in Japanese History

Tonomura and Walthall ( ) write, "The nineteenth century marked the return of women writers to an expanded literary public sphere, although women had continued to write since the Heian period" (p. 13). One of the important women of this time was Matsuo Taseko (1811-94), who they describe as a rural entrepreneur, poet, and political activist" (p. 13). According to Walthall's biography, Taseko was an influential figure in bringing about the Meiji Restoration, and her influence was due in part to her gender. As Walthall (1998) writes, "Had she been a man, her deeds wo

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Japan in this time, "the bobbed-haired, short-skirted modern girl (modan garu); the self-motivated housewife (shufu); and the rational, extroverted professional working woman (shokugyo fujin)" (p. 7). She argues that these images were the product of rising consumerism and promulgated by mass media. She also argues that these iconic images represented a public persona that did not always reflect the private realities of women's lives in an increasingly modern society. Nevertheless, the modern girl, the modern housewife, and the modern working woman all typified the dramatic transformation of Japanese society as a whole, while disguising the fact that women were not actually able to take on new roles or gain new powers. Sato (2003) argues, "Economically, culturally, and even institutionally, the illusion of stability made it difficult for women to embrace the new or different" (p. 154). Robertson's book, Takarazuka, is a history of an all-female revue started in 1914 in Japan, which turned many of these kinds of images into figures of entertainment. She (1998) contends, "The stereotype of the Japanese as a homogenous people has had the corollary effect of whitewashing a colorful variety of gender identities and sexual practi
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Approximate Word count = 3177
Approximate Pages = 13 (250 words per page)

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