The Role Of Women In Japanese Culture

In the mid 1800’s in the US, women were responsible for completing duties at home and raising their kids. Their everyday routine consisted of waking up the kids, cooking all three meals, cleaning the house, washing dishes, doing laundry and completing all other household chores. If they lived on a farm, women would help with farming and raising livestock. Married women were considered property to their husband. The status of a woman is based on her husband's status. All women, regardless of social status, were not granted any rights. During this time, some women were into politics and began to question the establishment of political authority. The common question was why was political authority only granted to men. In the mid 1800, in some

Women, like black slaves, were treated unequally from the male before the nineteenth century. The role of the women played the part of their description, physically and emotionally weak, which during this time period all women did was took care of their household and husband, and followed their orders. Women were classified as the “weaker sex” or below the standards of men in the early part of the century. Soon after the decades unfolded, women gradually surfaced to breathe the air of freedom and self determination, when they were given specific freedoms such as the opportunity for an education, their voting rights, ownership of property, and being employed.

Japans society is a culture that is highly resistant to change; a society that places a high value on each member’s conformity within highly structured layers of Japanese society. Japan is an island nation, consisting of the four large islands of Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku and Kyushu. Together they are approximately the size of Germany or the State of California, and it has a population of approximately 126 million people Japan has a large population in relation to its land mass and as a consequence most Japanese people live crowded together in an urban corridor squeezed along the eastern edge of the Japanese islands. A result of this crowding is that Japanese place a high value on public harmony and the avoidance of any conflict, especially in public. Japanese norms require people to be willing to apologize and humble themselves, so much so that even after a minor auto accident each driver will jump out of their vehicle and bow to each other and apologize, instead of risking a very public confrontation. Frequently, Japanese will also employ the use of a go-between to negotiate a possible marriage. In this way, an individual can turn down a bride or groom without rejecting them to their face, thereby avoiding open disagreement or embarrassment of an individual. The Japanese culture is one that is rich within an historical and traditional context. Many of the traditional practices established hundreds of years ago can be seen today in modern Japan and are a direct reflection

At first in the late 1800’s to the early 1900’s, the society had a plethora of discrimination as well as inequality. Women were treated unreasonably, and had far less rights than men. Many of those rights that women fought for excluded them from many opportunities given to men, “...married women could not own property, make contracts, bring suits, or sit on juries,” (Digital History, 2016). Women actions were based on the men’s needs. Women were restricted to work and

In the mid to late 1700's, the women of the United States of America had practically no rights. When they were married, the men represented the family, and the woman could not do anything without consulting the men. Women were expected to be housewives, to raise their children, and thinking of a job in a factory was a dream that was never thought impossible. But, as years passed, women such as Susan B. Anthony, Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucy Stone, and Elizabeth Blackwell began to question why they were at home all day raising the children, and why they did not have jobs like the men. This happened between the years of 1776 and 1876, when the lives and status of Northern middle-class woman was changed forever. Women began to

Women in Western Europe and Japan compare and contrast religiously, politically, and economically. Religiously, women in Western Europe were better off with the advantage of becoming a nun than women in Japan were who lost their role in Buddhist and Shintu rituals. Politically, feminist thinkers were allowing women to have a greater say politically but there were fewer female rulers or regents in Europe. Japan who had female empresses prior to Koken was less inclined to have success. Economically, women in Japan could not inherit land but were able to be in the merchant class, while women in Europe could also inherit land; they were better off and more economically engaged than Japan with the running and working of a craft guild.

They have freedom of marital choice and given their written contributions to Japanese society, have an intelligent wit and wisdom to share. For a brief moment in early Japanese history, these noble women contributed greatly to a complete change of national identity, Japan’s very sense of self, all the while they were also being kept secluded and apart from many other parts of socio-political interactions. These women, during a time when the Japanese were trying to throw off the Chinese influence and cultural trappings, helped create a culture so vast, elegant, and rigid that aspects of that culture have lasted for 1221 years, so far.

The strive for women’s rights began nearly a century ago. During the time, women were not allowed to vote and were not even considered citizens. However, after many years of campaigning, the United States gave women the right to vote through the 19th Amendment in 1920. In democracies across Western Europe and North America, voting rights extended from the late 1800’s to the 1920’s. Economic rights came shortly after the voting rights, for example, women were given the right to receive and control property, to work and earn a profit, and to socialize freely throughout the communicate for business. The fight for women’s legal rights had helped gained much attention in the 19th century throughout North America, Western Europe, and many other sectors in the world. Many women in numerous countries have gained equal rights, but the issue

Women during the Tokugawa period were expected to be good Confucian wives and were restricted in many aspects of their life. Although multiple expectations were bent in real life situations. In Onna Daigaku, Kaibara Ekiken writes on how a woman should and should not act in public. He also writes several different reasons why a woman should be divorced. This primary source is important in understanding what was expected out of women during this period and helps us apply it to other readings.

Women in Japan have been silenced for the majority of the country’s history. Despite the nation proclaim being one of the world’s best democratic societies, Japanese women are politically, economically, and socially restricted due to gender inequality. They may have the same rights as men in the eyes of the law, but because of gender bias, it is indisputably more difficult for them to climb the social ladder and gain a position or title in a field. While Japan is considered one of the most highly industrialized nations, it is still a male centric society. Although the presence of women in the workforce has increased dramatically since Post-World War II, countless obstacles generated from sexism keep suppressing women. To gain a better understanding

In continuing the Meiji theme of implementation of Western ideals in order best Western countries, women activists implemented Western practices and techniques for their own actions. Unionization and workers’ strikes were two of these techniques as their development and propagation deeply affected how workers saw both their work and the importance of proper compensation. In particular, the fight for a woman’s department and equal wages evidences how these techniques were utilized for the benefit of this population. Although women’s health could deeply affect work conditions and vice versa, male socialists sought not to anger other groups while ridiculing the very idea that women had separate concerns. Nonetheless, female activists continued to push for these benefits and for birth control, especially after Anglo-American Margaret Sanger visited Japan. This, of course, deviates from the Tokugawa understanding of women’s sexual freedom, which essentially focused on male control rather than actual bodily autonomy.

The rights and freedoms that women in the United States enjoy today did not come without struggle, and currently there is nowhere in the world women are treated equally to men. Henceforth the 17th hundreds women have been trying to affirm their position in the fabric of America. Early public policies treated wives and mothers as wards of their husbands and women in general were not considered citizens under the Constitution of the United States, the founding document referred of “men created equal”. Women were oppressed by gender and could not legally acquire land ownership, enter into contracts, initiate legal actions, acquire bank loans and wives that worked, their husbands controlled their money. Furthermore, women were barred from higher

Land rights were restricted and the reestablishment of traditional gender roles emerged reverting to the “old way.”

Chinese women, if a commoner, were required to follow the social system which endowed sexual monopoly of the husbands over the wives, whereas the situation of their Japanese counterparts is similar in that the praising of indentured prostitutes who supported their families was a discourse to help strengthen the patriarchal status system in early Tokugawa period. Certainly, the society changed over time and so was the position of women within it. This is clearly seen in the expansion of sex trade in Japan since the eighteenth century and the “emancipation” edict of jian status in 1723 in Qing China. However, this does not mean that women were freed from the gendered social cage. As Sommer contends, the edict reinforced the gendered stratum, implicated in that as all women were categorized as commoners, they were ultimately evaluated by their sexual history . In the Japanese case, Stanley argues that Japanese prostitutes were never really autonomous in economic terms. This accusation of being economic autonomous agents by the local elites and peasants precisely evidences the patriarchal anxiety to maintain the gendered order

Within Japanese culture during this time period, desirable traits within males and females were explicitly emphasized through Confucianism. The Confucian ethical system teaches people loyalty, piety, and respect towards superiors; it also stresses intrinsic aspects within an individual such as integrity, righteousness, and warm heartedness (Yoko and Katsurada, 2002). Although expressed and articulated into different aspects of life depending on an individual’s sex, loyalty was a trait that both women and men were expected to exhibit with absolute certainty. Men were primarily taught to be loyal to their lords, whereas, women were taught to be loyal to their family and husband.