Postwar Japan: Women, Education and Research Paper

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And it cannot be denied that there is evidence to support that concern in many respects. But for women, it would help to open certain pathways to personal advancement. According to Mackie, "the women's liberation movement developed out of a critique of modern Japanese capitalism, a dissatisfaction with the sexism of the New Left, and the need of women in Japan to theorise their place in East Asia." (p. 4)

Among the forces that would significantly aid in their ability to establish any such identity would be the new set of doors opened by the shift in Japan's educational principles. The goals of modernization and capitalist advancement -- which would ultimately call for more opportunities for women to make contributions -- would demand an emphasis on education in the evolving state of Japan. So would this be demonstrated by the policies on this front which passed into law concurrent with the 1947 ratification of the Japan's Constitution. Particularly, the Fundamental Law of Education would make education compulsory at all levels leading up to university schooling. It would be here that two important aspects of modern Japan would emerge.

Namely, this would create a new level of access to education and opportunity which were previously inaccessible to women. As Mackie reports, "the early liberals challenged Confucian prescriptions which prevented women from receiving an education in anything other than needle-work and household tasks. They argued for new forms of education which would train women to be mothers of the nation, capable of training their sons to be loyal subjects and disciplined soldiers." (p. 25) The implication here is that while family roles were largely prescribed in ways that suggest the gendered nature of global politics, modernization would also gradually improve the opportunities available to women and would help to facilitate the feminist movement to emerge thereafter.

A second defining feature of Japan's education following the renewal of its compulsory attendance policies would be the elevation of the Junior college as part of its academic strategy. Again though, here we can see the mixed prospects for women in the system which was to evolve.

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Through its Junior Colleges, Japanese women would be offered opportunity with one hand and further cast into gendered roles defined by a patriarchal order. Mackie reports that in the ensuring years since Japanese education had become accessible to women, the Junior Colleges had evolved into something of a gender-segregated educational system. Mackie indicates that "although the numbers of males and females going on to higher education are roughly equal, women are disproportionately represented in two-year colleges. In 1980, women made up 91 per cent of the student population in junior colleges, but only 31 per cent of students at four-year universities." (p. 171)

Mackie further reports that the subject matter of study at Junior Colleges is largely gendered to reflect certain expectations relating to gender and social orientation, including home-economics, education and the humanities. This differs from the dominance of technical, industrial and social science disciplines in male education. (Mackie, p. 171) Here, we can see that the opportunities available to women are in many ways defined and channeled through the Junior College system.

As this fits into the broader context of our discussion, it is apparent that Japan's modernization has been a mixed experience both for women and for the nation at large. In one respect, Japan continues to stand as the greatest triumph for American ideological expansion. By the late 1980s, Japan's cache as an economic force made it a legitimate competitor to the world's greatest powers. Championing everything from baseball, Disney and punk rock to the corporate structure, the raging stock market and the sixty-hour work week, Japan developed into a paragon of capitalism. What may be most important to acknowledge, though, when attempting to decipher the somewhat hazy picture of the Japanese identity, is that the fifty years that have passed since World War II have not been that long. Essentially, Japan still lives in the shadow of its relatively recent history, all of its evolution, alteration and internal examination are a product thereof.

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