The position of women in modern Japanese society is difficult to evaluate. Conflicting opinions can be supported with good reasons. Many people, including foreign visitors, state that the balance between the two genders is heavily tipped toward men and against women. Many visitors claim that it is definitely a man's world in Japan. There is very little polite opening of doors and offering of places; generally men enter at first, sit first, are served first, and go to the bath first. Women are rarely molested, but are often completely ignored. It is well known that Japanese women are always ranked as inferiors; however, this is not because their sex is considered inferior, but because women seldom hold higher social status. This is a major Japanese principle: Status precedes sex (Mariaini 193-194).

In Japan, when someone is describing their spouse, the term yasashii, which means tender, considerate, and thoughtful, to describe them. These are the aspects within a woman's character that a man looks for. Husbands also tend to emphasize the desirability of femininity for wives. Men do not look for a beautiful woman to marry, but for a pliable, womanlike type. Some men may be violent with their wives to express that she is not feminine enough. Whether women regard femininity as desirable for themselves is another matter. A number of Japanese women characterize themselves as masculine and proud of it (Lebra 137-138).

Marriage can be viewed as the light of an individual's life cycle, for the Japanese believe it is a transition that everyone must go through. Everyone must marry because it is necessary for an individual to feel his or her sense of fulfillment and completeness with their life. The Japanese see in marriage not only the culturally prescribed norms and obligations, but also as the natural unfolding of human existence. According to the Japanese, it is not human to not marry. This view is placed more heavily upon the women of society, so much that a woman without marital experience is considered deprived of meaning in her life, whereas men are seen as able to enjoy their lives at least through their work. Japanese society claims that marriage brings happiness to women, and that marriage provides mental stability. Much of the pressure to marry comes from a woman's mother. When she feels it is time for her daughter to marry, a mother will devote herself to sewing a wardrobe of many sets of kimonos for her daughter to take with her as a dowry. It is difficult to find one woman who is proud of being single or ideologically committed to staying unmarried. Premarital training in the family and schools was aimed primarily at molding girls into future good wives and wise mothers. One of the conventional verbal sanctions against deviancy is that "If you act like that, you will not be wanted as a bride." As a woman approaches a marriageable age, she is driven into the marriage market by internal as well as external pressures (Lebra 78-80).

A woman gets involved, as an extension of her domestic assignment, with the occupation of the household into which she has married. "Household occupation" means a private enterprise which, although represented by one individual, such as the head of the household, is identified as Kagyo, which means "household business." Unless married to a salary-man, a "housewife" is expected to undertake a portion of collective enterprise. Even as a wife of a salary-man or wage-earner, if the postmarital household has a Kagyo run by in-laws, the bride is then required to participate. Furthermore, one household may have two Kagyo. These women were (or are) "housewives," like a salary-man's wife to the extent that they were not pursuing their own occupations, but merely accepting the household occupations as part of their domestic task as they married into a family. The primary responsibility for housework rests with the mother-in-law, who is too old to work as a full-time farmer. Full-time partnership for the household occupation is not very common, however. Most women alternate between domestic and occupational roles, balancing one against the other (Imamura 127-129).

A woman's self-identity is further associated with her attainment of full adulthood through motherhood. If marriage is a major step toward ichinimae, motherhood completes its fulfillment. In Japan, it is said that "Motherhood strengthens a woman." It may be that the mother's power is derived from the child's growth.

Not until one bears a child can a person truly understand the essence of human love or empathize with other human beings. Human warmth associated with motherhood derives from the mother's capacity for commiserate with her child, which further stems from her tendency to see a mirror image of herself in the child. The mother, in caring for her child, realizes how easily she can influence him, and comes to take the child's behavior as a reflection of her own. When she finds faults in her child, she will blame herself for his or her problems. As the child grows older, he or she will articulate what is wrong with his mother and how she should behave from then on as a mother to which she intends to respond most sensitively to her child's problem. "Double Specialization" takes place here. By accepting and reflecting upon the child's acts as a mere image of her own, the mother learns to materialize herself and acquires insight into her character and deficiencies.

The ability to put oneself in another person's shoes is another sign of maturity by Japanese standards. Once a woman becomes a mother, every decision she makes becomes contingent upon its effect upon her child. She can longer afford to be self-centered, but must carry a double identity-self + child. It might be speculated that a woman, once she herself becomes a mother, accepts the cultural stereotype of Japanese motherhood without question (Imamura 196-200).

Once a child is born, the bulk of the mother's energy is committed to its upbringing unless some other female caretaker takes on the job. From birth, a mother and child form a special bond of intimacy; they form a most intimate dyad. One way in which this bond of intimacy is formed is through breast-feeding. In the United States, most women breast-feed for only the first few months after birth. In Japan, it is not uncommon for a mother to breast-feed for two-and-a-half years. Mothers and children also sleep in the same bed during the child's first years of life. In the first winter after the child's birth, the mother would move the child from its separate bed into hers to give the child her warmth. In some Japanese families, no children sleep alone. Physical contact is also commonly used to increase the intimacy of this dyad. Many Japanese desire "skin-to-skin" contact with their children, and it is not very uncommon in some parts of Japan to see a mother carrying her infant on her back, with a single kimono wrapping the both of them (Lebra 175-176). In Japanese society, the mother's physical presence is extremely important. A child's cry alone is regarded as a sign that a mother should never leave him alone. Because the mother is thought to be the most important figure in a child's life, it is admissible for a father to leave for months or even years (Imamura 19).

Motherhood captures the depth of complexity inherent in a woman's self-fulfillment, for it is a child's growth and achievement that satisfies her lifelong goal. In Japan, motherhood is identical to selflessness and sacrifice (Lebra 216).

Role-splitting on the woman's part is accompanied by a more or less clear differentiation of occupational responsibilities by sex. The husband takes the technically specialized and pivotal role, and the wife performs more peripheral tasks. An example would be, in the lumber business, that it is the husband's responsibility to make decisions on the purchase of timber, while the wife receives customers, answers the telephone, keeps books, and manages the rest of the employees. The contrast between the two genders and their tasks was not a matter of the simpler job versus the more difficult. Just to serve tea to a customer was hard labor during the wartime when there was no gas; it was necessary each time to make a charcoal fire to boil water. All these tasks had to be carried out while a woman was carrying her baby on her back or preparing a meal. The paradox is that the more specialized the occupation is by the lines of gender is that the more masculine, in terms of either muscular effort or skill required, the more demanding are the tasks imposed on the female partner as an all-around person. The multiplicity or generality of the female partnership for a household occupation involves the female's specialization in human relations (Imamura 134).

While the husband works as the main breadwinner in the household, the wife may have another job to supplement the family income. In Japan, supplementary income is needed because of the uncertainty of a husband's income. A family has many priority expenses that could not be met without a supplemental income. These excess expenses include medical expenses, education expenses, and financial aid for the mother's natal family. In Japan, there is shortage of skilled labor, like sewing. Hand sewing of kimonos is a good source of income for some housewives, and a wife can her more sewing kimonos than her husband can as a government employee. It is also very common for women to take on part time work in order to provide a second income as well as care for her children (Lebra 224-225).

In Japan, about 50% of the women hold jobs; however, most of the female employees are young and unmarried. These working women mainly hold jobs in farming, fishing, and family-owned businesses. Most of these unmarried female workers were actually involved in a type of temporary employment called koshikake shushoku. Under this form of employment, a woman could leave a job for a few years to get married and bear children. After the woman has married and started a family, she can go back to work when she feels ready or when she needs to (Tanaka 99-100).

The later years of a woman's life refers to the last life stage, which usually begins when her children have all attained adulthood and independence, and ends with old age and death. This is the stage in life when a woman is freed from the burden of childbearing, can enjoy autonomy, obtain power and leadership in and out of the household, and develop a retrospective insight and wisdom on life.

Photos derived from Mariaini

 

Works Cited

Lebra, Takie Sugiyama. Japanese Women: Constraint and Fulfillment. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1984

Mariaini, Fosco. Japan: Patterns of Continuity. Tokyo: Kondansha, 1984.

Imamura, Anne. Urban Japanese Housewives. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1987.

Tanaka, Yukiko. Contemporary Portraits of Japanese Women. London: Praeger, 1995.

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