Gender and Modernity in Japan's "Long Twentieth Century"

Abstract

This article surveys English-language writings on gender and modernity in Japanese history in the "long twentieth century." The discussion is organized around the themes of gendering the public sphere, feminism and the gendered state, gender and labor, and gender, sexuality, and cultural politics, with some closing reflections on emerging research themes which place the study of Japan's modernity in a transnational frame.

Who Speaks for Workers? Japan and the 1919 ILO Debates Over Rights and Global Labor Standards

“…87 As historian Vera Mackie recently wrote, the 1925 Universal Male Suffrage Act ranks as among the "important turning points" in the history of Japanese men but, she adds, the 1922 lifting of political restrictions on women surely deserves a similar place in the history of Japanese women. 88 Much to Tanaka's regret, she was unable to contribute to the labor and women's movements in the early 1920s as she had hoped. Upon her return to Japan, she attended the founding meeting of the Association of New Women in January 1920 and was elected as one of the Association's ten officers.…”