The new japanese woman.pdf

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Part of Panorama

extracted text: THE NEW JAPANESE WOMAN Kathleen Costello A new Unesco paperback, “The Changing Social Posi tion of Women in Japan”, by Takashi Koyama, brings to gether studies by Japanese specialists — mostly women — in the fields of labour, the family, the rural community, education, civic activities and public opinion. Japan’s New Constitution revolutionized the legal basis of Japanese new institutions. In this study, JVIr. Koyama and his collaborators describe the sweeping reforms that gave women equal rights be fore the law and investigate the present relationship bet ween legal and actual status. On paper, the rights of Ja panese women now compare favorably with those of any women in the world. At one bound the legal family unit 63 passed from the patriarchial to the conjugal type, skipping entirely the intermediate ma rital structure sanctified in the West by the Code Napo leon. The study makes plain that it will take many years for Japan to absorb the psy chological shock of this par ticular reform. In contrast, the new rights of women to vote and to be elected to public office seem to have been taken in stride. In the 1958 elections to the House of Representatives, men and women exercised the right to vote in almost the same proportions, with 75.8 percent of eligible males and 74.4 percent of eligible females going to the polls. After the first ’pust-war electio'ns for?the Diet,'in 1946 and ' 1947’,? 8.4 ■ -percent ■ of members IdQfPANOBXMX of the House of Representa tives and 4 percent of. mem bers of the House of Council lors were women. As for lo cal bodies like Domestic Courts, prefectoral, municipal and village Boards of Educat i o n, Eugenics Protection Committees and Civic Liber ties Commissions, the number of women represented on them increases each year. In 1957, they held 21.5 percent of Public and Child Welfare Commission posts. The gap between principle and practice is much wider with regard to the Constitu tional right to equal pay for equal work — guaranteed al so by the Labour Standards Law of 1947. However, if wo men’s wages are still discri minatory, they are slowly growing less so. The present ratio of men’s wages to wo men’s — 6 to 4 — compares favourably with the pre-war 6 to 3, or 6 to 2. Among gov ernment workers there is al most no discriminatory treat ment. But millions of women, particularly on farms, are still unpaid family workers. As might be expected, it is inside the family that the con flict between old and new ideas is sharpest. Here men women have to work out their own personal terms of ad justment — here they reject, October 1961 accept or compromise with the new status, of women as defined by law. Changing Patterns in Family Life In the past, every detail of traditional Japanese family life was ritually prescribed. As a result, Mr. Koyama is able to analyze changing pat terns in very specific terms. The Japanese wife always spoke of her husband as shujin (master). And legally, he was in fact the master of the patriarchal household. Stu dies show that the word is still used 50 percent of the time; but many women now intentionally say, . “my hus band”. When the husband ad dressed his wife he would call Oi, oi (Hey, Hey). This usage is rapidly vanishing, and the use of first names is spreading. In the elaborate ritual go verning meals, any choice food was offered first to the spirits of the ancestors, then to the patriarch and eldest son. Wife, daughters and other sons had to be content * with poorer meals, which they ate after the patriarchal table had dined and wined. Only 14 per cent of adult Japanese grew up in families where food was shared equally. But now, 38 percent of all families share5& alike. (Fifty percent of farm families adhere to the old custom). Bed - and - bath - times had their fixed etiquette, too. If the wife went to bed before the husband, she was called an “idle wife”. In the morn ing, she had to get up first so that he would not see her looking dishevelled. The first bath was always for the hus band. Although these priori ties are still observed in rural areas, they are becoming obs o 1 e t e in urban families, which now pay more atten tion to convenience than to custom. The change in attitudes is also illustrated by an innova tion in sharing domestic res ponsibility. Before the war, it was unheard of — or, ff heard of, was shameful — for a man to help his wife with the housework. But only a few years after the war, a survey showed less than half of all Japanese still uncondi tionally disapproving. Choosing a Marriage Partner All these are improvements in woman’s position after marriage. But what is the si tuation with regard to the method of choosing a mar riage partner? Article 24 of the new Constitution says: “Marriage shall be based on ly on the mutual consent of both sexes..” But 1955 Minis try of Labour figures show that while 63 out of 100 Jap anese thought that, “one’s own choice of a spouse” is better than the “parents’ choice”, only 27 percent of women replied that they, themselves, would dare to op pose their parents’ wishes. And a 1957 table indicates that 73 percent of marriages in large cities were still miai (arranged) marriages. Mr. Koyama, however, com ments : “Among young people the old procedure is rapidly succumbing to the new no tion of marriage which re gards a man and a woman as constituting the basis of mar riage. In conjunction with the change in legal and moral norms, reform of actual mar riage practices is expected to take place in the near future.” On the whole, the statistics assembled in “The Changing Social Position of Women in Japan” describe a trend, not a landslide. It cannot be said, and Mr. Koyama makes no effort to do so, that the last 15 years have effected a ra dical transformation of the Japanese woman’s life. The impression given by this stu dy is of creeping rather than dramatic change. 56 Panorama Education: The Keynote of Progress But there is one exception. Equal education for children of both sexes became not on ly a legally recognized right, but a fact. Article 5 of the 1946 Fundamental Law of Education states: “Man and woman shall respect and co operate with each other. Co education shall be recog nized.” The provisions of this law were put into effect with incredible speed. Compulsory education was extended from six to nine years for all children; and in a country where boys and girls had been separated af ter the third grade, co-educa tion was also made compul sory for the whole period. Before passage of this law, girls’ secondary schools exis ted only to make “good wives and mothers” for middle and upper-class families. After the sixth grade, no effort was made to provide either a cur riculum or level of teaching in any way comparable to what was offered to boys. Girl graduates of this system were equally unqualified for higher education and gainful employment. Acceptance of women’s right to equal education shows up strikingly in figures for enrolment after the compul sory nine years. Taking 1950 as a base year, the index of high school enrollment for girls had climbed to 173.9 in 1957 (as compared to 134.7 for boys) and to 284.7 for wo men in colleges (as compared to 144.3 for man). * In the same year, of the 51.2 percent of female college graduates who were employed, 63.6 per cent were professional and 27.9 percent clerical workers. * Actual enrolment for senior high schools: 1,203,749 boys, 733,766 girls; for colleges and universities: 364,642 boys, 40,668 girls. This movement of women into positions that command social respect is a post-war phenomenon almost entirely attributable to the introduc tion of equal education. The author feels that this deve lopment, “will be likely to modify considerably the past tendency to belittle women and will contribute towards the enhancement of women’s position.” The graduates of the new co-educational system of edu cation still constitute a mino rity of the population of Ja pan. But there a^e already enough to make them an im portant leaven in Japanese at titudes. In this basic minori ty lies the promise of a hap pier, fuller life for the gene ration of women now grow ing up. (UNESCO) October 1961 57
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