‘Loser Dogs’ and ‘Demon Hags’: Single Women in Japan and the Declining Birth Rate

Abstract

In 2004, the winner of the 'Vogue Word Award' in Japan was the neologism makeinu, which refers to single women in their 30s without children and means, literally, 'loser dogs'. The word was coined by freelance writer Sakai Junko in her best-selling book, Makeinu no Tiboe (Howl of the Loser Dogs). The book has so far sold 330,000 copies, highly unusual for a non-fiction book of this genre. The word makeinu quicldy gained national attention and is now widely used in the media and in everyday conversation. Regardless of Sakai's original intention, the word makeinu has spread and become part of the common parlance for deriding single women in their 30s for their failure to find marriage partners. Onibaba-ka suru Onna-tachi (Women who are Becoming Demon Hags), which has sold over 200,000 copies, is another best-seller with similar subject matter; i.e. the problems of women who are unmarried and childless. In the Preface, author Misago Chizuru, who is a professor of reproductive health at Tsuda College, explains that the old folk tale of the onibaba, in which a lonely demon hag attacks a lost boy at night, is actually a tale about unmarried, post-menopausal women who, because they did not assume their appropriate roles in society and did not have the chance to release their sexual and reproductive energies, end up sexually assaulting young men. She warns that the number of onibaba, which she broadens the meaning to include nasty old women, is increasing and attempts to explain how to avoid becoming one. Both Sakai's and Misago's books were highly controversial, widely covered in the media and extensively reviewed in journals and discussed on the Web. Behind the debates, on these books lies a major social issue in contemporary Japan: the country's low birth rate, which is associated with a low marriage rate and high average age of marriage. Japan's fertility rate is at the all-time low of 1.29 children per woman.1 The average age at first marriage is approaching 28 for women and among women in their late 30s-the core makeinu generation-13.8% were single in the year 2000.2