Rethinking The Roles of Japanese Women

Abstract

INTRODUCTION Japanese women have often been portrayed as submissive, subordinate, oppressed and passive. In the l9th and the early 20th centuries in the framework of orientalism, Japanese women were treated as a homogeneous group, who were described as tiny personage with narrow eyes and no brains (Loti, 1920:272). Following the tremendous economic success, Japan has attracted enormous attention and curiosity from the West, especially regarding the women's issues. With increasing efforts to examining women's roles, lots of scholars perceive women in traditional roles as helpless and exploited, who have no control over their own lives, not to mention the other's. If we employ the criteria such as the extent of women's labor force participation as the only indicators of power, Japanese women are indeed far from powerful. However, many issues have arisen from studies on Japanese women. First of all, what we think of as Japanese traditions are only traditions for certain class, and only become traditions in certain historical contexts. Therefore, we have to be very cautious of what tradition means in historical and cultural contexts before we conclude the helplessness of traditional Japanese. Second, we need to avoid imposing our values on how Japanese women perceive themselves. What we think of as desirable could be a disaster to them. Third, Japanese women are far more active in private as well as public spheres than we tend to believe. Therefore, the portrayal of Japanese women as helpless, submissive is not without questions. HISTORICAL OVERVIEW OF JAPANESE WOMEN To understand whit traditional Japanese women mean, we have to look back historically. Many historical studies have shown that Japan made the transition from a matrilineal to a patrilineal descent system fairly late in historical terms. As .late as to recorded times in the seventh and eighth centuries women continued to rule as sovereigns, although recent research seems to suggest that women were often merely holding operations while contending males tried to line up their own successors before ascending the throne (Loftus, 1980). Pre-Feudal Period By the eighth century Confucian and Buddhist thoughts had been fully introduced and at least partially absorbed, and Japanese society had been considerably transformed. Confucianism and Buddhism not only lent support to a patrilineal descent system which had replaced matrilineality but also ascribed an inferior social and religious status for women. Moreover, ried to this patrilineal at system, an aristocratic class was developing at this time, making one's descent a matter of public record and linking it to the male. However, remnants of a strong matriarchal influence remained as marriages continued to be uxorilocal if not fully matrilocal, and women continued to raise children in their households or those of their family. Women could legally own and inherit property and they could divorce their husbands. They also participated fully in court affairs. Though they were excluded from the system of rank and office-holding open to men, women were among the leading artists, poets and authors of the day. Therefore, they retained an important role in shaping the culture and were extremely important as bearers of the cultural tradition (Loftus, 1980:111). Feudal Japan After the breakdown of the imperial state system and the rise of a warrior class, Japanese women's position was even more declining (Loftus, 1980). Women began to be viewed as legal incompetents and appendages to men as patriarchal system arose among the warrior class during the Muromachi period (1392-1573). Women used to retain many of their legal privileges in the early feudal period, but the spread of warfare and turbulence in the 15th century ultimately put their inheritance rights to end. In order to survive the turbulence, it was becoming more important for families to keep their head holdings concentrated in the hands of someone capable of defending them adequately, and consequently a system of primogeniture gradually became the rules. …