The evolution of Japanese women's historiography

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Abstract Japanese women's history has been regarded as marginal to historical investigation for a long time. The subject hardly existed before 1945 and even after that date many academic historians were reluctant to accept women's history as a part of Japanese history. However, the social and political climate of the 1980s in particular, favourable in many ways to women, gave opportunities for Japanese women's historiography to promote itself and also brought the subject fuller academic recognition. Exciting and innovative research on Japanese women's history has been carried out over the past decade or so. Much of this has been conducted not only by ‘academic’ women's historians, but also by freelance writers, journalists and amateur historians, that is by people who have been less saddled with traditional historical methods and expectations. The study of Japanese women's history has now reached the point where the subject no longer requires justification. This paper gives an overall picture of the development of Japanese women's historiography from about 1920 to 1985. It outlines major publications on the subject, which helped promote the standards of its scholarship, and evaluates these, making some comparison with Western counterparts. It discusses the most likely developments in the subject for the future.