Women's Political Activism In Japan And Other Late Developing Asian Countries, 1870–1945

Abstract

The main thrust of this paper is that countries at different industrial and developmental stages experience different pressure from both within and without. And these differences largely shape the nature of women's political activities. This paper examines the nature of Japanese women's political activities in initial stages, between 1868–1945, as an example to shed some light on where there exist differences between political activities of advanced Western industrial countries, especially the United States, and the late developing countries such as Japan and some other Asian countries. The paper asserts that the study of women's political consciousness and participation should be approached from the larger issue of international political environment in which internal politics of a country takes place. That is, the presence and absence of feminism in women's political activities should be understood in the context of the world historical time.