The New Women of Japan

Traditional Confucian values were strengthend during Japan's modernization period, then reinforced in the decades of war and expansion.  These ancient values told women that they were dependent on their fathers, their husbands, and their sons throughout the course of their lives.  Social momentum also carried these ideas into the early postward years of Japan's history.  In fact, they retain a great residual influence in society in which the Japanese woman serves as the center of family life.  However, the modern reality is undergoing slow but persistent change as Japanese women are transforming their roles in society and the world.

In the past few decades Japanese women have found more time for themselves, and less need to be driven by household work.  Many women are posting marriage, or even opting for the single life.  The women of Japan are in more control of their reproductive lives too.  They are having fewer children and one-child families are becoming the norm.  Abortions have been legal in Japan since 1948 and are readily available.  Official family planning encourages the use of condoms and takes a more lenient view of abortion in general.  Although the pill is now available to Japanese women, condoms are still promoted as a defense against HIV/AIDS.  Japan does have one of the lowest AIDS-related death rates among the industrialized nations.

Generally speaking, younger women are postponing marriage (the average is now twenty seven) to pursue their personal interests and careers.  Once married, Japanese women are more likely to want their husbands to act as partners in family matters.  This would include the rearing and education of children.  It is unfortunate that divorce is soaring in Japan today.  This is especially true of women in the fifties and sixties who are no longer willing to embrace the idea of "enduring the unendurable."  Divorce for the middle class has risen 300 percent.  A symbolic phenomenom is that women who have endured unhappy marriages without love or consideration are choosing to be buried separately from their deceased partners.  This is a final assertion of themselves into eternity!

Harlan Urwiler

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