Voices from the Japanese Women’s Movement is a book that offers an in-depth look at Japanese feminism in the post-war era. Presenting the viewpoints and personal experiences from several Japanese women involved with modern feminism, Voices tackles issues like the economy, work force, the military, and prostitution with the goal of revealing the historical inequalities of women. Through the examination of these different factions of society and government, it becomes clear that the development of the feminist movement in Japan was rooted in a variety of institutions.
The book is divided into three sections entitled “The Women’s Movement”, “Issues Facing Women”, and “Voices of Women”. The first section discusses the difficulty of the creation of a feminist movement due to a generation gap; more specifically, between the women who endured the time in Japanese history when there were few women’s rights and the women who have never felt what it is like to not have these rights. The issues discussed in the second section address a multitude of both institutional and personal discrimination against women. One example of this was the enslaving of “comfort women” for the Japanese military. Comfort women were a form of sexual slavery that was intended to reduce the complaints and frustrations from the Japanese soldiers about their military service. The abused women, who came from Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines and China, were often lied to or simply taken by force (91-92). The last portion of the book examines the reactions to the inequalities faced by Japanese women. These reactions include women starting their own restaurants lashing out against the discrimination that many of them have encountered in the workforce. Others choose to create rape crisis centers for victims of sexual assault.
Although Voices from the Japanese Women’s Movement is a powerfully personal testimony from dozens of women who endured heartache in the patriarchal Japanese social system, the main flaw of the book is the often fractured manner in which the stories are recounted. In portions where the book is written primarily as a debate between two or three women, it is difficult to see where one topic ends and another begins. Another criticism is addressed by Ronald Loftus of Willamette University, who claims that, “because of the brevity of each article, the reader is inevitably left with a sense that the topics raised are not developed very fully” (Loftus, H-Net Reviews). While Voices might not offer a thorough, in-depth look at all portions of the Japanese feminist phenomenon, it does offer the feeling of individuality. The women who were abused are not nameless faces; they are real victims who recite unbelievable trauma and persecution.
Loftus, Ronald. "Review of AMPO--Japan Asia Quarterly Review, ed., Voices From The Japanese Women's Movement.” H-Japan, H-Net Reviews, August, 1997.
URL: http://www.hnet.msu.edu/reviews/showrev.cgi?path=3825871923077