The corporate salaryman and professional housewife stand as hegemonic archetypes of masculinity and femininity in Japan. However, these rigid gender roles are being challenged by women who are seeking to move beyond the strictly defined confines of their traditional roles as caregivers and homemakers. Through interviews with a range of Japanese women, this book explores how women’s gender roles are both reified and undermined in Japan today, and uncovers the prevalent themes, or ‘discourses’, that are utilized to construct gendered identities. It shows that while dominant discourses formulate notions of femininity within the domestic sphere, these are simultaneously resisted and problematized by contemporary women. To this end, Justin Charlebois traces the construction of different ‘oppositional’ femininities, such as the single career woman and married working mother, which challenge, destabilize, and potentially reconfigure the traditional gender order. This book makes an important contribution to our understanding of gender roles and femininity in Japan, and as such will be of great interest to students and scholars of Japanese culture and society, gender studies and women's studies.

Product Description: Japan's postwar transformation has been hailed as nothing short of a miracle. Yet, in the midst of massive social, economic, political, and cultural change, gender inequality persists at remarkably high levels. The paradox of Japan's progress against the persistence of gender inequality raises the question of why women remain a half-step behind men, more than a half century after women were granted equal rights under the postwar constitution...read more

Contains learning objectives, chapter outlines (with space for students' notes on particular sections), key-term identifications, short answer and essay questions, map exercises, and "comparison charts" which help students organize the information about different cultures and events discussed in each chapter.

Product Description: Beyond Common Sense is a study of life-styles in Japan that have hitherto remained largely unreported. In a society in which everyone is expected to marry, how do those who choose not to, or live at odds with the mainstream cope? After examining the social, cultural, and political aspects of marriage in Japanese society, Wim Lunsing investigates the different ways in which gays and lesbians, heterosexual single men and women, and others are regarded and relate to each other...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

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Product Description: In a contemporary study of women in Japan, Sumiko Iwao (psychology, Keio U., Tokyo) shows that these women are not the submissive females typically portrayed, but rather that they hold positions equal to and sometimes more powerful than those of men...read more

Product Description: Contemporary Japanese society is often regarded as an enigma in the West because of its miraculous economic growth and the unparalleled stability of its socio-political structure. Yet until now, there have been very few works available in English which are concerned with stratification and class perceptions in contemporary Japan...read more