Women and Democracy in Cold War Japan

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Women and Democracy in Cold War Japan offers a fresh perspective on gender politics by focusing on the Japanese housewife of the 1950s as a controversial representation of democracy, leisure, and domesticity. Examining the shifting personae of the housewife, especially in the appealing texts of womens magazines, reveals the diverse possibilities of postwar democracy as they were embedded in media directed toward Japanese women. Each chapter explores the contours of a single controversy, including debate over the royal wedding in 1959, the victory of Japan's first Miss Universe, and the unruly desires of postwar women. Jan Bardsley also takes a comparative look at the ways in which the Japanese housewife is measured against equally stereotyped notions of the modern housewife in the United States, asking how both function as narratives of Japan-U.S. relations and gender/class containment during the early Cold War.

Reviews

[This] valuable book will be a great read for both students and scholars of postwar discourses on gender in Japan. * Journal of Japanese Studies *
Richly evidenced and engrossing ... This volume provides the reader with an insightful and well researched analysis of gender roles and discussions in post-war Japan, and is a welcome addition to the literature. * English Historical Review *
[T]his a fascinating book that offers a compelling look at how the Japanese housewife was mobilized in debates over postwar democracy. It will be of great interest to those who study postwar Japanese womens history and literature. * Japan Forum *
The richness and variety of the books sources, and the consistently high level of Bardsleys analysis across multiple textual and visual genres, make her account convincing, informative, and even entertaining ... Women and Democracy in Cold War Japan is an engaging and intellectually stimulating piece of scholarship that will enhance discussions on the history of Japans Allied Occupation and of postwar Japan, on gender in modern Japan and in Cold War politics, and on the cultural dimensions of U.S.-Japan relations. * Monumenta Nipponica *
Through close readings of popular mediafrom contentious letters to newspaper editors to debates covered in women's magazines, from tales of flawed fashionistas to satirical cartoonsWomen and Democracy in Cold War Japan takes an innovative approach to the gender politics shaping Japan in the 1950s. Jan Bardsley effectively challenges the notion that the liberation of Japanese women was primarily the result of the American occupation of Japan after World War II. In addition, her analysis of the media construction of housewives, princesses, and beauty queens places Japans postwar era squarely in the geopolitics of the Cold War. Accessible and provocative, Women and Democracy in Cold War Japan will be a very useful book for classes in gender studies in a variety of disciplines. * Barbara Molony, Professor of History, Santa Clara University, USA *
In Women and Democracy in Cold War Japan, Jan Bardsley invites us into a dynamic world of post-WWII Japan where the process of democratization initiated by American occupiers has unleashed a series of events and controversies involving women, homes, and nation. Offering fascinating tales of Kitchen Princess, Beauty Queen, Real Estate Siren, and Desiring Women, all of whom enlivened the Cold War Japan with their womanly determination and domestic ingenuity, Bardsley gives us an enchanting moment to re-imagine Japan in a manner far more complex and nuanced than ever attempted before. Against the backdrop of constitutional reform, gender democratization, and domestic modernization, Japanese women were historical agents of exceptional complexity, whose sentiments and practices hardly if ever followed any predictable route. Re-introducing women and the home to the center stage of the postwar Japanese history, Bardsleys book charts a new territory of analysis where richness of archival research is coupled with deftness of storytelling to reward its readers. * Mire Koikari, Associate Professor, Womens Studies, University of Hawaii, USA *

Author Bio

Jan Bardsley is Associate Professor and Chair in the Department of Asian Studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, USA.