Citation

Osawa M. Soc. Sci. Jpn. J. 2000; 3(1): 3-19.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2000, The author(s), Publisher Oxford University Press)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

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Abstract

The mid- 1990s saw some important developments in the Japanese government's approach to gender issues, as conservative politicians started to realize that greater gender equality could help to revive a moribund economy and a steadily falling birth rate. In this paper I trace those developments, focusing on the role of the Council for Gender Equality (Danjo Kyōdō Sankakushingikai), created by government ordinance in 1994 and upgraded by an Act of the Diet in 1997. The 'Vision of Gender Equality', which the Council submitted to then-prime minister Hashimoto Ryūtarō in 1996, bore fruit in the Basic Law for a Gender-Equal Society, finally passed in 1999. But while the government has shown some genuine concern over gender issues, this has always had to struggle against competing discourses of traditional values and fiscal rectitude. So far, the new receptiveness to feminist arguments has yet to be matched by funding for reforms in important areas like nursing care, child-rearing and pensions that are needed if women are to participate fully in society