A Talk on the Modern Japanese Woman

In the wake of the American occupation of Japan, the Japanese woman entered a new era.

It is true that Japan — since the late years of the last century — had begun to copy the civilization of the West. But this copying did not go beyond material things: factories, machines, instruments of war, and applied practical sciences. Japan kept most of its religious and social traditions and its artistic and linguistic heritage. And the Japanese woman evolved only a little beyond her former state; she remained a prisoner of the house and of household tasks, seldom appearing in public places and having little desire for education or work.

The emancipation of the Japanese woman in its present form was part of the comprehensive program of liberation which the American commander MacArthur laid down for the Japanese after his occupation of their country. He took upon himself to purge Japan of the Nazi influence that had taken hold of it, and consequently to turn its old systems upside down. But demolition is worthless without building, and so the General began the operation of setting a new order in the place of the old; and the only order from which he drew inspiration was democracy as the Americans understand it — that is, the Americans' ways in government, politics, living, and thinking.

From that time the position of the Japanese woman came to keep pace with the position of the American woman in all its aspects. And when we recall that the American woman is the most emancipated of the world's women, we grasp what a momentous development has come over the Japanese woman in a few years.

The complete emancipation of woman takes in four aspects: the cultural, the economic, the political, and the social. All these freedoms fell to the lot of the Japanese woman.

First: cultural emancipation means that the opportunities of culture are open to her as to man, without distinction. It means that the number of girls' schools is not less than the number of boys' schools, that both groups have a single course of study, and that the opportunities of specialization in the universities and the practice of the liberal professions are one and the same for both sexes.

Second: economic emancipation — cultural emancipation is worthless without economic emancipation, which is woman's right to turn her learning to account, to practice her profession, and to profit from her field of specialty, so that she may not remain a burden on man and a weight on society, and so that the benefit of her learning may not be lost to her.

And the Japanese woman — following the example of her American sister — has begun to practice all occupations and to pursue all the professions that man pursues. She takes employment in the offices of the government, in the offices of the army and the police; she takes up soldiering as a profession; she works in factories, farms, offices, and places of commerce; no one opposes her and no one criticizes her. Her wages everywhere are equal to the wages of her male colleague, and she takes to work with astonishing eagerness — so much so that we may say the rate of work among young women is one hundred percent, while the women of the earlier generation practice social work and enroll in the ranks of the charitable institutions.

Third: political emancipation — by this I do not mean only woman's right to vote, to enter parliament, and to exercise all political rights. I mean also her equality with man in civil law and the law of personal status. That is, she is his equal in the right of divorce, the right of

testimony before the courts, the right of inheritance, and the right of keeping the children. In case of divorce the court decides the question of the children and hands them over to the party more fit to rear them and care for them, whether that be the father or the mother. In a single word, Japanese law gives woman absolute equality with man, and it does not lighten the penalty of a killer when he kills in defense of honor.

Finally, the social side —

The Americans did not touch certain social traditions which the Japanese people cherish — religion, for instance, and dress, and the like — but they emancipated woman socially, in the sense that they gave her the freedom to appear in public places, in clubs, in places of amusement, without people glaring at her or pursuing her with belittlement. And they strove to establish social justice among the population by enacting laws that protect the workman, the workwoman, and the child, and safeguard the rights of labor. They made the basic labor law one and the same for women and men, and added to it special laws for protecting woman from hard labor, caring for the expectant mother, and helping working mothers by caring for their children in special institutions during their absence.

And since the Japanese have the custom of amusing themselves in the company of the serving girls, or girls of entertainment, whom they call "Geisha Girls," the Americans left this custom to them; but they did justice to woman by giving her the right to keep company with young men in places of amusement and public places — and the right to seek divorce from the husband who is unfaithful to her; that is, to pay him back like for like.

Whoever saw Japan six years ago and then returned to visit it after the revolution which the Americans wrought — above all in the life of woman there — would stand amazed at the speed and the success that have accompanied the course of that revolution.

But his amazement vanishes when he verifies two things: first, the skill the Americans showed in designing the revolution, organizing it, and carrying it out — for all their work went forward according to a drawn plan; second, the good response shown by the Japanese woman, and her readiness to accept the new freedoms, to bear their responsibilities, to plunge into the battle of life at man's side, and to perform her new duties in the fullest manner.

All this is proof that woman, if she is given her legitimate rights whole and undiminished, is not inferior to man in capacity and strength; and that the countries which deny woman these rights — like our Arab countries, for example — suffer a great loss.