436 Cohen Hall

Please join us for a Global Gender Seminar featuring Ayako Kano, East Asian Languages and Civilizations. We will be discussing her working paper, "Gender and Possible Futures for Japan."

Faculty Respondents: Robin Leidner (Sociology) and Andrew Lamas (Urban Studies & School of Social Policy and Practice)

The paper will be circulated in advance and lunch will be served. Please RSVP below to receive a copy of the paper and reserve a lunch.

Paper Abstract:

Where is Japan headed after the earthquake/tsunami and nuclear disaster of 2011? Are we likely to see a retreat to earlier patterns, persistence of recent patterns, or the onset of genuine change? In this chapter I examine various possibilities from the viewpoint of gender. I first examine the shifting attention on gender as a category, noting the rise of a “weak male” discourse at a time when advocacy for gender equality seems to be eclipsed by concern over economic disparity. Turning from popular discourse to policy, I next describe recent governmental gender policies and the controversy surrounding its implementation. The conservative backlash suggests a lack of social consensus about the state’s goals and means of achieving gender equality. Finally, turning from policies to possibilities, I end the chapter by presenting several pessimistic and optimistic future scenarios for gender in Japan.