Japanese Woman

Japanese women, according to Iwao, a professor of psychology in Tokyo, "often feel that living according to principle forces human beings into unnatural behavior" and is "confining as far as the attainment of happiness for the individual is concerned." She compares this attitude favorably with that of American women's "persistent" demands for an ideal of equality. Iwao argues that "contrary to the image of subjugation outsiders seem to associate with Japanese women," they have more freedom than Japanese men, who are mere worker bees; they have more time for friends, family and personal interests, and control the purse strings. While there is widespread dissatisfaction with exhausted and uncompanionable husbands, one in six women compensates, guiltlessly, with a lover. Sixty-five percent of Japanese women with school-age children have jobs, and although they "believe in equal pay for equal work, equal opportunity and so on," they are generally not expected to contribute to household expenses. The study is densely packed with invaluable data about generational changes in Japanese women's lives, and is intriguing for its insights into the differences between Japanese and American value systems, but it is sometimes unduly provocative in tone and ambiguous in its assessments of Japanese women's recent progress.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Written by a female psychology professor in Tokyo, this work aims to describe the modern Japanese woman. She is a mixture of tradition and "new attitude." She is often viewed as passive, demure, and self-sacrificing--but at the same time she can be formidable, ruling her family with unspoken power. Iwao recalls her own grandmother, who could "make two fine grown men cringe before her." The book explores many topics about womanhood--myths, motherhood, marriage, financial power, divorce, sex, politics, the workplace. American and Japanese women have very different expectations about marriage: in one survey, more Japanese than U.S. women rated having children as very important. While Japanese women are still expected to serve the tea in the workplace, more of them are having extramarital affairs. This is a revealing look at the changing roles of women in today's Japan. Recommended for all women's studies and international studies collections.
- Lisa K. Miller, American Graduate Sch. of International Management Lib., Glendale, Ariz.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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