Article
“Gender Free†Feminism in Japan: A Story of Mainstreaming and Backlash
Authors
Tomomi Yamaguchi
Publication
Feminist Studies
Abstract
In Japan, the introduction of the Basic Law for a Gender Equal Society in 1999 and subsequent efforts to introduce municipal gender equality ordinances marked the mainstreaming of feminism in the country. Consequently, feminism became the target of an intense wave of criticism by conservative forces. The attacks began around 2000, appearing first in conservative organizations’ newsletters and pamphlets, and then in conservative mass media and on the Internet. The criticism of feminism has influenced the direction of local policy-making, the content of some municipal gender-equality ordinances and plans, sex education in public schools, and projects undertaken at municipal gender-equality centers. Japanese feminists adopted the English term “backlash†to describe this wave of criticism, echoing the title of Susan Faludi’s 1991 book Backlash: The Undeclared War against Women. The buzzword “gender free†(jendÄ furÄ«) became the target of the antifeminist attacks. Coined by three Japanese scholars, Fukaya Kazuko, Tanaka Toji, and Tamura Takeshi, the term first appeared in an educational booklet published by the Tokyo Women’s Foundation, a publicly funded organization heavily subsidized by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government. The term, which was intended to refer to freedom from compulsory gender roles, quickly spread via governmental projects and later appeared in books, articles, and speeches by feminist scholars and groups. Although the term first signaled positive support for the mainstreaming of feminism in Japan, it quickly became a symbol, too, of the backlash against that trend. The fate of the term “gender free†exemplifies the way a political argument can quickly be twisted and manipulated. Analyzing the fraught path of the term “gender free†also provides a useful case study of the ways feminists and antifeminist conservatives have interacted over the past fifteen years in Japan.
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