The New Japanese Woman: Modernity, Media, and Women in Interwar Japan

Barbara Sato

Published by Duke University Press 2003

The New Japanese Woman

Modernity, Media, and Women in Interwar Japan

Barbara Sato
Edited by: Rey Chow , Harry Harootunian and Masao Miyoshi

In the series Asia-Pacific: Culture, Politics, and Society

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780822384762

Overview
Contents

About this book

A study of the "modern" woman in Japan before World War II.

Author / Editor information

Barbara Sato is Professor of History at Seikei University in Tokyo. She is coeditor of Gender and Modernity: Rereading Japanese Women's Magazines.

Reviews

“Barbara Sato has produced a superb book on the construction of a new women's culture in Japan in the interwar period. In captivating detail, she documents the creation of a new subjectivity—'women'—through the interactions of middle-class women with consumer capitalism and the mass media. By showing us the myriad ways that women wrote themselves into the narratives of modernity, Sato's book opens up new ways of thinking about the relationship between women and the modern.”—Louise Young, author of Japan’s Total Empire

“In no other study of Japanese women are issues of gender and social history so magnificently intertwined. No other work in the English language provides such a detailed view of the multiple configurations of mass culture (film, radio, popular magazines, department stores, fashions, etc.) in the 1920s and 1930s. This is a remarkable accomplishment.”—Don Roden, author of Schooldays in Japan

“Now the 'new women’ of interwar Japan join their subversive sisters around the globe in this vivid presentation of the social imaginaries of the modern girl, the housewife, and the professional working woman of middle-class Tokyo. Self-consciously modern, they were also evoked by their critics to redefine modernity, though not necessarily in directions they themselves might have wished. A new story, an old story, well told and nicely illustrated.”—Carol Gluck, Columbia University

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
List of Illustrations Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	xi
Prologue: Women and the Reality of the Everyday Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
1. The Emergence of Agency:Women and Consumerism Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	13
2. The Modern Girl as a Representation of Consumer Culture Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	45
3. Housewives as Reading Women Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	78
4. Work for Life, for Marriage, for Love Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	114
5. Hard Days Ahead:Women on the Move Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	152
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	165
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	213
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	233

Language: English
Publisher: Duke University Press
Pages
- Main content: 256
Illustrations
- Other: 33 illustrations, 4 tables

eBook

Published: April 16, 2003
ISBN: 9780822384762