I have been confused with blatant sexism in Japanese society but lately I've been reading about Japan's history and I realized that women's movement had very little success there prior to American occupation. Some basic facts that I learned:
The Security Police Law of 1900 forbade women, who had no vote, from even attending political meetings, or taking political science classes. Traditional means of birth control were forbidden as Japan encouraged population growth after losses in the 1905 war with Russia. The highest achievement expected of women was to fulfill the ideal of “good wife/good mother.” Women were granted the right to vote only in 1946 and that was basically the initiative from the occupying forces of the United States. In fact before the 1946 constitution women hardly had any rights to speak of. Beate Sirota Gordon was the woman who drafted the parts of constitution devoted to human rights. She said: "Japanese women were historically treated like chattel; they were property to be bought and sold on a whim."
The Revised Civil Code of 1898 stated that a woman who commits adultery is subject to divorce and up to two years in prison. However, a woman was unable to divorce her husband if he committed adultery. A woman was divorced and sent back to her family not only for bad health or barrenness but disobedience, jealousy, and even talkativeness.
As of 2013, The Equal Employment Opportunity Law in Japan does not prohibit sexual harassment at workplace. The problem of sexism, discrimination and underrepresentation is old and very relevant. In the lower house of the Diet, women hold only 8% of seats, with 19% in the upper house. In a global survey of women in parliaments, Japan ranked 123rd out of 189 countries. In 2011, 4.5% of company division heads were female, up from 1.2% in 1989. But relative to other countries the numbers are still dismal. Of the most senior, executive-committee-level managers in Japan, 1% were women in 2011, according to a regional study by McKinsey. The equivalent figure for China was 9%, for Singapore 15%.
Although abortion laws were adopted and amended many times since 1941 the birth control pill was legalized in Japan in 1999.
Reference:
www.economist.com/news/briefing/21599763-womens...
www.womeninworldhistory.com/sample-193.html