The Quiet Revolution: Japanese Women Working around the Law

Japan is not renowned for the muscle oexed by its feminist movement. Although legal protections for women do exist, the stereotype of the subservient geisha dominates Japanese women’s international image, and fringe feminist activity has been sporadic at best. In fact, the Japanese media has a history of mocking the more radical women’s movements. Despite the absence of a conventional feminist movement, women have made progress in the area of employment, partially due to the 1985 Equal Employment Opportunity Law (EEOL). Although the issue of women’s employment has received a great deal of attention in the context of anti-discrimination law, with many in-depth studies analyzing both the EEOL’s potency and its inadequacy, to date the law has not been placed within a meaningful social context. In order to evaluate the law’s potential for spurring social change, it must be examined not in a vacuum, but within the framework of women’s lifestyle choices. Contrary to international perceptions of Japanese women, many social indices point to the conclusion that women in Japan are quietly re-