ジェンダー・ポリティックスの日本的展開

抄録

Politics has been the most explicitly masculine activities of all human social practices. In a traditional society, women have long been excluded from political activities. Andeven after they were endowed the political rights equal to men, women's underrepresentationin political arena has still been the commonplace in the world. Indeed, women'sinterests and concerns have been considered as apolitical, and women have been discouraged to define their interests and perspectives.
However in the past three decades, major transformations in sexual relations havetaken place. Globalization in the world market has brought about the global feminizationin the workplace. Equalization between the sexes in educational opportunities andqualificatin has rapidly proceeded. And particularly in many developed nations, genderequality law has been enacted. Above all, the women's movement of the 70's has tremendously enhanced the women's self-confidence and self-esteem.
As the result, women in both developed and developing nations have emerged as beinghighly politicized. The international median rate of congress women of the national government has risen from 7.4% in 1975 to 11.8% in 1997. In the Nordic nations, women's political represen tation has exceeded 30%.
As compared to the women's political advancement in the Western countries, Japanese women are lagging far behind politically. The rate of the Japanese congress womenin the Upper House is 17.1%, ranking 22 in the world, and 5%, in the Lower House, ranking 126, as of the year of 2000. This political disadvantages of the Japanese women are primarily caused by the peculiar Japanese political culture which hasstemmed from the prewar political situations.
In the current paper, the examination was made to delineate the emerging trend of gender politics in the contemporary Japanese society. I have shed the lights on the politicalactivities of “Seikatsusha Network (network for the autonomous life surroundings).”The network comprises mainly of housewives who work for the consumer's cooperatives, which started in Setagaya ward in 1968 and spread rapidly over metoropolitanarea. Since the network first placed one official candidate for the Metropolitan electionof 1977, it has succeeded in sending over 120 delegates to the local government throughoutJapan.
Thorough examination was made as to the political ideal and style upon which thenetwork is based. And it has found that they are uniquely differentiated from the ordinary masculine politics. The attempt was also made to locate the answer why and howthe network's political activities are different from man's politics.