A Study on the Nationalization of Women from the Viewpoint of Gender

Through the Analysis of Certain “Home Economics” Texts in Prewar Japan

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to examine the process of ‘the nationalization of women’ in prewar Japan. Based on poststructuralist gender theory, this process is identified with the gendering of ‘nation’ by the nation state and it entailed the creation of an understanding of the relationship between men and women as ‘nation’. Home economics in higher education had a certain role in this process. The conclusion here is that the process of the nationalization of women was not a simple matter but rather involved mediation by political considerations.