The Declaration of Universal Human Rights was adopted in 1948, and on its 50th anniversary, its consciousness-raising characteristics regarding gender equality should be attracting more attention. The problems resulting from discrimination based on gender should be solved both globally and regionally. In Japan, feminist activists and researchers have emphasized the necessity of empowerment of adults and young people, and programs for this purpose have taken place both on and off campus since the 1970's. Under the influence of Women's Studies, Men's Studies programs were initiated in the 1990's.
Since the International Women's Year, the Japanese Government has adopted policies for the elevation of the social status of women, and in 1996 the “Plan for Gender Equality 2000” was adopted. In the same year, the Ministry of Education announced a “Seminar for the Promotion of Gender Equality” aimed at young people. Such government policies are interesting in two ways. Firstly, young people's attitudes to wards the choices of their life course are linked to the policies dealing with population and the labour force. In this way, government policies relating to empowerment education for young people would be adopted to solve the problems of an aging society. Secondly, young people would be empowered by learning about the equality and identity of both sexes in their own right.
I have conducted surveys on young people's attitudes towards their life course choices while promoting empowerment education. I subsequently conducted surveys on Hyogo prefecture civil servants which clearly show that the most desirable life course for young people is to pursue their work while raising children. However, young people show a tendency to resign themselves to existing social conditions. Nevertheless there were cases obsereved where Hyougo prefecture civil servants were capable of pursuing the young people's ideal life course, namely concurrently raising children without interrupting the course of their work. The attitude of Hyogo prefecture civil servants could be a role model for young people to follow. And yet, an apropriate social infrastructure would be necessary to support the efforts of these civil servants and young people for the future.

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A feminism comic book “Shinkirari” is a fine piece of work which gives a vividdescription of how a common housewife becomes a determined, independent woman. In this thesis, the problems of conjugal relations under the yoke of gender are investigated with “Shinkirari” as a text from the point of what a husband calls his wifeand how this type of labelling changes.
Chiharu Yamakawa is a housewife in her earlythirties. Her husband is a typical male chauvinist of the apres-guerre generation. Hisown reason tells that men and women are equal, but he finds it hard to clearly imaginethat his wife also has her own dreams and goal in life. He takes it for granted thata house wife be unconditionally subordinate to her husband who works outside andmakes the money. As a natural result, he speaks to Chiharu in a peremptory tone andcalls her “Omae”. As the personal pronoun for the second person in Japanesere alistically represents human relations, what a Japanese couple call each other in sucha way that a husband calls his wife “Omae” and a wife calls her husband “Anata”is in general obviously unbalanced and explicitly demonstrates that the couple are byno means on an equal footing. Chiharu calls her husband “Anata” too, but starts tohave doubts about her position in marriage and begins to complain about her husband'sconduct. She also starts to feel negative towards her husband calling her “Omae”, as“Omae”-a word that holds a person in contemptcan lead to discourse that naturallycontains the feelings of disdain, jeer, unconcern, and ridicule of the counterpart. Chiharu makes up her mind to open a shop. Naturally, her husband is stronglyopposed to her going into business, but finds that Chiharu now has determine dresolution and gradually admits that he has to give way. From that time on, theexpression he uses to call her changes from “Omae” to “Kimi” which implies that therelationship between the two has now turned to be more equal. Chiharu's shop getsgoing and she turns a tidy profit, far beyond her husband's imagination. One evening, he speaks his mind to her, “Honestly speaking, I feel afraid to see you standing onyour own two feet. I can't help but think that you will not need me any more someday.” His remarks indicate the fact that the Japanese man and wife are connected witheach other only for reasons of economy, that at least men think their conjugal statusis maintained in such a way, and that they do not realize how much their wives arethirsty for a more spiritual relationship. The stronger economically turns out to be themaster in marriage. The relations are clearly demonstrated in the language used. Thestatus quo will be maintained as long as the language is used and reproduced in thenext generation. We can say, therefore, that the way a man refers to his wife is nolonger merely a word.

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The purpose of this paper is to discuss the activities of the Organization for Promoting Coeducational Home Economics. The focus will be on the introduction of gender perspective and the establishment of education for equality of the sexes. The Organization started its activities in January of 1974 as a joint educational movementof people engaged in home economics and citizens who wanted to establish homeeconomics as a compulsory school subject for both boys and girls. The organizationwas dissolved in March 1997 after successfully achieving its goals.
The purpose of the organization's campaign was to establish an educational systemof compulsory home economics for boys and girls and to achieve equality in educationamong the sexes. The organization also sought to redesign the subject from a subjectonly for girls to one for boys and girls alike. This was achieved by redefining fixedgender role division by introducing gender perspective into the education syllabus. Thesechanges were considered necessary to improve the social status of women in Japan, tochange the conventional mindset about role division by sex, to realize gender equalityand to ensure a gender-sensitive educational system.The results of the 23-year activities of the organization include:
1. Through its unique efforts in spreading an educational view-based on the fusionof educational practice and driven by the social demand for the improvementin the status of women-the organization effectively implemented gender perspectivein the contents of school subjects.
2. The efforts of the organization were also in line with activities for the ratificationof the United Nations' “Convention on the Elimination of the All Forms of Discrimination against Women.” The compulsory Home Economics course forboys and girls was realized in 1987 through the revision in the curricula afterconsiderable and controversial debate on the provisions of Article 10, “Same Curricula for Both Sexes.”
3. By implementing the new curriculum, Home Economics from elementary schoolthrough high school shifted from a subject for the housewife training for girlsto training both boys and girls to be self-reliant citizens. During the process, the contents of the subject was redefined to provide equal education between thesexes, and a gender-free perspective was introduced in the textbooks. Such study activities have been rare in the history of education in this country, andare considered to hold valuable implications for the future in terms of retention of the equality of the sexes in education as well as the direction of gender study.

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With the remarkable progress made by medical science in the 19th century, there wasa growing awareness of the importance of physical health and public hygiene, and theneed for fresh air and exercise. This was especially true in England where physical fitness came to be regarded as more and more important.
The Victorian era was the age of the middle class, with its growing need to findits own set of values, which led to the desire to discover new sports and games. Inthe second half of the 19th century, technology changed the sporting scene in manyways. With the widespread availability of rubber used to produce balls for the sportingworld, several new ball games appeared. Lawn tennis grew popular mainly in theuppermiddle class and gave women the opportunity to play as well as men.
At the end of the 19th century, the sporting view of women began to change. Cycling became the center of interest for all classes. The popularity of cycling providedspecial clothes for sports called “bloomers”. Some women gradually began to preferfunctional clothes to fashionable clothes when they engaged in sports.
The invention of the tailored costume in the late 1880s contributed to the developmentof a practical dress code, which became not only the clothing of sport butalso the new career women's uniform. However, it was not really so emancipating; thewaist was tight and the skirts and underskirts were still long.
But women in this masculine style of dressing gave the opportunity for the awarenessof setting a high value on health and for the expression of equality with men. Towardsthe 20th century some English women were gradually changing into the New Women.

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