In 1997, average age of Japanese men is 77.19 years old, though that of women is83.82, so Japanese women live about 7 years longer than men. A percentage of old womenin total number of old people, is as higher as older.
In these days, Japanese people are worrying about the life of old age. Especially, many people feel anxiety about economic matters, nowadays.
This paper makes clear about economic problems of old age and differences betweenmale and female, by means of analyzing statistical date on domestic income and expenditure, and so on.
Consequently, it is revealed that Japanese old women live in worse economic circumstancesthan men. Household Income of old women is fewer than that of men. Old womenreceive fewer old age pension than men. Old women who have their own propertyare very few.
On the other hand, A trait of old people's household expenditure is that health andmedical cost is very high. In relation with this, the ratio of women having medical treatmentis higher than men, that means much expenses for medical treatment are using forwomen. Besides, a ratio of women having health examination is lower than men.
Moreover, total number of women living in various kinds of homes for old people ismore than men. Because women marry men older than themselves usually. And womenlive longer than their husband and become widow living alone, children living apart. So, when old women become infirm and need help, no one is at home.
For the purpose of solving old people's care problems, the Care Insurance system isestablished. But the anxiety about health and economic matters of old age is not solved. The more services you receive from the Care Insurance, the more money you must pay. So, how the cost of health care should be maintained is a big problem.
Therefore, women should have their own occupations, income and social insurance entitlement. Society and Social policy should take every possible means for these purposes.

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It is confirmed that a physiologically normal range of age grows with aging. However, little is known about sex difference in advanced age from the viewpoint of quality of life and physical activity. It is needed to determine the correlation in a clinical setting.
The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between health-related quality of life (QOL) and daily physical activities in normal male and female elderly community-dwelling subjects in Osaka. Thirty-two men (mean age (standard deviation); 73.7 years (5.8 years)) and 37 women (69.7 years (4.8 years)) volunteered to take part in this investigation. As QOL parameter, Zung Self-rating Depression Scale (SDS), Life
Satisfaction Index-Z (LSI), Visual Analogue Scale of Happiness (VAS) and grip strength (Grip) of a participant's dominant hand were selected. Actigaphic recordings (Actigraph) were carried out as a parameter of daily physical activity of the subjects for 3 through 5 consecutive days and nights. No significant difference was found in SDS, LSI, and VAS between the two sexes, whereas both Grip and Actigraph differed significantly at the level less than 0.01. Moreover, the men's partial correlation with Actigraph showed relatively negative in SDS (r =-0.55) and weakly negative in VAS and Grip, and almost small positive in LSI (r =-0.30, -0.37 and r = 0.06, respectively). On the other hand, the women's coefficient (-0.11<r<0.19) was hardly demonstrated in any parameter.
These results suggest that SDS may be exerted appreciably greater effect on the men's daily activities and their clinical actigraphic status may be more relatively related to the QOL measures than the women's.17

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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.

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Die Veröffentlichung der Tagebücher von Thomas Mann hat es der Forschung ermöglicht, seine Werke aus der Sicht seiner Homosexualität neu zu interpretieren. Seither geht kaum eine Arbeit über den Autor an seinem sexuellen Problematik vorbei. Im vorliegenden Aufsatz, der auf dieser Forschun gsrichtung basiert, wurde versucht, zuzeigen, daß sich sein Ich durch die Auseinander setzung mit seiner Homosexualitätent wickelt hat.
Der am 19. Jahrhundert beginnende Dikurs um die gleichgeschlechtliche Liebe hat zurGleichsetzung von Homosexualität und Verweib-bzw. Verweichlichung geführt. Dadurch waren die Betroffenen dem fatalen Verdacht ausgesezt, homosexuell zu sein, heilße, kein Mann zu sein. In den friiheren Novellen hat Thomas Mann seine homoerotischen Gefüthle als unmännlich vernichtet, indem er die unmännlichen Protagonistenin den Tod treibt. Das zeigt zum einen, wie tief sich Thomas Mann in dasGender-System (männlich/weiblich) verwickelt, und zugleich daß er Männlichkeit alswertvoller als Weiblichkeit betrachtet.
Auch in seiner politischen Schriften beschäftigt er sich mit der Problematik der Männlichkeit.In (Betrachtungen eines Unpolitischen) (1918) wurden die weiblich assoziertenAusdrücke als Schimpfwort verwendet, um seinen Gegner “Frankreich”und “Demokratie” zu entwürdigen. Dabei identifiziert sich Mann mit Deutschland, dasals mdnnliches Prinzip hochges chatzt wird. Hier, alizu klar geht es um seinen Antifeminismusund Männlichkeitskult.
In seiner Rede (Von deutscher Republild) (1922) hat Mann die deutsche Jugend aufgefordert, die gefahrdete Republik zu retten. Inzwischen hatte sich sein Wandel vonkoservativ-nationalistisch zu fortschrittlich-demokratisch vollzogen, nicht aber in seinem Männlichkeitskult. Mit der Hilfe von Hans Blüher, des Theoretikers der Homosexualität, hat Mann auch in der Rede die Basis der Republik als homoerotisch-männlich verstanden. Vor dem Hintergrund der Worte Goethes, daß das Männliche der reinereund schönere Ausdruck des Menschen sei, konnte er seine Homosexualitat rechtfertigen.
Allerdings verrät sein fanatischer Kult für die Männlichkeit einerseits auf ironischer Weise die große Schwierigkeit, mit der er seine Weiblichkeit überwindet, andererseitszeigt er den harten Druck der männlichen Gesellschaft, unter dem Thomas Mann also Homosexueller sein Leben fiihren mußte. In diesem Sinne, -das mag banal klingen, war Thomas Mann ein Opfer der Genderideologie.

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Several scholars have indicated that the female education policy of the governmentand national language education which the government executed based on the languagepolicy had formed Japanese female speech in the pre-war days. But the control over femalespeech has not yet been fully explored. In this paper, I will show another channelwhich controlled female speech in the 1930's-1940's during the total war and analyzeits meaning. The channel is the movement of the National Language Association (NLA) which put language policy into practice. I will focus on the relationship between the NLA and the leaders of the female educators in private colleges and of women activists for equal rights.
First, I will briefly illustrate channels which influenced and controlled female speechand will show the position of the NLA, which supported the language policy of the government and propagated it to educated middle-class people. I will also indicate anexample of the control by the government, which regulated female and male speech anddirected middle school students and the nation to observe it in the Manners book (Reihoyoko) published in 1941.
Second, after I confirm the definition of the language policy, I will explore the movementof the NLA. The NLA was established in 1937. The president was Fumimaro Konoe, who was elected Prime Minister in 1937. The purpose of the NLA was to reformthe national language and protect its tradition and purity. The NLA asked the womenleaders to cooperate and establish the women's division in 1939. It began to propagate‘correct’ female speech through the media and the women leaders supported the NLA.
The ‘correct’ female speech, based on that of middle-class educated women in Tokyo, was the same as that in the Manners book, which directed women to use different pronouns from those used by men and to speak more politely than men. Though theaim of the authority was to subordinate a woman as a good wife and mother to a man, the women leaders accepted the ‘correct’ female speech policy. The women leaders considered the female speech to be the representation of the femininity and were pleasedthat the authority admitted the value of female speech. There fore the relationship between the NLA and the women leaders was interde pendent. The women elite themselve stook part in forming female speech and laid the foundation to educate the public afterthe war.

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This paper has a purpose to clarify the result of questionnaires on equal participationin decision-making at city level. This survey was held on July 1999 just after the Basic Act designed to promote a Gender Equal Society had been executed. The rate of with drawal of the questionnaires was 69% among 691 cities including 23 wards inTokyo. It is the first survey to examine all the cities though prefectures and big cities whose population is over 1 million are often surveyed.
My hypothesis in this survey was the following. In local government level financialsupport to promote gender equal society is cut because of adminis trative reformation. So equal treatment between both sexes is not progressed and in stagnation.
But under the survey it can be found that there are few cities suffered from financialcut. The policy to promote gender equality is operated step by step. But different levelcan be seen in the field of gender equality among cities. For example declaration to promoteequal participation was presented at 21 cities, 1 ward and 2 towns till the end of March 1998. Rate of equal participation in these cities is better than other cities. And allof them made a basic plan to promote gender equality.
The government has a policy to appoint female members into more than 20% of allmembers at the councils till the end of March 2001 and 30% in next ten years. Theaverage percent is 17% which is less than the goal. But in Kanto district there are 13 cities which attain more than 30% and 52 cities which attain less than 30% and morethan 20%.
The number of female members is increasing at city assembly. According to the surveyby the Ministry of Home Affairs, female members occupied 7.6% of the seats of allthe local assemblies. Under this survey, average perecent is 8%. There are only 5 citiesin Kanto district which show more than 30%, and 48 cities which show less than 30% and less than 20%.
The administrative reformation does not effect the policy on gender equality becausebudget for this policy is only limited in average to 0.1%-0.05% of all the budge tarycosts. But there are many cities to situate gender equalty problem as important target ofthe policy. Hence they shall endeavour to promote gender equality to the target goal. For example, some prefectures and cities are making regulations on gender equality.

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