Leadership in Post-War Japanese Democratization Movements - Fusae Ichikawa: Focusing on Ideology, Political Opportunity Structures, and Networking as a Mobilization Strategy

EAI Japan Studies Panel Report No. 4

Author

Lee Jiyoung, Full-time Researcher, Institute of Japanese Studies, Kookmin University. Graduated from Hankuk University of Foreign Studies Graduate School of Translation and Interpretation and received a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Tsukuba, Japan. Her publications include "The Political Economy of Regional Integration (co-authored)," "The Impact of Japan's Immigration Policy on Migrant Women," "The Ideology of Livelihood Politics and Welfare Policies of the Democratic Party," and "Analysis of Japan's Employment Equality Policy Process - Focusing on Values, Beliefs, Women's Representation, and Institutional Structures."

I. Introduction

The core of modern democratic thought lies in individual liberty and equality, and democracy has evolved through laws and institutions that guarantee individual liberty and equality as rights. However, the individual was premised on being male, excluding women, so liberty and equality were rights only for men, and free and equal male citizens have dealt with the common problems and interests of community members as subjects of democracy. Politics, which deals with public issues and interests, did not address women's issues and interests, and women's experiences, interests, and demands were not properly reflected in laws and institutions. Democracy was incomplete, and its history was long. Therefore, the women's movement, which seeks to discover women as subjects of democracy and rectify gender discrimination in laws and institutions, is a democratization movement that seeks to overcome the incompleteness of democracy, and the establishment of women's subjectivity and the realization of gender equality consolidate democracy.

In the late 19th century, Japan also established a modern democratic political system by promulgating the Meiji Constitution (1889) and opening a parliament (1890), and holding elections. However, Japan's democracy was incomplete. The right to vote was limited to men who paid 15 yen or more in national taxes, and even after the enactment of the Universal Suffrage Law (1925), women were not granted suffrage. Furthermore, the Civil Code (1898) legalized Japan's traditional Ie system, granting the head of the household absolute power while treating women, who could not become the head of the household, as incompetent. Movements to rectify this gender discrimination and restore women's subjectivity began before the war but gained momentum and began to yield results under the post-war occupation reforms. Women were granted suffrage (1945), a new constitution proclaiming gender equality was enacted, and the Civil Code was amended to abolish the Ie system. Gender equality and the acquisition of women's subjectivity were symbols of Japan's democratization under the occupation reforms. Although these reforms were top-down reforms by the occupation authorities, Japanese women did not merely accept them passively. From immediately after the defeat, Japanese women voluntarily organized groups and sought inter-organizational linkages to realize gender equality and Japan's democratization, and have carried out their movements.

However, the general Western view of the Japanese women's movement is based on the theory of Japanese exceptionalism. That is, it emphasizes the uniqueness of the Japanese women's movement compared to its Western counterpart, the most representative of which is the discussion of 'housewife feminism.' It is argued that the Japanese women's movement is indifferent to participating in political institutions or processes, prioritizes private life and individual choices, and emphasizes women's motherhood and role as housewives over gender equality. Another perspective focuses on the structural particularities of the women's movement, analyzing it as issue-specific, decentralized, and region-oriented (Gelb 2003, 27-38). This paper begins with a questioning of these exceptionalist theories of the Japanese women's movement. The theory of Japanese exceptionalism overlooks the fact that the post-war Japanese women's movement has continuously pursued gender equality and its institutionalization, particularly the fact that gender equality, pursued as part of post-war democratization reforms through the consolidation of the women's movement, was preserved amidst the 'reverse course' that sought to rectify the excessive democratization of the early occupation period, and that it has internalized international standards in gender equality policy through the movement to ratify the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.

This paper aims to examine the process of promoting gender equality and democratization in post-war Japan through the leadership of Fusae Ichikawa. A leader is a person authorized as a subject for socio-political collective action. Leadership is influenced by the leader's ideology and their ability to mobilize resources and political opportunity structures to realize that ideology (Samuels 2003, 6), and can be understood as the leader's behavioral pattern that emerges from the interaction between the leader's ideology and the socio-political structure.

In a pluralistic society, women's experiences and issues are not uniform. Furthermore, even if gender equality is pursued as a women's issue, gender equality does not exist a priori as a clearly defined concept. In reality, we face the fundamental problem of how to treat women, who have maternal functions such as pregnancy, childbirth, and breastfeeding, which men do not have, equally with men, and what policy measures to use. Should maternal functions be protected as a special value, or does the protection of maternal functions contradict equality? Is the maternal function an individual woman's function or a social function? (Scott 1988, 174-207). Depending on the leader's ideology regarding gender equality, the direction of the movement and the resulting policies will be determined by whether to demand the protection of maternal functions as a special value or to demand equal social, economic, and political rights with men (Lee Jiyoung 2009, 174-175). The extent to which social consensus and support, and physical resources can be mobilized for such a leader's ideology is crucial for the success or failure of the movement. In the case of the women's movement, human and financial resources are generally scarce. Moreover, the movement leader's ideology demands a transformation of existing institutions and the vested interests of men, making it difficult to mobilize broad social consensus and support, and large amounts of physical resources. One strategy to overcome this vulnerability of resources is networking. Through networking among women's organizations and various social movement organizations, leaders can supplement scarce physical resources, disseminate and share their ideologies, and secure social consensus and support for them (Shiobara Tsutomu 1989). The political opportunity structure, which promotes or restricts the development of the movement, is the leader's resource and support mobilization strategy. The political opportunity structure refers to the environmental factors surrounding the actors, representing the structure of political opportunities and constraints that the leader faces. The outcome of the movement varies depending on how the leader perceives and utilizes this opportunity structure.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of Ichikawa's leadership on the promotion of gender equality and democratization in post-war Japan by focusing on Ichikawa Fusae, a leader in the post-war Japanese democratization movement, and analyzing how Ichikawa mobilized support and resources for her ideology and utilized political opportunity structures.

II. Previous Research and Subject of Analysis

Previous research on Ichikawa is very limited. In particular, there are almost no studies that analyze Ichikawa's post-war efforts for gender equality and democratization or focus on her leadership. She is often treated as a part of the history of the Japanese women's movement (Tanaka Sumiko ed. 1969; 1975; Ito Yasuko 1974; Suzuki Yuko 1989), or studies have examined her pre-war movement for women's suffrage (Sugawara Kazuko 2002). Materials related to Ichikawa primarily consist of her autobiography. In 1994, the Ichikawa Memorial Association published a collection of Ichikawa's writings from 1916 to 1981, which appeared in periodicals, magazines, and newspapers of organizations related to Ichikawa. This paper is the first analysis to examine the process of promoting gender equality and democratization in post-war Japan by focusing on the leadership of Fusae Ichikawa, and it is expected to provide insights into the study of Ichikawa and Japanese social movements.

The main subjects of analysis in this paper are the movement to enact the Prostitution Prevention Law, the movement to ratify the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (hereinafter referred to as the Convention Ratification Movement), and the Ideal Election Movement, all of which took place after the war. The Prostitution Prevention Law (1956) is an example of social organizations uniting across the political spectrum, from the Liberal Democratic Party to the Socialist Party and the Communist Party, and Ichikawa was at the center of it. After being elected to the House of Councillors in 1953, Ichikawa organized a supra-partisan group of female parliamentarians in the House of Representatives and the House of Councillors and advocated for the necessity of ratifying the UN Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others, leading the movement amidst fierce opposition from some male parliamentarians and industry stakeholders. This movement to enact the Prostitution Prevention Law led to the anti-sex tourism movement by Japanese men in the 1970s. Next, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (hereinafter referred to as the Convention) was the legalization in 1979 of the Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1969. The ratification of the Convention was a major goal of the 'UN Decade for Women (1975-1985),' which advocated for 'gender equality and the advancement of women's status under the banner of the United Nations.' Ichikawa promoted unified activities for the signing and ratification of the Convention. She brought together women's organizations beyond differences in age, size of organization, or conservative/progressive ideology, and allied with other social organizations, autonomously handling all aspects, including fundraising, organizing the movement, and advancing its agenda, without relying on the state. She also recognized and actively utilized the UN's global efforts to promote gender equality as a political opportunity structure, securing the movement's legitimacy while exerting pressure on the government. These efforts resulted in the revision of domestic laws and the ratification of the Convention (1985). Finally, the Ideal Election Movement was a movement organized by Ichikawa to ensure the substantive exercise of women's suffrage, granted under the occupation reforms, by discovering female candidates and promoting clean, low-cost elections centered on female voters, thereby revitalizing parliamentary democracy. Through ideal elections, Ichikawa called upon women as subjects of politics and criticized money politics, implementing ideal elections in her own House of Councillors campaigns. In 1967, she participated in the 'Association to Support Minobe's Ideal Election' for the Tokyo gubernatorial election. Subsequently, the Ideal Election Movement gained momentum, particularly in local elections, leading to the birth of progressive local governments and the participation of women in local politics, thereby promoting grassroots democracy in Japanese politics.

This paper aims to examine the impact of Ichikawa's leadership on the post-war Japanese women's movement and democratization by analyzing the Prostitution Prevention Law enactment movement, the Convention ratification movement, and the Ideal Election Movement, focusing on Ichikawa's ideology, political opportunity structures, and networking as a resource mobilization strategy. Born in 1893, Ichikawa led the pre-war women's suffrage movement through the Meiji, Taisho, and Showa eras. During the war, she collaborated with the war effort amidst a retreat in activism. After the war, she experienced a ban from public office under the occupation reforms. Upon the lifting of the ban, she revived the women's movement and, as a women's activist and politician, promoted gender equality and the democratization of Japanese politics until her death in 1981. First, before delving into a concrete analysis of Ichikawa's post-war leadership, this paper will examine Ichikawa's pre-war activism and its position and significance within the women's movement of that time... (Continued)