＜特別寄稿＞
Neoliberalism and Feminism: from a Viewpoint of Women’s Agency
Focused on Japan
Kumiko Ida (Osaka Prefecture University)
Abstract
Austerity as a neo-liberal public policy is argued to have a negative impact on the level ofsocial reproduction owing to its reduction of social welfare costs and social services, and many
feminists point out that women’s conditions of living are getting worse because reproductive work,
both paid and unpaid, has been borne primarily by women.
On the other hand, a series of transnational initiatives of United Nations on women’s issues
and women’s movements of non-governmental organizations have been promoted since the ’70s,
and the issues of violence against women and women’s rights have been especially focused uponsince the ‘90s. It is argued that this trend would not have been realized without neoliberal
globalization because it has an inevitable tendency to weaken the national sovereignty. This paper
proposes to estimate growth and empowerment of women’s agency since the ‘70s, in the neoliberaltrend in Japan, which has a poor level of welfare state coupled with a strong gender bias. An
improvement of women’s conditions could not have been achieved without the mentioned
transnational pressures.

Introduction
This paper aims to discuss my view on the ambiguous relation between neoliberalism andfeminism focused on the situation in Japan.
First of all I’d like to declare I’m not a neo-liberalist feminist, if a type of such a feminism exists,
as Nancy Fraiser says, but I think the neoliberal global transformation of society affected, in asignificant way enough to promote gender equal policies, at least in Japan, and I think this aspectcannot be ignored although it gave a negative impact on the reproduction and the quality of life ofwomen.
Austerity as a neoliberal financial policy is criticized to promote not only the cost-cut but theprivatization of the social reproduction, constructing an ideology of self-responsibility which
considers welfare as an “overprotection” that may injure the autonomy and the free and opencompetition. So austerity promotes a process to leave social services provided by public sector to the- 123 -market, and caused the increase of the unpaid burden borne primarily by women due to the gendernorm.
There are many critical discussions on the negative impact of austerity as a neoliberal financial
policy on women and reproduction, but I refer here only a few important recent views.
In the symposium held in Japan in 2015, entitled “Neoliberalism, Policy and Labor from agender perspective”, Susan Himmelweit argued about the gender impact of austerity that underminessocial reproduction and said that European welfare states’ contribution to social reproduction wereundermined by the growth and increasing dominance of globally mobile financial capital(Himmelweit 2017). She says that in the welfare state capitalists and workers have had a commoninterest in the reproduction of national labor force. I was inspired very much by her following
suggestion. According to her, austerity means that finance capital has no interest in supporting thereproduction of any national working class (Himmerweit 2017). And she says that the growth of thewelfare state contributed massively to changing gender relations to equality.
Nancy Fraiser argues the affinity between neo-liberal ideology and 2nd wave feminism and points
out the similar key-concepts they have, such as empowerment, self-determination etc. and feminism
has to fight against the attack to reproduction (Fraiser 2016).
I totally agree with them. But I’d like to discuss another side of this transformative process, that is
the irreversible change of women’s agency.

1. Japan’s trend of neoliberalism in 1980s
The neoliberal trend of deregulation, privatization and cost-cut of social service is also the casewith Japan. Competition, ability and achievement have come to be praised especially from thebeginning of 1980s not only as discourses but also as the change of social institutions byderegulation and privatization. Workers, one of the essential commodities in capitalism, came to becalled “human resource” instead of labor force. This change indicates the “take off” of capitalism
into a new stage, in which labor force will no longer be essential nor indispensable for capitalism as
Himmelweit suggested. As for Japan, however, the level of the welfare state has been much lower
than European welfare states the discussion of Himmelweit is based on, and Japanese women rather
have changed themselves and grown up as an agency in the period of neoliberal transformation ofsociety.
The “Equal Employment Opportunity Law” (EEOL) passed in 1985. In the same period
de-regulational changes were introduced especially in the sphere of women and reproduction. The
Worker Dispatch Law was approved in 1985, the same year of the approval of the EEOL, and a- 124 -revision to the Labor Standards Act that relaxes working hours regulation in addition to therelaxation of the protection of women, which would be abolished completely in 1997 in the 1strevision of the EEOL. So in Japan the deregulation of the labor market had begun from the field
concerning with women and reproduction.
On the other hand, in the 1980s social welfare costs such as child allowance, child support
allowance for mother-children households, state subsidy of nursery schools, although insufficient tillthen, indispensible for female-headed households and working women, were cut off furthermore. At
the same time so-called “family basis enrichment policy” gave favorable treatment to a family with acouple of male breadwinner and housewife, considered as “standard family type”. It must be defined
as a typical austerity policy. Osawa analyses the process as a carrot-and-stick policy against women(Osawa 1993). The target was female-headed mother-children-households, increased in the 1980s
because of the increase of divorce. It could be considered as a threat to women who escape from thepatriarchal gender role.
As a welfare state, focusing on women and youth, Japan remained (and remains today) atrelatively poor level. No sooner the government declared the beginning of a real welfare state, the 1styear for welfare society in 1973, than it turned to austerity, after the 1st oil shock, named “Japanesestyle of welfare” reinforcing family norm based on gender-divided roles and women’s unpaid family
burden accompanied by the carrot-and-stick policies mentioned above. So certainly austerity
attacked reproduction and women but welfare state had never been well enriched before especiallyon women and so we’ve not experienced sufficient level of social support until today.

2. Change of women in Japan after 1970s
As for women, however, a great and irreversible change had taken place in the beginning of
1970s and the change of women was transnational. Gender equality became one of the important
issues discussed in the international organizations such as United Nations. It was the same time ofthe emergence of globalization and the indication of neoliberal economic trend. As Fraiser points out
there seems to be a kind of affinity between neo-liberalism and feminism. The key concept offeminism such as self-determination and empowerment are likely to support neo-liberal “autonomy”
as “self-responsibility” of reproduction.
Neoliberal deregulation aimed to cut off the welfare cost, and 2nd wave feminism challenged thepatriarchal paternalism of the gender-biased household, unit of the welfare state. “The commoninterest in social reproduction of capitalist and workers (Himmelweit, 2017) was not shared withwomen. Feminism revealed and criticized the invisible exclusion of women and their position as- 125 -minor citizens protected by and embedded in the patriarchal paternalistic system. Modern national
state is based on the strong paternalism represented by a male breadwinner and the wealth had neverbeen redistributed gender-equally.

3. Economic interest in women’s issues
International Women’s Year and 1st World Conference on Women in 1975 followed by UnitedNations Decade for Women were a series of epoch-making events held by United Nations. With
these events gender equality came to be one of the most important issues to be promoted in theworld. There worked some strong incentive in UN to promote a world conference, that is, Women In
Development approach. In fact strong interest on women’s economic contribution clearly existedfrom the beginning and remains till today. So economic and financial motivation and interest worked
and shed light on gender issues, especially on women’s paid and unpaid work. Before 1970 women’sissue had been excluded from UN conference agendas (Beckman & D’amico 1994). The WorldBank has had an Advisor on Women in Development since the early 1970s (Rathgeber 1989).
INSTRAW was founded in 1977 to research women’s invisible and unpaid work.
The promotion of gender equality was accompanied by economic concern and incentive. In factinternational organizations concerning to economic issues such as OECD, World Bank, World
Economic Forum have been eager to research and report on gender issues. A message such as“Gender equality and active participation of women promote the economic growth” has beenannounced over and over by these transnational organizations, and recently by Japanese government,too.

4. The impact of “Pressure from abroad” in Japan
As is known, Japanese government had been rather reluctant to establish the Equal Employment
Opportunity Law. Japan was obliged to change some national laws remained gender-inequal to ratify
CEDAW (Convention on Elimination of All forms of Discrimination Against Women) during UN
decade for women, and the enactment of the EEOL was one of the conditions required by theCommittee of CEDAW. Other conditions to be realized were gender-neutral revision of theNationality Law and the coeducation of home economics. Without the “pressure from abroad,” suchas CEDAW, gender equality policies wouldn’t have advanced, and EEOL also would not beestablished.
These obligations are the intervention in the domestic affairs of a nation-state. But Japanese- 126 -Government was obliged to change national laws to ratify an international agreement such asCEDAW. It shows the power of transnational organizations came to be superior to the nationalsovereignty.
And it suggests that globalization of economic activity, developed over the border, gradually
influenced and changed the concept of human rights, which was guaranteed by the law system of thenation state.
Since the 1970s international issues such as ecology, human rights of refugees, children, women,
and minorities have come to be discussed on the international table, which is likely to be a result of
the globalization and the relative power-down of the national sovereignty. Deregulation can reduce
the authority of the state and replace private organizations. Austerity is also the reduction of thenational public finance, called “small government”.
Optional protocol of CEDAW gives permission to the individual citizens to file a complaint withrespect to the nation state. Japan has not ratified it yet, but it does work substantially as Working
Women’s Network, a non-governmental organization, private voluntary network of women founded
in 1995, claimed to CEDAW in the cases of Sumitomo Companies on gender discrimination onwage.

5. Globalization and women’s rights
As for the impact of the globalization on women’s rights, Saskia Sassen’s argument gives
significant suggestions (Sassen 1998). She discusses that globalization of the labor force producedthe privatizing of transnational legal regimes by the transformation of the immigrant policy, whichshed light on minorities including women, who were hidden in the nation state. She says,“In the classical liberal tradition, the state does not intervene in home and family. Similarly,
according to international law, States do not intervene in the internal affairs of other states.” (ibid:93)“globalization is creating new operational and formal openings for the participation of non-State
actors and subjects. Once the sovereign State is no longer viewed as the exclusive representative of
its population in the international arena, women and other non-State actors can gain more
representation in international law; contribute to the making of international law; '”(ibid. 94)
In fact Women’s rights and elimination of violence against women became international issues in- 127 -the 1990s along with the rights of the child and campaign against child abuse. Women and children,
who had been represented by male head of household, have made themselves visible as agency.
From my point of view this can be considered as another impact of the globalization and neoliberaleconomic transformation.

6. Dual impacts of neoliberalism on women
As is argued by many feminists, neoliberal financial policy such as austerity has a negative
impact on social reproduction and women, and it is true also in Japan. On the other hand, a certain
degree of progress on gender equal policies achieved in Japan would not be realized without thepolitical “pressure” by the transnational convention such as CEDAW, which is also a result of theneoliberal transformation of state sovereignty.
In Japan, as is insisted by feminists such as Chizuko Ueno(2017), EEOL didn’t work and rather
made worse the labor conditions of women. But EEOL brought an important impact to deter fromopen discriminative discourses. I think the EEOL has had an impact on women’s agency in theideological way and many women must have been encouraged by its presence. Since 1980s numberof divorce and female-headed households is increasing. More than 70% of the divorce conciliation isfiled by the side of wife in spite of the threat of severe poverty risk (and sometimes violence risk)
after the divorce.

7. Successful results of women’s struggles and legal fights
After the 2nd half of 1980s, unions of women workers got organized in Osaka and Tokyo. and in
1990s successive court cases filed by women on wage discrimination won the epoch-making
judgments such as the court cases of Sumitomo groups, Kanematsu Trading company, Kyogas (anaffiliate company of Osaka Gas Company), Maruko-horn Manufacturing Company, and the 1st
sexual harassment case in Fukuoka, Cases of Yano, filed by the side of harasser, a professor ofuniversity, all of these cases ended with the victory of women.

8. Women’s agency and 2nd wave feminism
In the 2nd half of 1990s, the laws came to be changed. An article concerning sexual harassment
was added in EEOL in 1997, which followed by the enactment of Basic Law for a Gender-Equal
Society (1999), Child Abuse Prevention Law (2000), Domestic Violence Law (2001). This trend
would arrive at the very recent revision of the crime Law to toughen sexual violence. To win theseresults the impact of women’s agency did work and it mustn’t be underestimated.

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To challenge the neoliberal ideology such as self-responsibility that defines and justifies poverty
and inequality as a private matter caused by personal affairs, the famous slogan of the 2nd wave
feminism, “personal is political” remains persuasive and powerful even today.
References

Beckman Peter R. & D'Amico Francine (ed.), Women, Gender, and World Politics:
Perspectives, Politics, and Prospects, Bergin and Garvey, London 1994.

Fraiser Nancy, Contradiction of Capital and Care, New Left Review 7-8, 2016.

Himmelweit Susan, Changing Norms of Social Reproduction in an Age of Austerity, Journalof Gender Studies, No.20, Ochanomizu University, 2017.

◾

Osawa Mari, Kigyo-chusin-Shakai wo koete (Beyond the Business-central Society),
Jijitsushin-sha, Tokyo, 1993.

◾ Rathgeder Eva M., WID, WAD, GAD: Trends in Research and Practice,
International Development Research Center, Ottawa, 1989.

Sassen Saskia, Globalization and Its Discontents, New York: The New Press, 1998.

Ueno Chizuko, Neo-Riberarizumu to jenda (Neoliberalism and Gender), Journal of GenderStudies No20, Ochanomizu University , Tokyo, 2017.

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