著者

原 喜美 ハラ キミ Kimi Hara

雑誌

国際基督教大学学報. I-A, 教育研究 = Educational Studies

巻号頁・発行日

vol.6, pp.195-221, 1960-03

---

The women's status in Japan, so to speak, has been elevated in a zig-zag course with the progress of the modernization of the country since the Meiji Restoration in 1868. The ideal image of woman in each age was greatly affected by the aim of the country. It is needless to mention those drastic changes in the political, legal, economic, social and educational fields brought about with the termination of World War II, but, first of all, the writer takes a brief review of the postwar changes of the women's status in Japan. Though educational and occupational opportunities have been greatly expanded for women, in reality, women are still discriminated and given pressure from different directions. It is said that the emancipation of women in Japan has struck against a wall. The writer, in hopes of locating where problems exist, has investigated 350 graduating university female students in six leading universities in Tokyo including three women's universities and. three coeducational ones. The questionnaire included such questions as whether they will go to graduate schools or take up a job; what kind of job they will take; why they choose such a job; how they evaluate the social status of the Japanese women; how they depict their ideal images after 10 years from now, etc. In. conclusion, it can be said that mainly because the women's status has struck a far more stable balance than existed immediately after the end of World War II, those young educated women are less eager and less conscious of elevating their status than the older generation revealed in another study. The chief obstacles which. hinder the promotion of women's status, according to those young women students, are lack of their strong professional consciousness and of understanding on the part of men.