HIEA 115 Medium Post Wk2
- Medium post #2: Why is Tsurumi’s argument about the importance of Japanese women’s labor power to nation-building an important intervention to week 1’s theorizations of nationalism? On the flip side, what experiences might focusing too much on this point occlude?
In the previous week, we had an insight into Anderson and McClintock’s theories of nationalism. Anderson argues that a nation is an imagined community shared by people with the same identification. On the other hand, McClintock’s theory is that men and women have unique roles within a community. In Tsurumi’s publication on Japanese women’s labor power, we can see that women of the Meiji period were heavily oppressed and abused by society. They were treated like second-class citizens compared with the male counterpart and shared a completely separate community by themselves. Seen as subordinates to men, women had very limited freedom. Behind the economic boom of the Meiji period, thousands of women were forced to work in factories with very low wages. On top of that, they were also harassed by not only males, sometimes by superior females as well. I think if we use Anderson’s theory to define a nation, women that shared a similar status created a “nation” apart from the rest to themselves; they each lives the image of their communion without knowing most members of the group. On the flip side, this phenomenon is expected to exist within a nation using McClintock’s definition; “All nationalisms are gendered, all are invented, and all are dangerous…” People of both genders have their roles, and nationalism is built upon their unique identities.
No matter which theory to follow, I think focusing too much on it would lead to overlooking the situation women were in. Under both theories, women would be placed and seen as members of a community, while in reality they were treated differently in a negative way. Compare with the Meiji period, such inequality has greatly decreased in recent time, but still persist in modern Japanese society.
