Making working mothers: The unhappy marriage of neoliberalism and feminism in contemporary Japan

This dissertation investigates the causes and consequences of the unlikely alignment between the administration of Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi (2001-2006) and a group of feminists who hoped to establish a gender-equal society in Japan ("gender-equality feminists"). Amid mounting national anxieties arising from the government's inability to cope with declining birthrates and economic recession, the Koizumi administration eschewed government responsibility for these escalating crises by adopting a neoliberal position on social and economic issues. This shift, which sought to wean individuals from government support by emphasizing both their right and their duty to self-sufficiency and independence, unexpectedly aligned the government with gender-equality feminists who wanted to transform housewives into working mothers. Discourse by these feminists bolstered the neoliberal government's agenda to reverse the declining birthrate and thereby produce enough future workers to support the social security system, sustain the labor force, and help the national economy to recover. Combining literature analysis with ethnographic research into the mundane practices of governmental and nongovernmental workers who implement national government childcare policies, this research explores how the alignment between the two disparate parties emerged and its lived consequences.;This study suggests that the new political alignment between neoliberalism and gender-equality feminism situated the management of Japan's population at the center of economic, labor, and welfare policies. National and local governments intended to help working mothers by establishing a gender-equal society in which not only husbands but also other community members would assume child rearing duties from working women. This alignment between neoliberalism and feminism, however, began creating inequalities and tensions among women while neglecting problems of gender inequality. While examining both conformity and resistance to the national government by those implementing childcare policies, this work explores both the limits of governance and a particular form of agency that does not seek political action to address grievances. This research results in a critical anthropology of feminism that emphasizes the impossibility of separating feminism from a technology of power; it also contributes to existing research that suggests the importance of separating agency from the will for freedom.