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- Convenor:
-
Lynne Nakano
(The Chinese University of Hong Kong)
Send message to Convenor
- Format:
- Panel
- Section:
- Transdisciplinary: Gender Studies
- Location:
- Lokaal 2.21
- Sessions:
- Friday 18 August, -
Time zone: Europe/Brussels
Short Abstract:
Women in Japan are expected to perform at high levels in the domestic arena and at work. Such expectations generate anxieties for women regarding role fulfillment and mask inequalities in gendered labor arrangements. This panel explores women’s role-related anxieties and countermeasures in Japan.
Long Abstract:
Women’s domestic roles in Japan are respected and taken seriously. Yet this respect may be accompanied by unrealistic expectations that women flawlessly manage family relationships, the raising of children, and eldercare while engaging in paid labor. These expectations have the potential to generate anxiety regarding performance, particularly in relation to mothering and caregiving. The focus on women’s performance in managing both domestic roles and paid employment and may also mask structural problems and inequalities in the ways in which women’s labor is organized in society as a whole. This panel presents four papers that explore how women in various sectors of society address anxieties and pressures related to their performance in the domestic arena and at work. The first paper explores how female physicians at a university hospital struggle with anxieties regarding balancing career and domestic responsibilities, and how such anxieties reflect female physicians’ career decision-making during a time of shortages of medical practitioners particularly in regional areas. The second paper explores the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on women with eating disorders. It examines the stressors felt by these women, their access to health care services during the COVID-19 pandemic, and how these women attempt self-care through participating in support groups. The third paper examines anxieties regarding motherhood experienced by middle-class women in Japan in comparison with women of a similar class in China. The fourth paper provides an overview of how the COVID-19 pandemic with school closures and increased work-from-home practices has exacerbated the pressures faced by women in managing housework, childcare, and eldercare. Taken together, the papers shed light on how complex expectations upon women result in fears and worries among women regarding their ability to meet these expectations. The papers also reveal how women address role-related pressures through a variety of tactics including retreating from the workforce, negotiating to receive support from family members and colleagues, and communicating with other women to find solutions to stress-related illnesses.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Friday 18 August, 2023, -Lin Sun (The Chinese University of Hong Kong)
Paper short abstract:
Based on long-term fieldwork since 2015 among dozens of middle-class mothers in their 30s in Tokyo and Shanghai, this paper explores the similarities and differences in the ways that women in urban Japan and China understand, experience, and negotiate anxiety in motherhood.
Paper long abstract:
Intensive parenting is pervasive among urban families in Japan. This culture is imbued with anxiety, especially among middle-class mothers. While this phenomenon in Japan is frequently studied in light of conditions in western societies, it has seldom been explored by juxtaposing Japan with other East Asian societies where anxiety in motherhood also appears to be pervasive. Western conditions are useful reference points. However, certain features of a group or a society will only become prominent if we compare it with others that seem to be similar. Based on my long-term fieldwork among dozens of middle-class mothers in their thirties in Tokyo and Shanghai since 2015, this paper explores how women of these two societies understand, experience, and negotiate motherhood anxiety similarly and differently. Following psychological anthropologists such as Richard Shweder and Teresa Kuan who see emotion as “the whole story” (Shweder 2003; Kuan 2011, 2015), the paper argues that, on the one hand, mothers’ anxiety in both locales emerges at the intersections between the longstanding gendered expectation for women to be responsible and caring mothers, their own desire to secure a better future for their children by helping them gain a competitive edge, and their growing neoliberal consciousness that privileges individuality, self-fulfillment and independence. On the other hand, how they experience and negotiate such anxiety differs due to factors including the kind of support mechanisms available to them at various levels, how they feel about being “middle-class” in their respective societies, and how they anticipate the future in which their children will live. A comparative approach between two East Asian societies with apparently similar anxious mothering cultures will enable us to see through some taken-for-granted indigenous perceptions such as what constitutes a good woman/mother and inspire alternative ways to deal with this at once universal and socioculturally specific emotional experience.
Junko Otani (University of Osaka)
Paper short abstract:
This paper examines the ways in which the COVID-19 pandemic adversely impacted women in Japan. It shows how the pandemic led to increases in women’s care burdens, increased difficulties in managing domestic responsibilities and paid employment, and rising cases of domestic and sexual abuse.
Paper long abstract:
The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted social problems arising from gender-based inequalities and differential social role expectations of women and men. Based on an analysis of public documents, this presentation focuses on three ways that women have been adversely affected by the pandemic in Japan. First, it became clear from the time of the first wave of COVID-19 in the spring of 2020 that caregiving burdens had increased for women. As women are responsible for both childcare and nursing care for aged parents, it became difficult for women to fulfill their roles as essential workers such as nurses and nursery schoolteachers, despite the acute need for women's labor. Women’s labor force participation, especially for women in non-regular employment, declined during the pandemic. School closures hit women hard. When schools closed, many female teachers and students were forced to stay at home. When children could not go to school or day care, women could not go out to work. Social norms that expect women to manage caregiving created gender disparities and inequalities in the roles and burdens taken up by men and women in the home. When men worked from home, women and children were expected to stay quiet leading to high levels of stress in families. Lastly, rates of domestic violence (DV) and sexual exploitation and abuse of displaced girls and young women increased. The reported number of the unexpected teenage pregnancy also increased particularly during the first wave of the pandemic.
Jing Li (Osaka University)
Paper short abstract:
This paper discusses the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on women with eating disorders in Japan who attend eating disorder support groups. The paper covers the effect of pandemic-related stressors on women’s health and mental health care, and shows how women use support groups to reclaim health.
Paper long abstract:
Eating disorders are common psychiatric disorders in adolescent and young adult females. In Japan, the number of patients with eating disorders is now estimated to be about 220,000. In October 2021, the National Center for Child Health and Development in Japan conducted a survey of children's mental status during the COVID-19 pandemic and found that the number of first-time outpatients with the eating disorder "anorexia" increased about 1.6 times and the number of new admissions increased about 1.4 times in 2020 compared to 2019 before the epidemic. While the number of patients with eating disorders is rapidly increasing, there are still only four eating disorder support base hospitals in Japan considered to be specialized treatment institutions. As a result, self-help groups for eating disorders play a significant role in supporting the patients.
While some pandemic-related stressors affect nearly everyone, many especially affect women. This study focuses on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on women with eating disorders who attend eating disorder self-help groups and the following three aspects will be discussed in the paper: the pandemic-related stressors on women and their association with eating disorder symptoms; the impact on the mental health care of women with eating disorders at the COVID-19 pandemic; and the role of self-help groups that support women with eating disorders under the various impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Mizuho Kido (Saga University)
Paper short abstract:
This paper discusses the anxieties experienced by female physicians working in a regional university hospital. It finds that female physicians are discouraged by numerous factors including high social pressures on childrearing and lack of support at their workplaces.
Paper long abstract:
In 2022, the Japanese government reported that people over age 75 comprise over 15% of Japan’s population. As the population ages, the demand for medical care has reached unprecedented levels. However, Japan faces a severe shortage of physicians especially in rural areas. The uneven distribution of physicians by region and by specialty is widely recognized and the pandemic has underlined the urgency of addressing this issue. In 2010, Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare launched a project to support female physicians by investigating issues surrounding work satisfaction, career continuity, and work-life balance. Government support for this project was based on the understanding that an increase in the number of female care practitioners would raise the quality of medical care for regional communities. This paper discusses the anxieties experienced by female physicians working in a regional university hospital. It finds that female physicians are struggling to manage work and domestic responsibilities and advance their careers. At the same time, they are discouraged by inflexible working hours, insufficient opportunities to become medical professionals, high social pressure on childrearing, and microaggression in decision making processes. As a result, many become discouraged by the lack of growth in their careers, and find themselves increasingly isolated in their workplaces. A step-by-step approach and substantial support from the government and society is essential to solve these problems and thus insure continued high levels of medical care for the population.