The New Woman in 20th-Century Japan

After being isolated for two hundred years, Japan was soon forced to interact with the developed Western world. Western ideas and technologies flowed into Japan, which led to the awakening of new women, who were in a lower position than men for the entire time in Japanese history. These new women include modern girls, middle-class housewives, and working-class women. They started to resist the existing social expectations of them and act of their own will. New women faced strong opposition from everyone, and only a few women were willing to follow them. Their resistance allowed other women to see what they could become and laid the foundation of thewomens suffrage movement in Japan.