Japanese Women in the U.S. and the Formation of Japanese Gender Discourses: Depictions of Ryōsai-Kenbo (Good Wife and Wise Mother) in Japanese Womenʼs Magazines

In the early 20th century, Japanese women living in the US sent a variety of submissions to womenʼ s magazines in Japan. This paper exemplifies how these writings were used to reinforce or form the Japanese gender ideology, ryōsai-kenbo (a good wife and wise mother), in the Japanese media. I analyze their letters and essays, which were printed in several mainstream womenʼ s magazines such as Fujokai (Womenʼs World). The discourse of ryōsai-kenbo had been promoted in Japan since the late 19th century. This idea was closely linked to both contemporary Japanese gender and Western gender discourses. Japanese women residing within and outside Japan continued to learn this popular discourse; it was spread in Japanese media throughout the world. Importantly, women were not only readers but also active contributors─ submitting letters, essays, pictures, and literary works, such as short poems. Thus, the ideas and opinions of Japanese women in the US which Japanese magazines chose to publish impacted the formation of Japanese gender discourses in the Japanese media. Women who came from a middle-class background played significant dual roles as readers and contributors to the magazines. Many of them lived in nascent Japanese communities in the US. Their opinions were associated the discourse of women as good mothers and wives making good homes and communities─influenced by middle-class gender ideologies, nationalism, and social reform in Japan and the U.S. In Japanese womenʼ s magazines, many letters from Japanese women in the US described their roles as a mother and wife, thereby defining the structure of Japanese families in this emerging Japanese immigrant society and in the eyes of the world.Their voices were used to display the development of the Japan─creating a vision of good Japanese mothers and wives who lived all over the world and worked for the nation as representatives of the expanding empire