[8] Modern policy initiatives in Japan have aimed to promote both motherhood and women's participation in the workforce, but these efforts have yielded mixed results.

[9] Traditional gender expectations, especially for married women and mothers, still shape societal norms and create barriers to economic equality.

[10][11][12] Factors such as occupational segregation, the concentration of women in part-time or non-regular jobs, and limited career advancement contribute to this gap.

[19] In 2024, Japan ranked 22nd out of 193 countries on the Gender Inequality Index, which measures equality between men and women in sexual and reproductive health, empowerment and economic participation.

[24] In interviews with Japanese housewives in 1985, researchers found that socialized feminine behavior in Japan followed several patterns of modesty, tidiness, courtesy, compliance, and self-reliance.

Courtesy, another trait, was called upon from women in domestic roles and in entertaining guests, extended to activities such as preparing and serving tea.

In these interviews with Japanese families, Lebra found that girls were assigned helping tasks while boys were more inclined to be left to schoolwork.

[6][7] Women were given the right to vote nationwide in December 1945, after World War II, when the election law for the House of Representatives was amended.

[33] As a member of the House of Councillors, Chikage Oogi held several important government positions, including Minister of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism.

The Japanese government has set a goal of increasing the proportion of women in leadership positions to 30 percent as early as possible in the 2020s, but this is expected to be difficult to achieve.

[44] The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has made promises to increase the presence of women in Japanese politics, but has not achieved their stated goals.

[47] However, Koizumi's top-down nomination was not a reflection of the LDP's prioritization of gender equality, but rather a political strategy to draw in votes by signaling change.

[45] Another spike in the number of women in the Japanese Diet came in 2009, when the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) took over the House of Representatives from the LDP in a landslide victory.

[45] Similar to the LDP in 2005, the DPJ ran a large number of women candidates not because the party cared about gender equality, but due to political strategy.

In fact, the DPJ imitated Prime Minister Koizumi's strategy of indicating reform and societal change through its nomination of women.

[46] The gender roles that discourage Japanese women from seeking elected office have been further consolidated through Japan's model of the welfare state.

[58] The obento box tradition, where mothers prepare elaborate lunches for their children to take to school, is an example of a domestic female role.

[66][67] Strains of this arrangement can be seen in contemporary Japan, where housewives are responsible for cooking, cleaning, and child-rearing and support their husbands so they can work without any worries about the family,[68] as well as balancing the household's finances.

Wives could not legally arrange for a divorce, but options included joining convents, such as at Kamakura, where men were not permitted to go, thus assuring a permanent separation.

[55] Under the Meiji system, however, the law limited grounds for divorce to seven events: sterility, adultery, disobedience to the parents-in-law, loquacity, larceny, jealousy, and disease.

[55] Furthermore, the law allowed a woman to request a divorce, so long as she was accompanied by a male relative and could prove desertion or imprisonment of the husband, profligacy, or mental or physical illness.

The six-month ban on remarriage for women previously aimed to "avoid uncertainty regarding the identity of the legally presumed father of any child born in that time period".

[79] In Japanese society, mothers usually place a strong emphasis on their children's education and moral growth, with a special focus on nurturing values like politeness, respect and responsibility.

[90] By the end of the Meiji period, there was a women's school in every prefecture in Japan, operated by a mix of government, missionary, and private interests.

[91] After 1945, the Allied occupation aimed to enforce equal education between sexes; this included a recommendation in 1946 to provide compulsory co-education until the age of 16.

In the Kamakura period (1185-1333), when the samurai class seized power, the patriarchal system was respected and the activities of women writers declined.

[102] The strong market for beauty products has been connected to the value placed on self-discipline and self-improvement in Japan, where the body is mastered through kata, repeated actions aspiring toward perfection, such as bowing.

[102] In the Heian period, feminine beauty standards favored darkened teeth, some body fat, and eyebrows painted above the original (which were shaved).

For example, the Japanese cosmetics firm, Shiseido published a magazine, Hannatsubaki, with beauty advice for women emphasizing hair styles and contemporary fashion.

[105] By the 1970s, "cuteness" had emerged as a desirable aesthetic, which some scholars linked to a boom in comic books that emphasized young-looking girls, or Lolitas.