Customer Reviews

Bicycle Citizens: The Political World of the Japanese Housewife (Asia: Local Studies/Global Themes)

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This is not a book about bicycles. It is a book about Japanese women that is extremely important for any scholar of Japan. A typically Western socio-political analysis of the oppression and marginalization experienced by Japanese women as a result of being excluded from politics. As a book about Japan it is extremely important, however, as a book about women it is less so. In page after page the author drives home the same point that women in Japan are prevented from participating in politics as symbolized by political bosses who are men using automobile transportation on the highway while women are relegated to grocery shopping on bicycles taking side-streets. As a scholarly analysis the book is not without a couple of short-comings. The message of the book could be more plainly said. Few will be able to swim through the oceans of dense terminology and citations that are the hall-mark of professional scholarship. Also the book misses the importance of class. I doubt the wives of rich political bosses ride bicycles through narrow back-streets to go grocery shopping and organizing women-centered neighborhood cooperatives. Whatever its shortcomings the book is invaluable to gaining an understanding of how politics is practiced in modern day Japan in providing outstanding insight. This book is vital to understanding Japanese politics. The oppression of women theme would be augmented by comparative cultural studies, e.g., India and France.