Managing Women Disciplining Labor in Modern Japan

Focuses on Japan's interwar textile industry, where female factory workers were constructed as "women" rather than as "workers". This work gives an analysis of gender ideology and ideologies of nationalism and ethnicity, showing how this discourse on women's wage work produced and reflected anxieties about women's social roles in modern Japan.

" Managing Women is an important work, filled with fascinating description, and accessible to a broad audience. I expect this to become a widely known and much cited book."—Mark Metzler, author of Lever of Empire: The International Gold Standard and the Crisis of Liberalism in Prewar Japan

At the turn of the twentieth century, Japan embarked on a mission to modernize its society and industry. For the first time, young Japanese women were persuaded to leave their families and enter the factory. "Managing Women" focuses on Japan's interwar textile industry, examining how factory managers, social reformers, and the state created visions of a specifically Japanese femininity. Faison finds that female factory workers were constructed as "women" rather than as "workers" and that this womanly ideal was used to develop labor-management practices, inculcate moral and civic values, and develop a strategy for containing union activities and strikes. In an integrated analysis of gender ideology and ideologies of nationalism and ethnicity, Faison shows how this discourse on women's wage work both produced and reflected anxieties about women's social roles in modern Japan.