Bicycle citizens : the political world of the Japanese housewife /
Robin M. LeBlanc ; with a foreword by Saskia Sassen.
- 1 online resource (xvii, 243 pages).
- Asia-Local studies/global themes .
- Asia--local studies/global themes. .
Includes bibliographical references (pages 227-237) and index.
Foreword / Saskia Sassen -- 1. "Supposing Truth Is a Woman -- What Then?" -- 2. The Identity of the "Regular Housewife" -- 3. Housewives and Citizenship -- 4. Volunteering against Politics: Housewives, Citizenship, and Community Service -- 5. Toward a "Housewifely" Movement: The Seikatsu Club Co-op's Daily Life Politics -- 6. The Ono Campaign: A "Regular" Housewife in Elite Politics.
Annotation While the typical Japanese male politician glides through his district in air-conditioned taxis, the typical female voter trundles along the side streets on a simple bicycle. In this first ethnographic study of the politics of the average female citizen in Japan, Robin LeBlanc argues that this taxi-bicycle contrast reaches deeply into Japanese society. To study the relationship between gender and liberal democratic citizenship, LeBlanc conducted extensive ethnographic fieldwork in suburban Tokyo among housewives, volunteer groups, consumer cooperative movements, and the members of a committee to reelect a female Diet member who used her own housewife status as the key to victory. LeBlanc argues that contrary to popular perception, Japanese housewives are ultimately not without a political world. Full of new and stimulating material, engagingly written, and deft in its weaving of theoretical perspectives with field research, this study will not only open up new dialogues between gender theory and broader social science concerns but also provide a superb introduction to politics in Japan as a whole.