島根におけるジェンダー秩序 : 男女共同参画社会への展望(<特集>しまね学の形成に向けて)

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This article discusses the challenges and possibilities of gender equal society in political economy in the Shimane Prefecture by studying the social construction of gender-oriented social order at the levels of local communities, labour relations, and political culture in Shimane. Based on the analysis on gender relations in Shimane, it is questioned how the Gender Equality Law of 1999 can be made sense of in the context of Shimane. Compared with other prefectures, the women's labour participation rate in Shimane is highly ranked in Japan. However, the women's participation in politics and policy- and decision-making in Shimane has remained below the national average. This study sets out for with keen interest in such discrepancy between the active contribution of women in Shimane as labour force and the absence of women in the formal channels of local politics. The main research problem concerns the questions about what kind of bias against gender equality can be pointed out in the social settings of Shimane, and about how the gender-oriented social order is legitimated through interpretations on gender. In this connection the gender-oriented social order refers to the patterns in social practices that maintain and reproduce the power relations through the gender bias which legitimize sexist practices from essentialist interpretations on gender divisions of labour. The efforts for promoting gender equality in Japan have primarily been made with initiatives of officialdom under the Gender Equality Law of 1999. Not only the central government but also the local governments and municipalities are attempting to have the gender equality more prevailed among citizens. In a sense, this can be regarded as arrival of state feminism in Japanese society, and there is still much to be done for pursuing the gender equal policy in the social settings where the term "gender" is rather unknown. Therefore, the first step of the Japanese state feminism is mainly enlightenment of citizens about the gender and the controversies about gender relations in both social life and family. What are expected from the state feminism can vary from emancipation of individuals to advantage for local communities facing crisis due to depopulation and ageing of population. In fact, for decades the Shimane prefecture has been losing the population as a consequence of urbanization and industrialization, especially younger people and children, and several municipalities in Shimane have been under strong pressure of ageing. In those rural communities of which sustainability is more or less questionable the state feminism tends to be interpreted as a policy of reactivating local life. It tends to be expected that the depopulated rural communities may remain vitality by making best use of human resource, ie, by granting better social position and acknowledgements to women who used to be undervalued in social life in local communities. Not a few of the local communities in Shimane have been locating women out of the formal sphere that is typically men's world, while women have made indisputable contribution to local economy as labour force. In Shimane, similar to some other prefectures in which wage income standard remains relatively low, dual breadwinner households are common. However, women's domain is limited to mainly home and other informal sphere. The family tradition in rural areas has paid little resect for women, which has caused difficulties for men in rural areas to obtain marital partners. The gender segregation is striking in practices of local communities in Shimane, and the two worlds of men and women maintain and reproduce the social patterns that assign different roles and tasks to men and women. The two worlds are not symmetrical but rather hierarchical in the term of power relations. According to this social order, women often remain invisible in politics, even though they are active voters in elections. Women in Shimane have much been engaged in working life and their distribution in labour market concentrate in manufacturing industry and service sector. The economic life in Shimane is characterized with lack of large companies, and most of the companies in Shimane are small- or medium-sized. Moreover, globalization leads to competitions between labour markets in and outside Japan, and those women working for manufacturing industry in Shimane are also involved in the globalization of world economy. On the other hand, the labour force of service sector in Shimane is segregated according to gender, and the Information Technology innovation may strengthen the gender segregation if the IT industry will more be emphasized without any consideration about gender bias. It is desirable to take into account the policy coordination between gender equal policy and other policies such as industrial and employment policies. The gender-oriented social order is not always unchangeable even in Shimane. The sustainable development requires citizens, politicians, business world, local leaders, and administrators in Shimane to reconsider the gender-biased practices.
島根県立大学の論文

著者

高橋睦子
島根県立大学総合政策学部

島根におけるジェンダー秩序 : 男女共同参画社会への展望(<特集>しまね学の形成に向けて)

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