'Ukiyo' was both a state of mind and a world of pleasure-seeking. It offered freedom from the limitations placed by the Tokugawa shogunate. It also gave the merchant class, and urban life in...Show more'Ukiyo' was both a state of mind and a world of pleasure-seeking. It offered freedom from the limitations placed by the Tokugawa shogunate. It also gave the merchant class, and urban life in general, a break from the controlling samurai warrior class. Edo (present-day Tokyo) society was generally regarded as a highly controlled society. Not unexpectedly, the Edo, Kyoto, and Osaka pleasure districts were likewise restricted. The most well-known of them was the Yoshiwara licensed brothel district, a separate walled town to the north of the main city that was exclusively created to entertain its male inhabitants. While ukiyo-e like paintings, prints, and illustrated books portrayed nearly every element of coeval Japanese society in Edo, pictures of female entertainers and pleasure districts in Yoshiwara were the most prevalent. A large selection of these portrayed women, although perhaps unintentionally by the artist because of the different social roles women had back then, are depicted in an objectifying manner. This is especially the case in bijinga, literally translated as ‘images of beautiful women’. The women, although it is debatable whether the depicted women are supposed to represent the actual women from the Edo period or if they are merely icons, are put down as objects of desire and vessels for reproduction among other things. In this paper, I will shed light on this issue and question whether ‘celebration’ or ‘aesthetic’ are used as a justification for these forms of objectification or not. Using ambiguous prints, I will give an analysis of the different perspectives and explanations that exist about that specific print.Show less
Het percentage van vrouwen in een managerspositie was in 2011 in Japan 6,8%. Deze scriptie geeft een overzicht van de problemen die vrouwen ondervinden tijdens het maken van carrière in Japan....Show moreHet percentage van vrouwen in een managerspositie was in 2011 in Japan 6,8%. Deze scriptie geeft een overzicht van de problemen die vrouwen ondervinden tijdens het maken van carrière in Japan. Shiseido wordt gebruikt als casestudy om te laten zien dat er bedrijven zijn die oplossingen hebben gevonden op deze problemen. Het aantal vrouwen in een managerspositie bij Shiseido was in april 2015 27,7%. Dit aantal is ver boven het gemiddelde van Japan. Hoe lost Shiseido de problemen op voor haar vrouwelijke werknemers?Show less
These days, all industrialized countries in the world have some kind of law implemented targeting women's rights on the job market. Yet the wage gap as well as 4other hurdles remain despite these...Show moreThese days, all industrialized countries in the world have some kind of law implemented targeting women's rights on the job market. Yet the wage gap as well as 4other hurdles remain despite these laws. The question is therefore what factors play a role in the fact that Japanese women who are among the best educated in the world, who not only have the Labor Standard Law, but an Equal Employment Opportunity Law as well, must contend with a substantial wage gap and such high unemployment rates? This thesis will consist of two parts aside from the introductory and the closing chapters. The first part will be chapter two, containing a literature review in which the research of several western scholars as well as native Japanese scholars concerning their assessment of the EEOL in Japan will be discussed and evaluated. In addition this part will also discuss the different roles companies and government play with regard to keeping the oppression of women in the labor market as it is, or furthering equal opportunity. In the second part of this thesis, chapter 3, the difficulties that working women, annd specifically working mothers, face in their day to day life will be examined on the basis of interviews conducted by scholars with these working women and mothers.Show less
