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

Asia: Local Studies / Global Themes

by Robin M.M. LeBlanc

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.

Genres: Japan, Nonfiction, Asia

264 pages, Paperback

First published February 3, 1999

Reviews

[Rachel Wagner · Rating 3 out of 5]

So often feminist scholars try to analyze women through the lenses of men. Robin Leblanc lived with a Japanese family for a little while and as she was there she started to analyze the housewives surrounding her. She was surprised at how politically motivated they were and how much they got done. She talks of their daily gatherings to care for the children and the discussions that would arise. Women also made an incredible difference in the school meetings and town hall forums that they participated in. This surprises Leblanc who went to Japan expecting to see disenfranchised women with no power beyond supporting their husband.
In the end, Leblanc developes a metaphor to describe the unique perspective that the women in Japan (and everywhere else) have. Men, she says, see the world from fast paced taxis on the main roads; whereas, women see it on bicycles that find every nook and cranny. Plus, they are slow enough to catch the details missed in the taxi. I like the way that LeBlanc puts the bicycles and taxis (women and men) on an equal level. Because the taxis are flashy some would say they are more powerful and grander. LeBlanc says that they miss the small moments of community power that build a nation and raise children. They are both necessary but different. If anything, by the end of the book LeBlanc favors the women cyclists more than the impresonal taxi driving men.
At my high school many kids thought that all Mormons did things a certain way; however, once they got to know me they realized that their stereotypes were untrue. Once I got people to see through my lens they understood my perspective. I guess that is why I relate to books like this one. They make me feel that there is some hope for true understanding in our world of streamlined, everyone act and think the same way, living. They also help me understand that although I might be small I still have power to change the world.
Sorry for the long review!!

[Bryn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am not competent to judge this as a work of political science, but as a reader who is interested in Japan, and women's lives, and most especially the domestic aspect of women's lives, I found this absolutely fascinating. It is dry at times; LeBlanc is writing for academic colleagues and using the appropriate language of her field. I was willing to tolerate the dryness and moments of jargon, however, because of my delight in her argument that the frame of political science itself is lacking by failing to take into account women's experiences as women. She writes about the volunteer work of housewives in their community, of why it is that these women's political actions are seen by both themselves and others as unpolitical, and of why it is that these women have so little interest in joining the more easily understood political spheres of campaigns and support of candidates. Through it all she argues that the standard ungendered political actor is really just a male actor, and that the very things which people denigrate about housewives -- their focus on caring for others (especially children and the elderly) as an inescapable obligation -- are exactly what Japan needs more of in its politics. I cannot speak for Japan, but much of what she documents is very relevant to my own life as an apolitical volunteering-focused housewife in the United States, and I am considering how to integrate some of what she suggests into my own life.

[Ivan · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book was an early bird on the political disengagement and dissatisfaction of the citizen in modern democracies, due to the factual gap between the lives of the politicians, even at the local level, and the lives of the citizen. I am very eager to read an up-to date monograph on the subject as the LeBlanc was witnessing the worrying phenomena of the "two speeds" and "two worlds" politics more than 10 years ago. Even more preoccupying is the fact that this disconnect between the citizen and the politician wasn't experienced in the small cities, but rather in the capital,an area which, statistically, has much higher level of political participation. Also apparent is the deleterious effects of the modern anti-choice feminist propaganda fitting nicely with the old misogynist maxims - that a housewife is "stupid" "apolitical" "knows only of small things" and that housewive's work is "three meals and a nap", which drives a unifying approach towards what is right for women, just as any statist "patriarchal" propaganda was doing 20, 40 or more years ago.

[Alice Jennings · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was alright. A bit boring but it gave me the info I needed on Housewife identity after children