ABSTRACT
Language relating to women, like that relating to people with disabilities, came under scrutiny both as the result of international movements and the activities of the BLL. Social changes resulting from the guaranteed equality of men and women in the postwar Constitution, the women’s liberation movement overseas in the 1960s and the growth of its Japanese counterpart in the 1970s, the 1985 United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, and, in Japan, the passing of the Equal Employment Opportunity Law (EEOL) in 1986 all contributed. The EEOL, revised in 1997 to place greater emphasis on the responsibilities of employers, was particularly influential: protests about discriminatory terms and references to women grew alongside their increasing participation in employment.
