ABSTRACT
This chapter uses the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century Japanese understandings of the separate spheres to explain why, despite the relatively low number of participants in the nevertheless influential pre-war suffrage movement. So many women were eager to exercise their right to hold office when women's suffrage became law in Japan in the closing months of 1945. Needless to say, the organised women's suffrage movement was of great significance. The number of women's organisations advocating women's suffrage also increased in the 1920s. The chapter argues that the widely-held assumption in Japan, whether derived from the Chinese classics or modern domestic science books, that men and women operated in separate functional spheres had multiple and contradictory effects. On the one hand, this assumption justified the development of women teachers and medical professionals. The number of women elementary school teachers increased during the First World War when the booming economy allowed men to leave teaching for more lucrative employment.
