Forgiving Women: Devious Women of the Occupation and Japan's Quest to Get Past the Defeat

Masako Endo, Department of Sociology, Drexel University

This paper investigates the impact of Japan’s defeat in the Asia Pacific War and the subsequent U.S. occupation (1945-1952) on the rebuilding of Japanese womanhood, which consequently defined the trajectory of post-occupation national identity. During the occupation led by General Douglas MacArthur, Japanese society underwent a rapid transformation with the implementation of major reforms, including women’s rights. Many studies, while portraying the occupation as a positive milestone for the defeated nation, particularly for women, contributed to the Orientalist view that the benevolent U.S. occupiers liberated powerless, occupied women. On the other hand, leading Japanese feminists such as Ichikawa Fusae strongly attributed women’s suffrage to the women’s movement prior to the occupation. Recent feminist scholars also challenge the taken for granted “trope of masculine domination and feminine subjugation” (Koikari 2015) that has dominated discussions of the U.S.-Japan relationship. Following this approach, this paper aims to go beyond the Orientalist image of Japanese women depicted as incapable of improving their status without the rescue of the American occupier. To this end, I examine women who transgressed traditional gender roles and sexual mores during the occupation, particularly the panpan, or postwar female unlicensed sex workers for Allied soldiers. I also explore a phenomenon in which ordinary, non-panpan women emulated the panpan. By focusing on these women who were considered devious, I demonstrate how panpan and panpan-like women blurred boundaries between “good women” and “bad women” and thereby negotiated shaping the reconstruction of womanhood. In so doing, I pay special attention to two women: Otoki, the leader of a gangster-like panpan group; and Sacchi, a TV personality and the wife of Nomura Katsuya the legendary Japanese baseball player/manager. In conclusion, I highlight that Japanese society attempted to get past defeat and the memory of the occupation by forgiving these devious women.

No extended abstract or paper available

 Presented in Session 208. Contested Belonging in the Shadow of World War II: Gender, Nation, and Empire in East and Southeast Asia, 1937-1952