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	<< Back "DAWN" Newsletter of The DAWN CENTER What are women's centers in Japan? In Japan, a variety of feminist groups are coping with women's problems and seeking to solve them. The "Women's Center Osaka" is one of these groups, dealing with physical and mental health of women since its foundation in 1984. From the view-point of one of the most forward looking private women's centers, what must an ideal public women's center undertake? Sumie Uno, a staff member at the "Women's Center Osaka" analyzed the current state of public women's center activities and pointed out problems that confront them. History of Women's Centers In Japan, the first center for women was built in 1900 in Tokyo by the Japan Women's Christian Temperance Union. The hall, called "Jiaikan," was used as the base for the union's activities against licensed prostitution. Subsequently, several similar institutions were constructed, including the Jinbo-cho hall of the Tokyo YWCA. All of these were built by private women's organizations. After the Second World War, many women's groups started across the nation and many educational programs were offered to Japanese women, partly encouraged by the policy of the General Headquarters of the Allied Powers (GHQ). In conjunction with these changes, women's centers, called "Fujin Kaikans" in Japanese, were built one after another to support their activities. Many of these centers were built by local public organizations and operated by local private women's groups. This allowed the Fujin Kaikans to facilitate local women's activities. In other words, the activity of a Fujin Kaikan reflected women's activities in the region. According to the statement prepared during the Meeting of Nation-wide Fujin Kaikan Association held in 1977, the purposes of Fujin Kaikans are, 1) to improve women's positions through improvement of their consciousness and abilities in order to qualify them to live as full-fledged members of the social community and help them to devote themselves to the development of the society, and 2) to offer women chances for learning, training, and consultation, and to offer women's groups facilities to hold meetings. Thus, Fujin Kaikans played an important role in those days as a place where women of any age could learn. Some Fujin Kaikans, at their early stages, were used for informal weddings and served as hotels at reasonable prices, reflecting women's lives and other social trends of that age. In the 1960s, there were more than 100 private and governmental Fujin Kaikans in the nation; essentially every prefectural capital city had a Fujin Kaikan. The United Nations Decade for Women started in 1976. The United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women was adopted by the United Nations in 1979. In response to these international movements, policies forward women's issues progressed rapidly in Japan. As a result, classes offered by these centers changed from traditional or cultural ones to skill-and-knowledge-oriented ones useful for incorporating the new ways of living and working into their lives. Then, the importance of awareness of the fact that the division of sexual roles and discrimination against women stemmed from the social structure was emphasized. In 1976, the Prime Minister's Office organized the "Planning and Promotion Committee for Women's Problems." In the next year, the office worked out the "National Programs of Action" to solve women's problems. In response to these national policies, each local government worked out its own "programs of action for local women." The necessity of women's centers which would serve as bases for this movement was realized. Although many of traditional women's centers, the Fujin Kaikan, had been regarded as an educational and cultural centers under control of the Ministry of Education, each of newly established women's centers was designed to serve as an administrative agent for women's affairs and was regarded as a symbol for the administration of women's affairs by local governments. In 1985, the final year of the United Nations Decade for Women, the World Conference on Women was held at Nairobi. Local governments sent many female delegates to the conference. The United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women was finally ratified by the Japanese Government in this year, and thus, much social interest in women's problems was aroused. The second rush of construction of buildings for women's activities began across the nation at this time. Today, there are about 200 women's centers in Japan. Almost all prefectures or many large cities have at least one women's center. Current State of Public Women's Centers and Problems the Centers Confront As stated above, there are many centers established to cope with women's affairs. What are they like? To answer this question, I would like to review their present state and the difficulties that the centers confront. The women's centers in Japan vary widely in size, from small ones occupying only one floor of a building to large one occupying an entire ten-story building such as the Dawn Center in Osaka. Most of them are similar, having rooms for a library and information, conferences, audio-visual facilities, child care, and consultation. Their major functions are also similar; 1) self enlightment and learning, 2) collection and distribution of information, 3) consultation, 4) surveys and researches, 5) exchange of views among individual women and groups. Unlike the traditional Fujin Kaikan, the new women's centers offer women courses to learn how to operate office machines such as word-processors and computers so that they can acquire necessary skills and knowledge. These courses are designed to be instrumental for women in starting businesses and finding good jobs. Educational courses dealing with subjects related to women's participation in politics, sexuality, handling sex as a commodity, sexual violence, and training for self-assertiveness are designed from the view point of gender sensitivity. The centers open doors to men, as well as to women. Courses for men such as how to care for elderly people, and men's studies which aim to reform their consciousness are provided. Are women's centers the place, as we expect, where women can solve their problems? In order to find solutions to the problems, it is necessary to clarify them first. The current women's centers were built, however, without clarifying the problems. The construction itself served as a proof of the public activity against difficulties women face. Unfortunately, they were build without an adequate investigation on what they were expected to do. Their activities remain at the level of providing educational courses related to women's problems, and lack practical services. For example, since the Fourth World Conference on women, held in Beijing in 1995, violence against women has begun being recognized as a social issue in Japan, but essentially none of the women's centers has a shelter that women can use to escape from violence. Only a few public shelters and about 10 private shelters apart from women's centers currently exist. The Osaka Women's Consultation Center is one such public shelter. Currently all shelters are small and localized in large cities. Services related to women's health issues such as pregnancey and abortion are rarely offered at women's centers although relevant consultations are offered at some. Although some centers offer courses for physical fitness to promote women's health, the concept of fitness is very different from that of reproductive health. Although information and education are important, women's centers were meant to solve women's problems. Women's centers should directly help women facing crises as divorce, violence, abortion, or unemployment. These are not services that women need everyday. The women's centers should be places where women can visit and be helped when they feel it is difficult to live in this society. More than 10 years ago, when I heard that women's centers, which were different from the traditional "Fujin Kaikans," were going to be built, I felt my heart throbbing joyfully without a reason. I can still remember the pleasant feeling. In those days, I was not interested in the Fujin Kaikan which many cities had. The Chinese letter "Fu" of Fu-Jin (Women) consists of two letters, one which represents a woman and the other, a broom, symbolizing the sexual role division that women are responsible for home management. I felt that Fujin Kaikans were a place where old women gathered to do something and had the impression that Fujin Kaikans were indifferent to my needs. Unlike the Fujin Kaikan, the women's centers which were going to be built sounded to me as if they could become splendid places where women could get support so that they could stand on their own feet and be liberated from traditional oppression. The women's centers which we have are far from the ideal of places where women can get support, stand on their own and be liberated from oppression. They are devoted only to the enlightment and education of women. Because the priority was first given to the construction, the social role of the centers was neglected not only by the local government, but also by women themselves. Women should discuss this issue thoroughly to make the centers places of real value. by Sumie Uno Page Top Copyright (C) 2007 DawnCenter. All Rights Reserved.