Page 92 - Nightmare Japan Contemporary Japanese Horror Cinema

Ghosts of the Present 79

individual subjectivity, Japan’s contemporary transformations (and the
internal resistances that have arisen – and continue to arise – in the face
of such significant changes) reveal the often traumatic socio-political
contortions accompanying US colonialism in all of its various imperial
and aesthetic manifestations.
One such Western influence takes the form of the Japanese
constitution created in 1946. Still a highly contested document, this post
war text has had an extensive impact upon gender roles in contemporary
Japan, reconfiguring the multiple ways in which the nation’s populace
imagines the sex- and gender-based apportioning of social and cultural
roles, as well as the impact of conventional and emerging conceptions of
masculinity and femininity. As Catherine Makino notes, the constitution
‘helped reshape life for women’ (2005: para 3) in Japan. One such change
for women came in the form of marriage reform. Specifically, the new
constitution stipulated that:

‘marriage would be solely based on agreement of husband and wife, who had
equal rights. Before then women were not guaranteed civil rights or legal
rights. They were not allowed to vote or own property. Although husbands
could file for divorce, wives could not’. (para 3)

Coupled with the sometimes radical social and cultural transformations
that accompany ‘most industrial societies’ undergoing ‘restructuring from
an industrial to postindustrial economy’ (Ueno 1994: 23) – a shift that
inevitably impacts divisions of labour both within and outside of the
domestic sphere – the position of women in Japanese society invariably
impacts the dynamics of male-female relationships. This is not to suggest
that contemporary Japan is by any means a meritocracy in which men and
women occupy positions of absolute equality; as in most industrialised
nations across the globe (including the US and the UK), sexual
discrimination persists, resulting, as Roger J. Davies and Osamu Ikeno
remind us, ‘in important social problems: sexual harassment, inequality in
the work place, and so on’ (2002: 67-8). Robert C. Christopher
anticipates Davies and Ikeno’s sentiments when he states that ‘male
dominance’ remains ‘an overwhelming reality in professional and public
life’ (1984: 67). In other words, although ‘[t]oday there are powerful