The 1980s marked the peak of the “bubble” economy in Japan. It was a time of a notable shift in literature and society. The policy changes and social disputes over women’s choice and liberty were such that the era was dubbed onna no jidai—“women’s decade.” Women writers began to assess and challenge the meaning and rhetoric around happiness. This chapter considers three Japanese women authors—Kometani Foumiko, Hayashi Mariko, and Yoshimoto Banana—exploring how their writing engages with the concept of happiness in relation to labor and carework in a time of neoliberalism.

Introduction

This chapter will discuss women’s writing in the 1980s in Japan, a time when women’s political and social roles were subject to debate. I will focus on three writers—Kometani Foumiko, Hayashi Mariko, and Yoshimoto Banana—whose writing styles and literary genres differ from one another, yet whose literary works similarly encapsulate the way women’s happiness and liberty were at stake, especially in relation to the multiple meanings of labor in women’s lives: reproduction, care-work, and employment.

The 1980s was a prosperous time for Japan, accompanied by the emergence of neoliberal politics. The country’s consumer power accelerated in the global economy due to a liberalized market—cities flourished and money was well spent around the world, as the Japanese bought artworks and skyscrapers (Katō 166). Economic stability strengthened the presence of right-wing politics in Japan and lessened the impact of more progressive agendas. As a result, women, who were newly gaining economic and political capital, became the subject of considerable debate.

Indeed, 1980s Japan saw such impressive transformations in gender roles and categories that the era was dubbed the “women’s decade” (onna no jidai) (Suzuki 2010, 36). The debates during this period dealt with women’s life choices, particularly with questions of labor: whether to work or marry and become housewives, and then possibly to have children (or dreaming of the possibility to “have it all”). Women’s choices for their lifestyles and labor remain an on-going topic today in discussions of women’s choices (freedom) and happiness. This chapter will pay particular attention to the crucial ways this decade influenced gendered issues of labor and life choices in women’s writing.