14005

WiSe 23/24: AM: "Gender and politics in contemporary Japan"

Elena Korshenko

Comments

Despite its status as an established democracy, Japan has been a laggard in terms of gender equality, systematically scoring low on the major international indices of women’s political representation and socio-economic empowerment. Its record on the representation and protection of sexual minorities has also been unimpressive. Against this background, the course aims to deepen students’ understanding of gender issues, policies, actors and their strategies in Japan. Specifically, it will focus on such questions as: What are the factors behind gender inequality in Japan? What measures have been taken to address this situation? And how do individual actors participate in politics and seek to represent the interests of women and sexual minorities in civil society and in public office? To address these questions, the seminar will first provide an overview of theoretical and empirical research on gender politics. It will introduce the key concepts within this field and discuss how gender can be used as an analytical category in the social sciences and how it has been understood in Japan. Secondly, seeking to explain the systematic underrepresentation of women and sexual minorities in Japan, the course will examine the gendered consequences of Japan’s political, legal and socio-economic institutions, including electoral rules and sexual division of labour. Finally, the course will discuss how women impact politics within and outside of established political institutions and evaluate Japanese government policies and international examples of affirmative action. In addition to the substantive content related to gender politics, the seminar will also cover the basic principles of academic writing and research to equip the students with a set of tools that will help them explore the topics of the seminar in depth in their independent work. close

16 Class schedule

Regular appointments

Tue, 12:00 - 14:00 16 Class schedule

Tue, 2023-10-17 12:00 - 14:00

Lecturers:
Elena Korshenko