---

■UENO Chizuko　September 20, 2013　Survival Strategies For Women, Bungei Shunju, 352p.　ISBN-10:4166609335　ISBN-13:978-4166609338　800yen + tax [amazon]／[kinokuniya]

■Contents

Did working women’s life become easier than before?
The author's answer to the question is "yes & no".
Working women on the career track tend to fall sick or disrupt their family life at male-centered workplaces. On the other hand, those on the non-career track are treated as a dead stock and thus get stuck. Those on the irregular employment receive low salaries with no future career path. Although they enter workplaces with freedom of choice, what makes their lives difficult as they are? While these women are all cornered in their respective ways, it is still difficult for them to reach out to each other. With whose will and in what process have women been "divided" in this way?

One factor which explains this situation is the "neoliberal reform". Though Koizumi administration is considered as representative for this reform, the author points out its trend has already started since the Equal Employment Opportunity Law (hereafter EEOL) in 1986 in this book. In the past women were discriminated because they were women. However, the EEOL has divided women into a small number of elites on the career track and the rest of the majority of women workers on the non-career track. During the last quarter-century after the EEOL, the number of irregular employees whom the law does not apply has increased.

In the background lay the neo-liberalist policy of the Liberal Democratic Party which would like to “utilize women but not to protect them”, and the request of the business community, which tried to adjust themselves to the globalization “in a particularly Japanese way”. During the process, the neo-liberalist principles, such as "survival of the fittest" and "self-determinism, self-responsibility" have been internalized by working women themselves.

Women have to work with a burden of housework and childcare and when they fail, it is their self-responsibility. This book is a “must” for women in order to survive in this hard age.

（From "BOOK" database）
Did working women’s life become easier than before?
The author's answer to the question is "yes & no".
Working women on the career track tend to fall sick or disrupt their family life at male-centered workplaces. On the other hand, those on the non-career track are treated as a dead stock and thus get stuck. Those on the irregular employment receive low salaries with no future career path. Although they enter workplaces with freedom of choice, what makes their lives difficult as they are? Back behind lay the shadow of the neoliberalist reform. This book is written by the author, who has long watched changes of women.

■Table of Contents

Neoliberalism/Nationalism/Gender
What Was the Equal Employment Opportunity Law?
The “Big-bang” of Labor
Neoliberalism and Low Fertility
Neoliberalism and Gender
What Neoliberalism Has Brought to Women: Between Katsumer and Kayamer
Where Have Male Under-dogs Gone?
Neoliberalism/Backrush/Nationalism
Have Women Benefit from Neoliberalism?
Is Gender Discrimination Rational?
Trap of Neoliberalism
For Women's Survival