WOMEN'S MOVEMENTS IN CONTEMPORARY JAPAN

Following the classification in Alvin Toffler's The Third Wave, the women's movement is definitely a representative of post‐industrial society. Yet in Japan, the second wave of industrialisation and the third have come very close together, hitting a society with deep‐rooted sex role traditions. Thus it is natural that the women's movements in Japan differ from those in the West, yet Japanese feminists, too are moving toward the ultimate goal of a society which will maximise choice and freedom for every individual.