Women, social change and realising political ideals - Religion and Politics in Contemporary Japan - page 144

What does Ikeda step outside the framework of

their own experience and usual modes of action

' s call for an individual to '

(Ikeda, 06/04/2005) mean in
terms of gender? Will his frequent calls for women to become more active in
society and for the twenty-

'

rst century to become the century of women have
an impact on seeming gender as destiny, or does his simultaneous praise of
women further consolidate gender-typical behaviour and katamaru?

Gender roles, young Komeito supporters and their party
We were sitting in a noisy and smoky café in North Tokyo after having
attended a Young Women

s Division (YWD) meeting. It was a few weeks
after the November 2003 House of Representatives election, during which
these young women had all made daily e

'

orts to gather votes for Ota
Akihiro by calling their friends, relatives and people they knew in the com-
munity. I had attended a number of their nightly gatherings, when they had
come together to discuss their progress. In a tight race, the current Secretary-
General of Komeito, Ota (who became the leader of Komeito in September
2006), secured his seat in their constituency and was elected for the fourth
time.
Aiko, Masami and Mari were all company employees. Aiko, in her mid-
twenties, had an outgoing personality and was outspoken and witty at the
meetings I had attended. At a previous election she had been part of a
Komeito o s support team, driving around in a van (y - sei), greeting

people from morning till night, in the weeks leading up to the election. This
was something for which she had trained for several months beforehand. She
said that she had enjoyed it very much. Masami, in her early thirties, was the
YWD Headquarters leader. At meetings it was easy to discern her leadership
skills (as encouraged in Soka Gakkai), as she always tried to get people to talk
more and share their opinions. She had a natural way of trying to encourage
those around her to say what they thought. She also stressed to everyone that,
'

'

cial

The most important thing is not to get votes for Komeito, but to make
friends with people

… to reach out to people and make them think about

politics and how it a . As we sat chatting in the café, she was

also encouraging Aiko to give her opinion

ects their lives '

not that she needed much
encouragement, as she was talkative as usual. The third YWD member, Mari,
was the Headquarters deputy leader, introduced in Chapter 2 . Not yet mar-
ried, although in her mid-thirties, she said she had no illusions about the dif-

-

finding an ideal husband amongst her fellow Japanese. Her general
impression of men in Soka Gakkai was that they were

ficulty of

' Old-fashioned, stuck

in the nineteenth century ' .

ng on a cigarette, Aiko, the youngest, was doing a lot of the
talking, which I realised was also because she had to leave before the others.

While pu

ANNE METTE : What do you think the concept of the twenty-

rst century being
the century of women, that Ikeda-Sensei always talks about, means?