Give Me One Good Reason to Marry a Japanese Man: Japanese Women Debating Ideal Lifestyles

This article explores how contemporary Japanese women, as they confront issues of marriage and employment, play with images of the liberated West, traditional Japan, and spoiled Japanese men. For this purpose, I investigate the works of popular non-fiction writer Matsubara Junko and recent online debates. I argue that Matsubara's writing is supported by women not because of her sometimes blatant idolization of the West, but because she exposes her own vulnerability. Like the online respondents, Matsubara struggles to come to terms with the realization that when a Japanese woman seeks a lifestyle beyond the role of homebound wife/mother, she inevitably enmeshes herself within the larger identity politics of modernity.