Women

The image of the ideal housewife, modeled on the image of the American woman, was prevalent in the media during the Occupation. Magazines focusing on American fashion and domestic life were popular. The vast majority of Japanese woman did not have the resources to realize these ideals, particularly the thousands of war widows. Instead, food shortages and corrupt consumer practices galvanized housewives to organize grass-roots protests and run for public office. Suffrage was granted to woman by Diet legislation in December 1945 and was guaranteed in the new Japanese constitution of 1947.