전후 일본 여성의 대외인식

A Study on Postwar Japanese Women’s Perception of Foreign Countries -Focused on articles in Women’s News by Japanese YWCA (1946-1950)-

This study discussed postwar Japanese women’s self‐perception and their perception of foreign countries as people of a defeated country while they admitted the defeat of Japan and were making effort to rebuilt Japanese society. Through articles in Women’s News, the bulletin of YWCA (Young Women s Christian Association), which emphasized international solidarity, we attempted to understand how foreign countries viewed Japan, how Japanese perceived themselves as the people of a defeated country, and how Japanese understood the West and Asia. During the period of occupation by the U.S., although the country was isolated under the rule of the American military government, Japanese women had a strong interest in overseas political situations and tried to collect relevant information actively and, furthermore, they made efforts to deliver their voices to the world stage. Japanese women learned about the Japanese army’s cruel acts during the war and resultant animosity against Japan held by people in the victim countries. They also forecasted a positive future that they might attain forgiveness and reconciliation through their efforts. The conflict between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R over reparations by Germany was delivered to them as confrontation between the U.S., which was an ideal country that gave consideration to world peace and the situation of the defeated countries, and the U.S.S.R, which was an immoral country that wielded power in international society to seek only their own profits. Japanese women were generally indifferent to Korean people’s perception of Japan and the Korean War, but were optimistic to improvement in the relationship between Japan and China and assumed a friendly attitude toward China for a long while even after the establishment of the Communist Chinese government. They argued that the U.N. should play a powerful role for world peace and, for this, Asian countries’ status in the U.N. should be reinforced and, in particular, China, Japan and Korea should join the U.N. as early as possible. With regard to the Japanese government’s postwar settlement, they advocated early reparations, overall peace, renunciation of war, etc. but could not suggest specific solutions for achieving them. Through analyzing articles in Women’s News, this study confirmed facts presented above and proved that it is unreasonable for Japanese to say that postwar Japanese were not aware of the nature of the aggressive war and cruet acts committed by Japan due to the control of information during the war and the period under the U.S military government and therefore they could not perceive their responsibility for the war.