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1 Introduction Recasting Women in the U.S. Occupation of Japan Our experience in the Philippines and in the more recent reformation of Japanese life, where in reshaping the lives of others we have been guided by the same pattern from which is taken the design of our own lives, offers unmistakable proof that while American in origin and American in concept, these tenets underlying a truly free society are no less designed to secure, preserve and advance the well-being of one race than of another. . . . The lesson from past and contemporary events is that they are no longer peculiarly American, but now belong to the entire human race. —Fourth of July Message, General Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander in Occupied Japan1 This occupation has had no historical guide. Its approach is an out-growth of the slowly rising tide of humanism in the West. . . . The goodwill, the desire to be helpful to the Japanese as a people and as a nation is found, by and large, at all levels and seems to stem from the genuine altruism and enlightened concept of the United States interests of General MacArthur and many members of the Occupation. One needs only to recall the colonization policies in the East of the Western world in the last centuries to realize the colossal differences in points of view. —Dr. Florence Powdermaker, Visiting Expert2 The remarkable progress of Japanese women as they pull themselves up by their geta straps to pioneer in democratic procedures provides an inspiring record of world history. Only by comparison with their previous subjugation under feudalistic tradition little more than one year ago can the full significance of their achievements be realized. —Lt. Ethel Weed, Women’s Affairs Branch of the Civil Information and Education Section3 2 / Chapter 1 O n August 15, 1945, World War II came to an end with Japan’s unconditional surrender. General Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP), flew from the Philippines to Japan with a mission to occupy and demilitarize the defeated nation. The place and manner of MacArthur’s arrival seemed to signal the victor’s absolute confidence and unquestioned authority over its vanquished enemy. MacArthur—the embodiment of U.S. military power and a consummate actor well known for his grand performances—landed at the Atsugi Airfield, previously a training field for Japanese kamikaze fighters, with a handful of Allied troops. MacArthur himself was armed only with a corncob pipe. Despite his staff’s concern about possible attacks by enemy soldiers not yet disarmed, MacArthur’s triumphant landing was followed by a smooth procession to the New Grand Hotel in Yokohama, and later an entry into Tokyo where he established the General Headquarters (GHQ) of SCAP. A new chapter of postwar U.S.–Japan relations thus opened with richly gendered and racialized symbolism: the United States’ imposition of its white masculine military authority over Japan, now a defeated and subjugated nation in the Far East. Following the ferocious belligerence between the enemies in World War II, many Japanese feared that the objective of the occupation was to punish Japan. Yet, MacArthur declared that his intention was benign and noble: to “reorient” and “rehabilitate” Japan into a modern, democratic, and enlightened nation. While he perceived the Japanese as “an alien race of spiritual growth stunted by long tenure under the physical, mental and cultural strictures of feudal precepts,” he had supreme confidence in his ability to transplant the American ideal to Japan and civilize its subjects.4 He had what he considered evidence to support his conviction: U.S. governance in the Philippines had demonstrated America’s capacity to “civilize” an alien and inferior race, and establish “democracy” abroad. Just as the U.S. policy of “benign assimilation” in the Philippines had uplifted its subjects from a state of ignorance and savagery, so would the U.S. occupation give the Japanese an unprecedented opportunity for civilization and enlightenment. As MacArthur frequently argued, U.S. intervention in Asia was distinctly different from the European colonialism that preceded it, a sentiment clearly shared by Dr. Florence Powdermaker, a “visiting expert” who reported on the occupation’s effects on the Japanese. This belief in the exploitative and oppressive nature of European colonialism was widespread among Americans involved in the occupation, who believed that U.S. overseas operations were driven by superior “humanitarian” objectives. Thus, MacArthur and Powdermaker articulated—in extraordinarily universalizing and expansionist terms—the new mission the Americans were to perform in the postwar...

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