Comparative Perspectives on Gender Equality in Japan and Norway Same but Different?

1. Introduction: Comparative perspectives on gender in Japan and Norway

Masako Ishii-Kuntz, Guro Korsnes Kristensen and Priscilla Ringrose

PART I

Family and home

2. Gender and home in Japan and Norway: Considering the past and contemplating the future

Guro Korsnes Kristensen, Priscilla Ringrose, and Masako Ishii-Kuntz

3. Caring masculinity: Fathers’ childcare in Japan and Norway

Masako Ishii-Kuntz 

PART II

Education

4. Education and gender in Japan and Norway from historical perspective

Ryoko Kodama

5. Creating more equal partnerships: Home Economics education and gender equality in Japan and Norway

Jennifer Branlat and Junko Sano

6. Teaching with feminist values: A dialogical narrative analysis of gender studies educator narratives

Jennifer Branlat

7. Making it in academia: A study of career narratives of men and women professors in Norway and Japan

Vivian Anette Lagesen, Guro Korsnes Kristensen, Siri Øyslebø Sørensen, and Derek Matsuda

PART III

Media

8. Masculinity in contemporary Viking and Samurai comedies: ‘It’s not really me, that fear-based leadership style stuff’

Jennifer Branlat and Priscilla Ringrose

9. Work-life balance and equality observed through advertising during the COVID-19 pandemic in Japan and Norway

Chihiro Wada and Roger A. Søraa

PART IV

Sexuality and reproduction

10. The struggle to belong: Trans and gender-diverse experiences in Japan and Norway

france rose hartline and Keiichiro Ishimaru

11. A matter of gender (in)equality? Public discourses on declining fertility in Japan and Norway


Guro Korsnes Kristensen and Yukari Semba

12. Assisted reproduction with donated eggs and sperm: A comparison of regulations on assisted reproduction in Norway and Japan

Merete Lie and Yukari Semba

PART V

Dialogue

13. Becoming a feminist academic in Japan and Norway: A dialogue with Professors Masako Ishii-Kuntz and Agnes Bolsø

Jennifer Branlat, Agnes Bolsø, and Masako Ishii-Kuntz

Conclusions

14. Conclusion: Comparative perspectives on gender equality in Japan and Norway: Reflections and lesson learnt

Priscilla Ringrose, Masako Ishii-Kuntz, and Guro Korsnes Kristensen

Biography

Masako Ishii-Kuntz is Trustee/Vice President and Professor Emeritus of Ochanomizu University. Her specialties include family sociology and gender studies, and her research focuses on men’s childcare and housework and women’s labour force participation. She was the President of the Japan Society of Family Sociology (2016–2019) and a board member of the Japan Sociological Society. She was a member in the United Nations Expert Group meeting and in the Gender Equality Bureau Cabinet Office’s committee. In recognition of her contribution to the international research and teaching of family sociology, she received the 2012 Jan Trost Award of the National Council on Family Relations in the US. Her publications include, among others, Sociology of Childcaring Men　(2013) and Family Violence in Japan (2016).　

Guro Korsnes Kristensen is Professor in Gender, Equality and Diversity Studies in the Department of Interdisciplinary Studies, the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). She holds an MA in Social Anthropology and a PhD in Gender Studies, and her research areas are reproduction, gender equality, immigration and integration. Kristensen is the project manager of the research project ‘Norway–Japan: Bridging Research and Education in Gender Equality and Diversity’ (2019–2022) funded by the Norwegian Research Council.

Priscilla Ringrose is Professor of Gender Studies at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. She has led two Norwegian Research Council-funded projects on Paid Domestic Labour and on Integration of Adolescent Migrants. She has co-edited three anthologies: Paid Migrant Domestic Labour in a Changing Europe (2016), Fundamentalism, Globalism and the Public Sphere (2011) and Fundamentalism and Communication: Culture, Media and the Public Sphere (2011). She has published widely on topics including migration and gender, migration and education, domestic labour, new media and Middle East war, Islamic fundamentalisms, intercultural cinema and 20th-century francophone literature.