WOMEN EMERGING.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 222, 18 September 1940, Page 11

WOMEN EMERGING.

JAPAN'S "NEW ORDER." RESULT OF* WAR. Drains on Japan's man-power for the China war are opening new opportunities to women in a land where they have been traditionally submerged. Children ako are being drawn increasingly into Japan's war effort on the home "front. The situation is revealed in an article in the "Christian Science Monitor," describing Japan after three years of war.

When the Osaka Stock Exchange recently announced it had lifted the 60-year-old rule barring women from the floor of the Exchange, it did more than topple another masculine stronghold. Its action constituted an acknowledgment of a labour shortage which is growing increasingly aoute throughout Japan.

When the Exchange explained that the "preferential statue" of heavy industries was the main reason for the new rule, the story was complete. Under present conditions, heavy industries mean munitions and wartime industries, which lack for neither men nor materials. Although no estimates are available on the number employed in the munitions industries, it is obvious that it must be enormous. Besides this, there are roughly a million soldiers in China, anotfier half million picked troops in Manchuria, and the Government officially acknowledges 100,000 fatalities in the "China incident." With the prime of its manhood drained away for military service and for -Wie manufacture of war supplies, it is little wonder that women are being called upon to replace men in civilian enterprises. . ...Girt Conductors. Evidences of the change are' easily apparent in the course of daily living in any of the big cities of Japan. Most of the buses have girl conductors, dressed in business-like blue uniforms. Girl workers, few of them more than 20 years old are making their appearance on trams and railway trains. In the cafes, many of the waitresses are hardly more than 12 years old. "Girls Over Twelve." Drastic decrees announced in February will divert practically all young female Japanese workers into wartime industries •or firms engaged in trade directly linked to the manufacture of essential goods. Other concerns will have no right to hire youths or juveniles between the ages of 12 and 36 until the number of employees in their firms at present has been decreased 30 per sent. This even applies to women over 12. Important social changes are in the "writing »» * result of the labour shortage.; One is the greater degree of freedom enjoyed by women. They tend more and more to abandon the kimono and wear Western style dresses in offices and factories, despite an organised compaign to preserve Japanese traditions. They appear more often in public, in restaurants and places of entertainment. The younger women especially are seen in public with men, and unmarried girls are shockin<r their elders to the extent of taking the arm °*. ..their escort, instead of trotting patiently a step or two in the rear. .: «l»4ging from the present state of affairs, Japan is succeeding in creating * "*«* order" in Japan itself more surely than in East Asia. ' "