Akiko Takenaka, "Mothers Against War: Gender, Motherhood, and Peace Activism in Cold War Japan" (U Hawaii Press, 2025)

New Books in Japanese Studies · Apr 18, 2025 · 56m

Mothers Against War: Gender, Motherhood, and Peace Activism in Cold War Japan (U Hawaii Press, 2025) examines the shifting relationships among motherhood, peace activism, and women's rights in the decades following Japan's defeat in 1945. With a focus on the concept of bosei, generally understood to be the "motherly" qualities that are supposedly inherent to women, the book illuminates how popular perceptions of the mother, the child, and the mother-child relationship gradually evolved to create the image that mothers, more than anyone else, protect children from war. This image did not…