Who were the winners and losers of modern Japan’s rise to an economic superpower?

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Who were the winners and losers of modern Japan’s rise to an economic superpower?
Japan’s economy has grown through different phases owing to different motivating factors and events in the country’s history. The different phases in the country’s industrial history are pre and post Meiji emperor which controlled most of the internal structure of the nation and the world war which affected the international status of the country. During all the industrial developmental phases, women have been the backbone of the process with their labor exploitation being the major input while cultural identity and indoctrination were the 'vehicles' that were employed to ensure continuity and transition. This paper looks the role women played in the country’s major big industries and events like the cotton and silk industries and the 1964 Olympic Games focusing forms of labor and the conditions women endured during the period of industrial revival in Japan as well the cultural and customary aspects that controlled the events. The paper offers insights on different aspects of women during the late 19th and early 20th century and the things they went through as the country rose to become one of the world's biggest producers and industrialists.
19th Century Industrialization: Women Labor and Activism
The textile industry captures the picture of Japan’s industrialization where women were the main enactors and poverty and cultural customization drove their devotion to the textile industry and their families were the main anchors for the hard labor. Tsurumi (pp. 25) noted that the decline of the European silk industry during the Meiji government paved way for the rising of the Japanese reeling industry as it collaborated with the French mechanization to boost production to meet the failing European market. The beginning of the industry, especially with the advancement from hand reeling to the use of machines, mobilized the women to engage in the labor as they believed that they were doing it for the family. However, with continuing labor exploitation and mass production the status of the working conditions worsened and victimized the women who led the prominence of women activism in Japan as they started to move away from the cultural constraints that they lived under during the Meiji government (gender politics and feminism, pp. 482).
This opportunity rested on the shoulders of women as they provided most of the needed labor for the sake of their families and the country. This led to the establishment of the first mass-production reeling company at Tomioka with the help of westernized mechanization which helped the country move from the traditional hand reeling to march the demand that was created by the collapse of the European companies (Tsurumi, pp. 26). The mechanization of the production necessitated the mass involvement of women who travelled long distances from the rural setting of the country to seek jobs to provide or their families which began the gender and classism in the Japanese society as the first recruits were mainly samurai wives and daughters who had, for a long time, be the providers for their families. The establishment of the Tomioka plant required a prior training for the samurai women who had to move from the hand reeling that had been practiced in the country but this only motivated the other women from poorer families to diversify their labor input into other plants which were becoming more common in the country as the industry grew exponentially in the late 19th century. This scenario between the samurai and the peasant women-only benefited the country as the companies were focused on the profitability and not the welfare of the workers which led to the eventual decline in the welfare of the reeling jobs.
The initial boom in the textile industry of the country benefited all the stakeholders as the working conditions were good and the multiple companies provided the needed incentives like holidays and more freedom (Tsurumi, pp.32). The women, the companies and the country benefited greatly from the expansion of the industry but the latter stages in the industrialization saw the demand for jobs increase which led to pronounced favoritism the beginning of victimization in the reeling industry as the paradox of increased production and poorer conditions set in the industry (Tsurumi, pp.34). Although the women formulated the blueprints of the reeling process that the country used in the major companies the workers' conditions kept on deteriorating and the initial conditions at the Tomioka Company become just a memory.
The use of technology in the production saw an important hurdle in the country's industrialization process as it adopted foreign technology in the cotton industry which enabled the establishment of several cotton reeling companies but were not big enough to supplement the high demand for jobs (Tsurumi, pp.35). The introduction of machine cotton reeling, however, ...