By Suvendrini Kakuchi
TOKYO, Jul 7 1995 (IPS)

There is still a good two months to go before the third global conference on women opens in Beijing, but women’s groups in Japan are already anticipating the benefits they will reap after September.

They say the first two women’s conferences sponsored by the United Nations resulted in significant changes in Japanese law regarding women, and they expect the Beijing meeting to have the same effect.

“The United Nation World Conference on Women (WCW) represents a boost foro our fight for equal rights because it helps turn the international spotlight on us,” says Kimiko Kubo, a researcher on Japanese women in politics.

To be sure, Japanese society remains very much dominated by the men, with women still struggling for equality. But the Japanese women say they have come a long way since the first U.N. conference on women was held in Mexico in 1975.

In Mexico, Japan was represented by a delegation that was still “learning”, says Kubo. The prestigious gathering gave the Japanese representatives a chance to sit together with their counterparts from all over the world who had already achieved some success in their fight for equality.

The seventies marked a time when women’s issues, pushed by the nation’s economic growth and stimulated by the women’s liberation movement in the West, suddenly emerged as central themes in Japan.

Experts on gender issues here say sexual discrimination and sexuality began receiving attention as more women, taking advantage of better education and job opportunities, delayed family responsibilities for economic freedom.

Against such a backdrop, Japanese women’s groups returned from Mexico full of enthusiasm. Adds Kubo: “The decision by the United Nations to turn the spotlight on the betterment of women helped the women’s movement in Japan tremendously.”

The 1985 women’s conference held in Nairobi also proved to be another important landmark for feminists here. Indeed, the women’s groups scored a coup with Tokyo’s decision to pass the Equal Employment Opportunity Act on the eve of the conference.

While women’s groups lobbied hard for the Act to be passed, they say it was actually the 1985 meeting that clinched it.

“The conference put a lot of pressure on the government.” says women’s studies expert Keiko Fukuzawa. “Japanese politicians and bureaucrats were keen to show the world that their nation’s position on women was on a par with the advanced policies of Western countries.”

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