"Barbara Sato has produced a superb book on the construction of a new women's culture in Japan in the interwar period. In captivating detail, she documents the creation of a new subjectivity--'women'--through the interactions of middle-class women with consumer capitalism and the mass media. By showing us the myriad ways that women wrote themselves into the narratives of modernity, Sato's book opens up new ways of thinking about the relationship between women and the modern."--Louise Young, author of "Japan's Total Empire"

List of Illustrations ix
Acknowledgments xi
Prologue: Women and the Reality of the Everyday 1
1. The Emergence of Agency: Women and Consumerism 13
2. The Modern Girl as a Representation of Consumer Culture 45
3. Housewives as Reading Women 78
4. Work for Life, for Marriage, for Love 114
5. Hard Days Ahead: Women on the Move 152
Notes 165
Bibliography 213
Index 233