"Uncovering the Waste of the World": Women and the State in Japanese Wartime Waste Campaigns, 1937–1945

Starting in the morning of July 22, 1938, under the blazing sun, hundreds of women set out into the streets of Tokyo, searching for instances of “waste” (muda). The women— members of women’s groups, such as the League for Women’s Suffrage (Fusen kakutoku dōmei), the Young Women’s Christian Association, and the Women’s Peace Association (Fujin heiwa kyōkai), that together constituted the Japan Federation of Women’s Organizations (Nihon fujin dantai renmei)1—walked through amusement quarters, parks, offices, markets, and eateries, recording on cards any waste they observed. The 883 women who participated in the event discovered 1,257 cases of waste, ranging from uneaten food to unnecessary use of electricity by streetlights (Asahi shinbun 1938e, 2). The occasion was a one-day event called “Finding Waste in the Streets” (Gaitō ni muda o hirou), initiated by the Federation of Women’s Organizations. The women organized the event in support of the government’s official “Week for Emphasis on the Economic Battle” (Keizaisen kyōchō shūkan), a campaign organized by the Central League of the Spiritual Mobilization Movement (Kokumin seishin sōdōin chūō renmei)