Beyond Sex Work: Women's Welfare Cooperatives in Tokyo Red-Light Districts, 1946-1958

This presentation will examine how female brothel workers developed their community cooperatives for welfare in the late 1940s and 1950s, focusing on a group in Tokyo called Shin-Yoshiwara Joshi Hoken Kumiai (the Healthcare Association for Women in Shin-Yoshiwara). Diverting attention from their economic or sexual relationships with male customers, this talk will explore how these women extended networks among themselves. After World War II, the overlapping interests of the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, the Japanese government, and brothel proprietors enabled working women to build cooperatives in red-light districts. Women in Shin-Yoshiwara leveraged this organizing power to improve community welfare, including health maintenance, safety, and support for working women. These initiatives also created a space for negotiation and coordination between the women and government officials. Moreover, these women promoted their efforts through publications and media appearances to counter stigmatizing images of them as sick, dangerous, or apathetic. By analyzing the associations’ documents, photographs, and letters alongside government and media records, this presentation will show how marginalized women safeguarded themselves, navigated legal challenges and social stigma, and engaged in welfare politics.

Reischauer Institute Japan Forum