Lecture: Izumi Nakayama May 12, 2005

Izumi Nakayama, a 1998 Carleton graduate, will present a talk titled ?Bleeding Rights: Menstruation Leave in Modern Japan? at 5 p.m. on Thursday, May 12, at Carleton College?s Gould Library Athenaeum. The event is free and open to the public.

Nakayama will speak on the conceptualization of menstruation leave, seiri ky?ka, in 20th century Japan. Menstruation leave provides menstruating women (if suffering from cramps and other discomforts) several days off from work, without fear of pay deductions or dismissal. In the Japanese labor market in the early 1900s, women dominated the labor market and, as a result, state concern with female reproductive capabilities increased dramatically. Labor science researchers conducted surveys of working women, producing data that proved the negative effects of wage labor on menstruation and fertility. Both female and male labor activists incorporated these results into new demands for the labor movement of the 1920s and by the late 1930s, at least two companies provided menstruation leave for their female workers. After Japan?s defeat in World War II, menstruation leave was codified in the Japanese Labor Standards Law and today Japan remains one of the very few countries with this controversial labor legislation.

Nakayama is a Ph.D. candidate at Harvard University in history and East Asian languages with emphasis on gender and labor history. Since graduating from Carleton, Nakayama has focused her studies on the conceptualization of labor in East Asian economies and recently completed a year of study at the Ohara Institute for Social Research at Hosei University in Japan.

For more information and disability accommodations, call Carleton?s library at (507) 646-4260.