After the Meiji Restoration in 1860, Japan experienced numerous changes within the structure of their government and society. One of the changes after the revolution was the transition into a more modern state. With the end of shogunute rule, the new government wanted to appear on a world stage alongside the other international powers. In order to develop on a global level, Japan began to introduce their industry throughout South – East Asia, Australian colonies, the Pacific West, China, and North American territories. In addition to exporting with these regions, Japan began offering government funded migration to peasants who were willing to work on plantations in the Dutch East Indies, Hawaii, and Australia. The second governmental task …show more content…
Mihalopoulos explores the ways in which the government, Christian activists, and upper middle-class feminists used their platforms as a way to build Japan as a seemingly more expansive and progressive society. Drawing inspiration from Ian Hacking’s piece Making Up People, Mihalopoulos perceives the archives as a place where government officials and bureaucrats were able to create a chain reaction, meaning that regular citizens were starting to accept what was being said about the sex workers as fact. The author also adds that religious activists like the Japanese Women’s Christian Temperance Union (JWCT), was not really concerned about the actions of the sex workers, but more concerned about the values that it portrayed. In the end, Mihalopoulos argues that it was the emergence of activist groups like the JWCT that represented the effects of cultural expansion and …show more content…
In relation to other scholarly works on in the field, Mihalopoulos steps away from the general argument that the sex workers were helpless victims. Instead, his methodology negates popular historiography and argues that while the women did face cruel working environments, they understood what they were doing and made the choice to migrate. Daughters who were sold to the brothels by their families understood that they could potentially make money to send back to their families in order to pay off