Representing Women’s Interests in Japan’s Civil Society

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This is a significant article which seeks to survey civil society organizations in Japan to examine whether and how they represent women's interests. However, the article can be improved, and suggestions are listed below. Mainly, more detail needs to be provided about the survey, and an attempt could be made to modify the figures so as to represent results more clearly.

-- 'Civil society' needs to be defined. Is this the non-governmental sector? This could be defined in the Introduction, as well as in the Methods [lines 224-225]. Also, what is 'civil society studies' [first sentence of Introduction, line 25]? Delete this?

-- Delete sub-heading 2.2.1, or add to 2.2.

-- Section 2.3 [Other Political Factors] would be better situated at the end of Section 2.1?

-- In terms of religious groups [first mentioned in Section 2.2], is it being argued that religious groups have been studied in other contexts [lines 128-130], and are important in Japan [lines 144-146] or are not important in Japan [lines 352-353]? This issue needs to be clarified.

-- In Section 3.1, it is not clear why the surveyed organizations were randomly selected. Isn't there a possibility that the random selection missed out on pertinent organizations related to women's interests? Why not send the survey to all organizations?

There also needs to be some explanation for why Tokyo and Ibaraki prefectures were chosen as study sites.

-- Section 3.2 is not about Methods per se, but about how the organizations that responded to the survey were organized into clusters? Maybe the section could be titled 'Classifying organizations'?

-- A separate Methods section needs to be provided, or this could be made part of Section 3.1. There needs to be (i) some detail provided about how the questionnaire was structured (various questions are mentioned in Section 4; these need to be introduced in Section 3), and (ii) a mention that factor/cluster analysis and counts were used to analyze the data.

-- Section 4.1 ['Social distribution'] should probably be divided into three sub-sections (gender of leadership and staff, organization type, and year of establishment). Alternatively, organization type should probably be discussed in Section 3.2 (with clusters), and in Section 4.1, year of establishment should come before gender of leadership/staff, since the latter also contains a discussion of change over time [lines 329-335].

'Social distribution' is probably not the right title for this section. Maybe more simply 'Year of establishment and leadership/staff composition'?

-- The visualization of the graphs (Figures 2-10) can be reconsidered. Would it be possible to represent the graphs in the form of bars rather than lines? Or also provide tables with the graphs? It is difficult to understand the figures due to the number of lines (except for Figure 4) .

-- Line 457 states that the LDP has been mentioned earlier, when there is no earlier mention of how long the LDP has been the ruling party.

-- Section 5.4 should be Section 4.3.2 ? First paragraph of Section 5.4 [lines 481-484] should be moved to Section 4.3.1.

-- There is some discussion of future work in the Conclusion. This could be expanded. The limitations of this study also need to be mentioned; for instance, the selection of a sample, rather than surveying all organizations.

Author Response

Reviewer １

Representing women’s interests in Japan’s civil society: who are the actors and what are their strategies?

Thank you very much for your comments concerning the above-mentioned manuscript.

I received your review on March 8 and now I have revised the manuscript. I am pleased to note the favorable comments of the reviewers and have made corrections which I hope meet with their approval.

1. I have added the definition of “civil society” into footnote i on p. 19. With regards to “civil society studies” [line 25], I replaced “scholars of civil society studies” to “scholars of civil society.”
2. The sub-heading 2.2.1 on p. have been deleted.
3. Section 2.3 [Other Political Factors] have been shortened as follows: “For instance, Asakura et al. [13] also mentioned that political factors, including ideology and dissatisfaction with political elites, could lead to social movements such as #MeToo, #KuToo, and Flower Demo” on p. 4.
4. In terms of religious groups, the word “in Japan” have been added on p. 9 [line 338] to convey my intentions more clearly.
5. The reasons why we randomly selected the organizations in Tokyo and Ibaraki prefectures have been added on footnote to ix on p. 20. Also, with regards to the possibilities that random selection missed out on pertinent organizations related to women’s interest, we have also added the footnote ix on p. 20.
6. The Section 3.2 have been re-titled as “Classifying organizations.”
7. The structures of questionnaire have been added on pp.5-6 [line 223-231]. Also, the reasons why factor/cluster analysis were used have been added on p.6 [line 239-248].
8. The Section 3.2 have been re-titled as “Classifying organizations.”
9. Section 4.1 [Social distribution] have been divided into three sub-sections (gender of leadership and staff, organization type, and year of establishment). Also, Section 4.1 have been re-titled as 'Year of establishment and leadership/staff composition.'
10. Figure 2-10 have been fixed and represented in the form of bars.
11. I have deleted the phrase “as mentioned earlier.”
12. I have change Section 5.4 to Section 4.3.2. Also, I moved first paragraph of Section 5.4 to Section 4.3.1.
13. I have added the limitations of this studies in the Conclusion. For instance, I have mentioned the selection of a samples.

Reviewer 2 Report

The article builds on Kang’s question “who in civil society seeks to influence the representation of women’s interests and how?” It posits clearly why Japan is an interesting case to ask this question (lines 40-42). The article’s survey represents a novel methodology in the study of relationship between gender and civil society groups.

First more substantial remark I have pertains to the section 2.3 of the literature review since it is not clear how it relates to the overall argument of the paper. It should be reframed, reworked or linked more explicitly to the aim of the paper. The literature review is very much a listing of sources and would benefit from being linked explicitly to the research question of the paper.

Second remark pertains to the conclusion: taken the findings into account, I would like to urge the authors to express what does their paper mean for our understanding of gender issues and civil society advocacy in contemporary Japan?

Minor details: Table on page two shows that the office of mayor is particularly inaccessible to women even more so than the object of the study, the civil society groups.

figure 3: description of the green line is missing (probably energy as in the previous graph).

Line 400 it is interesting that the level of cooperation of different organizations with regards to women’s issues is only evaluated based on self-evaluation of the organizations‘ members. Attention and perhaps a short explanatory note should be devoted to this issue which contains bias.

I suggest figure 6 to be rethought and made clearer. I tried to delve into the data to come up with the same conclusions as the authors and it proved to be very challenging.  

Line 460 onwards: this is interesting and potentially counter-intuitive (also compared to other contexts), more analytical thought to this could bring this interesting finding to the fore: “The results clearly indicate that organizations representing women’s interests have been more likely to appeal to opposition parties, such as the DP, JCP, and SDPJ, and less likely to appeal to the ruling parties, compared to other cluster types.”

Author Response

Reviewer ２

Representing women’s interests in Japan’s civil society: who are the actors and what are their strategies?

Thank you very much for your comments concerning the above-mentioned manuscript.

I received your review on March 8 and now I have revised the manuscript. I am pleased to note the favorable comments of the reviewers and have made corrections which I hope meet with their approval.

1. Section 2.3 [Other Political Factors] have been shortened as follows: “For instance, Asakura et al. [13] also mentioned that political factors, including ideology and dissatisfaction with political elites, could lead to social movements such as #MeToo, #KuToo, and Flower Demo” on p. 4.
2. According to your comments, I have added some sentences to the Conclusion.
3. As you kindly pointed out, the office of mayor is also inaccessible to women. I have added some sentences on footnote ii on p.19.
4. With regards to Figure 3 (Figure 1 in the revised manuscript on p.10), I have added the bar to show energy.
5. I have added a short explanatory note regarding the bias related to self-evaluation into footnote xvii on p. 20.
6. I have fixed Figure 6 (Figure 4 in the revised manuscript on p. 13) to make it easier to see the results.
7. With regard to the appeal of organizations representing women’s interests, I have added a short explanatory note on p. 14 [line 433-436].

Reviewer 3 Report

This is certainly an original article, regarding content and methodology, on an interesting, important subject. Most of my recommendations involve relatively minor matters. The reference to Beckwith, for example (81) has little to contribute to the paper, turning, it seems, women's concerns into social constructs. This goes against, I claim,  the main thrust of the article. Multiple mentions to #Metoo, #Kutoo, Flower Demo: these are highly repetitious and lacking any sentence or two explaining what these groups are about in an introductory fashion. For an article generally clear about methodology, the concept "cluster" is used without, I think, an adequate explanation about what it is, except a reference to a source (275). My main concern: what conclusions do you come to that are surprising? Certainly that women's  interests organizations seem unhappy with Japanese public policy on this subject is hardly counter intuitive. That such organizations make use of the media to propagate their message, again, no surprise. That males generally head such organizations: that, on the other hand, is an interesting find, but one that requires some reflection by the authors of the article. In summary, you need a more helpful conclusion, that better sums up your findings, and segregates the non-controversial findings from those that pose genuine challenges for additional commentary.

Author Response

Reviewer ３

Representing women’s interests in Japan’s civil society: who are the actors and what are their strategies?

Thank you very much for your comments concerning the above-mentioned manuscript.

I received your review on March 8 and now I have revised the manuscript. I am pleased to note the favorable comments of the reviewers and have made corrections which I hope meet with their approval.

1. According to your comments, I have deleted Beckwith and replace it to footnote iv on p. 20.
2. With regards to the references to #Metoo, #Kutoo, and Flower Demo, I have deleted some of them. Also, I have added the explanation of #Kutoo movement on p.3 [line 117-118].
3. The reasons why factor/cluster analysis were used have been added on p.6 [line 239-248].
4. I have added some sentences to the Conclusion.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Thank you for making the changes. Some additional changes are required to further clarify the article. I have listed the main comments below, and more specific comments are provided in the attached file.

-- The first paragraph of the Introduction has too many mentions of 'civil society.' It could be made more streamlined by deleting 'in civil society' on lines 24 and 27, and deleting 'in civil society and in society overall' in lines 28-29.

-- Reference numbering should begin with 1 [line 25].

-- The entire quote needs to be indented, and not just the first line. Reformat quotes on lines 30-34, lines 86-92, and lines 103-109.

-- Need references for lines 41-43.

-- Sentence on lines 59-60 needs to be revised. Maybe delete 'regardless of women's serious under-representation in this society' [line 60].

-- line 112: 'Moreover' should probably be 'Similarly,' since Kinoshita and Park are saying the same thing? Possibly combine the two references in one sentence?

Beckwith, mentioned in endnote (iv), should also be brought into this section, or deleted.

-- On lines 147-148, should it be pro-feminist (rather than anti-feminist)?

-- Sentence on lines 157-158 is unclear. Maybe delete 'both' [line 157] and 'and labor movements and have not received much attention' [lines 157-158].

-- It is mentioned that the questionnaire had five broad sections [line 244], but only three sections seem to be listed. Please list them all.

-- Sentence on lines 269-270 is not clear: 'Considering the nature of women’s interests, these methods were considered appropriate for such analysis.' Need to elaborate on the 'nature of women's interests' here (maybe that they are covered by various kinds of organizations?), even if this would be a repetition.

-- The listing of issues should be the same in Tables 2 and 3. Maybe Table 3's order can be followed for Table 2?

-- 'This paper uses factor analysis to extract the factors related to women’s issues using the 29 issues shown in Table 2.' [lines 280-282]

Delete this sentence since it seems to be a repetition [of lines 270-272]? Or add to next paragraph?

Sentence on lines 282-284 should also be part of next paragraph?

-- All issues are not listed in lines 285-298: communication and information issues, consumer protection, tourist issues, transportation and traffic issues (Factor 1) and local government and administrative issues (Factor 3) are missing.

'Academia' [line 292] should be Academic?

Also make sure the issues are referred to in a standard way throughout. For instance, 'Science, technology, and research issues' in Table 3 is referred to as 'Scientific technology and research issues' in Table 2.

-- Section 4.1. could be titled 'Organizational characteristics.'

-- On line 384, it is mentioned that the survey listed 13 specific organization types. It would be useful to mention here that these organization types are not the same as the issues mentioned earlier. Would help clarify that this is a different question, even as some of the labels overlap between issues and organization types.

-- line 432: 'women's groups' should be 'labor groups'?

-- lines 459-460: Replace 'the liberal democratic party of Japan (LDP) coalition with the Komeito.' with 'currently, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), in coalition with the Komeito.'

-- lines 587-589: 'More interestingly, the central actors representing women’s interests include other organizations – not just civic groups – such as women’s groups as well as labor and academic groups.'

Is this from Table 7? Academic groups should be 'Arts/cultural/scholarly groups'? Also, delete 'women's groups as well as'

-- Revise endnote (i): spelling of 'according;' delete 'a concept of'

-- In endnote (ii), mention table number.

-- Endnote (iv) can be deleted and added to main text (as mentioned in comments above).

-- Endnote (xiv): use full form of JTUC.

-- Numbering of endnotes has to be revised.

Comments are also marked in the accompanying pdf file.

Author Response

# Representing women’s interests in Japan’s civil society: who are the actors and what are their strategies?

Thank you very much for your comments above-mentioned manuscript. I have received your comments on March 31, and revised manuscript. I am glad to see the favorable comments from reviewers and hope this revised manuscript meet your approval.

-- The first paragraph of the Introduction has too many mentions of 'civil society.' It could be made more streamlined by deleting 'in civil society' on lines 24 and 27, and deleting 'in civil society and in society overall' in lines 28-29.

According to your comments, I have deleted “civil society.”

-- Reference numbering should begin with 1 [line 25].

I have fixed reference numbering according to your comments. Reference 10 is on endnote, just in case.

-- The entire quote needs to be indented, and not just the first line. Reformat quotes on lines 30-34, lines 86-92, and lines 103-109.

I have reformatted quotes on lines 30-34 and lines 86-92. With regards to line 103-109, here is not entire quote.

-- Need references for lines 41-43.

I have added references for lines 41-43.

-- Sentence on lines 59-60 needs to be revised. Maybe delete 'regardless of women's serious under-representation in this society' [line 60].

I have deleted “regardless of women’s serious under-representation in this society” on line 60.

-- line 112: 'Moreover' should probably be 'Similarly,' since Kinoshita and Park are saying the same thing? Possibly combine the two references in one sentence?

I have replaced “moreover” to “similarly” on line 113.

Beckwith, mentioned in endnote (iv), should also be brought into this section, or deleted.

I have deleted Beckwith in endnote.

-- On lines 147-148, should it be pro-feminist (rather than anti-feminist)?

With regards to 148-149, Japan’s religious groups, such as Shinto groups or Buddhist groups, are anti-feminist. To make it clear, I have added “, such as Shinto groups or Buddhist groups,” on line 148-149.

-- Sentence on lines 157-158 is unclear. Maybe delete 'both' [line 157] and 'and labor movements and have not received much attention' [lines 157-158].

I have deleted “both” and “and labor movements and have not received much attention” on lines 158-159.

-- It is mentioned that the questionnaire had five broad sections [line 244], but only three sections seem to be listed. Please list them all.

I have listed all sections on lines249-251

-- Sentence on lines 269-270 is not clear: 'Considering the nature of women’s interests, these methods were considered appropriate for such analysis.' Need to elaborate on the 'nature of women's interests' here (maybe that they are covered by various kinds of organizations?), even if this would be a repetition.

I have added the sentences on line 269.

-- The listing of issues should be the same in Tables 2 and 3. Maybe Table 3's order can be followed for Table 2?

Table 2 was created based on the questionnaire’s order, while Table 3 has been reordered to make the results of the factor analysis easier to understand. Maybe, reordering Table 3 and Table 2 would make them difficult to recognize, they have been left as they are.

-- 'This paper uses factor analysis to extract the factors related to women’s issues using the 29 issues shown in Table 2.' [lines 280-282]

Delete this sentence since it seems to be a repetition [of lines 270-272]? Or add to next paragraph?

I have deleted the sentences on lines 280 to 281.

Sentence on lines 282-284 should also be part of next paragraph?

I have revised that paragraph according to your comments.

-- All issues are not listed in lines 285-298: communication and information issues, consumer protection, tourist issues, transportation and traffic issues (Factor 1) and local government and administrative issues (Factor 3) are missing.

According to your comments, I have added these issues in lines 286-288.

'Academia' [line 292] should be Academic?

I have revised “Academia” to “Academic.”

With Regards to “Group support issues” and “Others,” they are not categorized any groups according to Table 3.

Also make sure the issues are referred to in a standard way throughout. For instance, 'Science, technology, and research issues' in Table 3 is referred to as 'Scientific technology and research issues' in Table 2.

-- Section 4.1. could be titled 'Organizational characteristics.'

I have revised title of Section 4.1 to “Organizational characteristics.”

-- On line 384, it is mentioned that the survey listed 13 specific organization types. It would be useful to mention here that these organization types are not the same as the issues mentioned earlier. Would help clarify that this is a different question, even as some of the labels overlap between issues and organization types.

According to your comments, I have added endnote to make sure that these organization types are not the same as the issues mentioned earlier.

-- line 432: 'women's groups' should be 'labor groups'?

“Women’s groups” is the right term here.

-- lines 459-460: Replace 'the liberal democratic party of Japan (LDP) coalition with the Komeito.' with 'currently, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), in coalition with the Komeito.

I have replaced the sentences according to your comments.

-- lines 587-589: 'More interestingly, the central actors representing women’s interests include other organizations – not just civic groups – such as women’s groups as well as labor and academic groups.'

Is this from Table 7? Academic groups should be 'Arts/cultural/scholarly groups'? Also, delete 'women's groups as well as'

According to your comments, I have revised the sentences.

-- Revise endnote (i): spelling of 'according;' delete 'a concept of'

I have revised endnote (i) according to your comments.

-- In endnote (ii), mention table number.

I have added the table number in endonote (ii).

-- Endnote (iv) can be deleted and added to main text (as mentioned in comments above).

I have deleted endnote (iv) according to your comments.

-- Endnote (xiv): use full form of JTUC.

I have added full form of JTUC (Japanese Trade Union Confederation).

-- Numbering of endnotes has to be revised.

To revise the numbering of endnote, I have to finalize all the changes in the file. Since doing so would obscure the changes in the file, two files are attached: a version of the file with the corrections clearly indicated, and a version of the file with the end notes in order.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf