The first study of state feminism in a non-western nation state, this volume focuses on the activities and roles of the Women's Bureau of the Ministry of Labor in post-World War II Japan. While state feminism theory possesses a strong capability to examine state-society relationships in terms of feminist policymaking, it tends to neglect a state's activity in improving women's status and rights in non-western nations where the feminist movements are apathetic or antagonistic to the state and where the state also creates a vertical relationship with feminist groups.