Shufu no Tomo (主婦の友, Housewife's Friend) was a Japanese monthly women's magazine based in Tokyo, Japan. The magazine was in circulation between 1917 and 2008.

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Shufu no Tomo was launched in 1917,[1][2][3] and the first issue appeared in March 1917.[4] The founding company was Tokyo Kaseikai.[5] Its founder was Ishikawa Takemi.[6] The magazine was published monthly by Shufu no Tomo Co. Ltd. in Tokyo.[7][8] The size of the magazine was A5 until 1956 when it was switched to B5.[9]

Shufu no Tomo had a conservative stance.[10] It addressed young married women during the initial phase.[6] At the same time its target audience was the mass market and lower-middle class women.[3] It covered articles about home management, including savings and birth control.[2] In 2008 Shufu no Tomo ceased publication.[11]

Circulation

Shufu no Tomo had an estimated circulation of 200,000 copies in 1927.[12] In 1931 its monthly circulation was 600,000 copies,[6] and the magazine sold about 8 million copies.[13] In 1952 it was the third best-selling and the third popular magazine in the country.[7][14] Shufu no Tomo was one of four powerful and best-selling women's magazines in Japan in 1958.[15] The other three were Fujin kurabu, Fujin seikatsu and Shufu to seikatsu with a combined circulation of 2,200,000 copies.[15]

References

  1. ^ Keiko Tanaka (1998). "Japanese Women's Magazines. The language of aspiration". In Dolores Martinez (ed.). The Worlds of Japanese Popular Culture: Gender, Shifting Boundaries and Global Cultures. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 110. ISBN 978-0-521-63729-9.
  2. ^ a b Takeda Hiroko (2004). The Political Economy of Reproduction in Japan. London; New York: Routledge Curzon. p. 55. ISBN 978-1-134-35543-3.
  3. ^ a b Takeda Hiroko (2005). "Governance through the Family". In Glenn D. Hook (ed.). Contested Governance in Japan: Sites and Issues. London; New York: Routledge Curzon. p. 237. ISBN 978-0-415-36498-0.
  4. ^ Sarah Anne Frederick (2000). Housewives, modern girls, feminists: Women's magazines and modernity in Japan (PhD thesis). University of Chicago. p. 113. ISBN 978-0-599-97544-6. ProQuest 304639224.
  5. ^ Ai Maeda (2004). Text and the City: Essays on Japanese Modernity. Durham, NC; London: Duke University Press. p. 167. ISBN 0-8223-8562-7.
  6. ^ a b c Barbara Sato (2003). The New Japanese Woman: Modernity, Media, and Women in Interwar Japan. Durham, NC; London: Duke University Press. p. 94. ISBN 0-8223-8476-0.
  7. ^ a b Emiko Ochiai (1998). "Decent Housewives and Sensual White Women: Representations of Women in Postwar Japanese Magazines". In Edward R. Beauchamp (ed.). Women and Women's Issues in Post World War II Japan. New York; London: Garland Publishing Inc. p. 206. ISBN 978-0-8153-2731-8.
  8. ^ "Company Overview of Shufu no Tomo Co. Ltd". Bloomberg News. Retrieved 17 September 2016.
  9. ^ Natsuko Y. Furuya (July 1962). "Postwar Publishing Trends in Japan". The Library Quarterly. 32 (3): 219–220. doi:10.1086/619018. S2CID 148089534.
  10. ^ Sharon Kinsella (2013). Schoolgirls, Money and Rebellion in Japan. London; New York: Routledge. p. 86. ISBN 978-1-134-48841-4.
  11. ^ Philip Brasor (24 August 2008). "It's time for perfectly cute 50-year-old Japanese women". The Japan Times. Retrieved 17 September 2016.
  12. ^ Minggang Li (2008). The Early Years of Bungei Shunju and the Emergence of a Middlebrow Literature (PhD thesis). Ohio State University. p. 262.
  13. ^ Sandra Wilson (1998). "Women, the State and the Media in Japan in the Early 1930s". In Stephen S. Large (ed.). Shōwa Japan: 1926-1941. Vol. 1. London; New York: Routledge. p. 261. ISBN 978-0-415-14320-2.
  14. ^ Emiko Ochiai (1997). "Decent Housewives and Sensual White Women". Japan Review (9). JSTOR 25791006.
  15. ^ a b Jan Bardsley (2014). Women and Democracy in Cold War Japan. London; New York: Bloomsbury Academic. p. 111. ISBN 978-1-4725-2566-6.