Despite the fact that Japan and England had many similarities with female mill workers, they still had a few differences. They basically had young children and women working in big dangerous factories making thread or in mines. So how were their experiences different? Female Japanese workers had to work more, they got paid less, and they accepted the role that their society gave them.
Throughout the innovation of the factory, the most crucial characteristic was effectiveness; producing as much as possible, as quick as possible.
Since of the need for staff members in the factories, owners started using women, 2 examples remaining in England and Japan. Men in control, low wages, duties for families, ages of employees, long working hours, and the dreadful working conditions, prevailed in both societies. Despite being on opposite sides of the hemisphere, both groups of ladies were segregated in unreasonable experiences.
Prior to addressing a research study concern, one should question different aspects of the topic. The original file based concern was: How were the experiences of Female Mill Employees in England and Japan comparable? In order to begin thinking about the subject, unconsciously, one asks themselves much deeper concerns.
Who ruled over these females? What kept these females from defending their rights? How did the women vary in age? Asking these concerns helped me to truly comprehend the topic of the file based question, and in more depth. The main sources I looked at were analytical sources from both England and Japan. In addition, some sources I found were original documents of young females in the time duration.
Asking myself these concerns and discovering accurate sources assisted me to develop my paper in a significant method.
Compared to English women mill workers, Japanese women worked more. English female workers only worked about 74 hours a week and Japanese female workers worker 91 hours a week (Document 5). This was because the Japanese workers worked longer each day, had less holidays, and worked on weekends (Document 8). English female workers had more breaks, worked shorter hours each day, and did not work on weekends. This is a big difference between female English and Japanese mill workers.
Significance can be determined on both the originality and the similarities of the groups of ladies in England and Japan. The main factories in England were in Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Somerset, and Derbyshire. Around the 1800s, typically, 79.7% of the English mill workers were females. 57% of these females were over the age of 20. In Japan, 92% of the mill employees were ladies. Yet only 34% of the ladies were over 20, meaning that younger ladies were used instead of getting an education. No matter the ages, all the factories chose to utilize females, but why, and how did their experiences relate?
In both England and Japan, women were always controlled by men, especially in the mill working factories. Men were the owners, the big decision makers, and were privileged among the many employees, the majority being women. Whether the product created was silk, lace, wool, or cotton, the men were in charge of the women. Typically, the men were highly respected employees, who could be appointed manager. Because the men had considerably subjective power of the women, the women were defenseless and vulnerable. Many women in the factories were violently raped and harassed while working in the factories. With the fear of losing their job, the women were left with no possibilities of getting help. Some rapes even resulted in pregnancy, yet the women were always blamed.
In all factories in both England and Japan, men not only had more power, but were also paid considerably higher than women. The female mill workers in England and Japan also shared the responsibility for their families. Usually, the women started working in the factories in order to support the family with money for food, water, and shelter. In England, one pound of oatmeal cost 1 pence, or 1 penny, and made about 12 servings, or enough to feed an entire family. In Japan, one quart of rice cost 1 sen, roughly 0.0001 American Dollars. In order to feed the family three times a day, every person old enough to work had to contribute to the family. Because it took so much effort to afford so little food, many women had to leave their families to provide for them. In addition, in Japan, 29% of women were forced to leave their jobs for family reasons.
In both England and Japan, many female mill workers united in responsibility for their families. While terrible working conditions and long working hours were big similarities between the experiences of female English and Japanese mill workers, another similarity were the ages of women working. Most women began working in the factories around the age of 7. Until the 1833 Factory Act in England that prohibited children under the age of 10 to work over 8 hours per day, most women were treated the same, no matter the age.
Even though in both England and Japan women got pair less than men, Japanese women got paid even less than English women. This is a reason why they had so many workers. Since they paid them less they would be able to hire more workers and increase their production rate. Even though they got paid less, it was for the same reason. Why would they want to pay women less? They paid women less because the women needed money and they would accept any amount given to them (Document 8).
Japan and England have different ways they treat women and because of that the Japanese women accepted almost everything they went through in the mills. In Japan the women were treated a little less fairly. Japanese women were more willing to accept their role in society because they couldn’t do much about it (Document 8).This is the reason that female Japanese mill workers got low pay and worked more hours. In their society the men were respected more and had more freedom.
Female Japanese workers had to work more, they got paid less, and they accepted the role that their society gave them. Although their situations were almost the same, the different cultures had a big part to do with the way women were treated while working. England treated their women with more respect while Japan just thought that women needed to support their families by working all the time. This is important because it was a way for people to discriminate against women and make them work at bad places with low pay and many working hours.
Yet up until that point in England, whether a woman was 9, or was 21, she received the same pay, and the same hours of work. Although helping the women under the age of 10, the Factory Act put more pressure on the older women. In addition, the Factory Act encouraged education for young women by allowing them to spend more time in school rather than in the factories. While in England, the Factory Act was created, in Japan, nothing stopped the younger women from working more than 8 hours a day. The age when women started working is a huge reason why the experiences between the English female mill workers and the Japanese female mill workers were similar.
One of the largest and final similarities between the female mill workers in England and that of in Japan is the number of hours worked, and the horrifying conditions the women worked in. Most women worked an average of 12 to 14 hours a day. Also, women only had around 90 minutes of break spread across the day. In addition to the long hours each woman worked, in both England and Japan, horrendous working conditions played a huge role in the illness rate for women in factories. 24% of the women lost their jobs because of illness. Several illnesses caused women to leave, but the main one was tuberculosis from the awful factory conditions and the long hours of work women were forced to commit to. In both England and Japan, female mill workers had similar experiences in the hours worked, and the dreadful working conditions.
Efficiency, meaning to produce as much as possible, as fast as possible, standardized all factories. In order for efficiency to work, employees were necessary, which began women labor, two cases being in England and Japan. All powerful men, small incomes, responsibilities for others, ages of women employees, dreadfully long hours, and terrifying work environments, were similar among both societies. Although on separate parts of the world, both groups of women were treated unlawfully in their factory work experiences.