apan in 1946 looked decidedly run-down at the heels. Scarred by war, made dreary by deprivation, the country hadn't seen good times in almost a decade. Food, shelter, and running water were so scarce as to seem nonexistent.

Early one February morning that year, women and men, many clutching leeks or radishes, began gathering outside a Tokyo building. Drawn by a three-line notice in a local paper, they formed a line that wrapped twice round the building by the start of the business day.

The notice promised not housing or health care but the release of the first postwar issue of Style, a popular women's magazine. Those without money hoped to use vegetables to barter for a copy. "I find it amazing that so many people were willing to trade the little they had for a magazine," Jan Bardsley says.

An associate professor in the Curriculum in Asian Studies, Bardsley studies how an exaggerated image of the American woman and her life—an image gleaned from Japanese women's magazines published in the 1940s and 1950s—beguiled Japanese women and affected their sense of identity and goals. "These magazines portray the American woman as a successful, assertive, and self-actualized Donna Reed character, so I was curious how Japanese women were affected by this blond, non-Asian ideal," she says.

To satisfy her curiosity, Bardsley translated numerous articles from Japanese women's magazines and researched the cultural and political climate of the postwar period. She found Japanese women in a state of flux.

In the wake of Japan's crushing defeat in World War II, much of its citizens' ethos seemed discredited. "Suddenly it wasn't wise to follow the teaching of mothers or grandmothers, and the government was suspect because it had led the country into a disastrous war," Bardsley says. Women's magazines of the time often demonized Japanese men because of their autocratic role in the family system and their lack of support for their wives.

"So, people believed that Japan was starting over," she says. And where better to look for role models than the home of one of the victors—the United States? Conveniently, Americans were not only close at hand but interested in shaping a new Japan.

fter Japan's surrender to Allied powers in August 1945, American occupation forces, led by General Douglas MacArthur, governed Japan until April 1952. The occupation administration often was referred to as SCAP, the acronym for MacArthur's title (supreme commander of Allied powers). Among SCAP's many goals was encouraging the Japanese to embrace democracy and capitalism.

But promoting abstract ideas can be tricky—especially to people consumed with the daily struggle of a hardscrabble life. SCAP's Civil Information and Education Section hit upon the brilliant plan of using women's magazines to portray the American woman's glorious life; a life only possible in a democratic, capitalistic society. "Japanese women's magazines gave a material reality to democracy and capitalism—I call it ‘when fashion became democracy,'" Bardsley says.

No magazine escaped scrutiny. Every publisher submitted its magazines to SCAP before publication; SCAP translators then prepared English versions of all tables of contents and any articles that seemed potentially offensive because they criticized SCAP or the United States. SCAP killed articles it deemed offensive. "For example," Bardsley says, "an article on author Pearl Buck proposed for the March 1946 issue of Fujin-Gahô (women's pictorial) was deleted because Buck criticized American segregation practices." While SCAP allowed no visible trace of censorship in published magazines, evidence of its guidance is apparent in magazine content.

"SCAP planted articles about American popular culture in magazines," Bardsley says, "and encouraged Japanese writers' utopian stories of American life." In these articles, the American housewife takes on mythic proportions. In an article summarizing a typical day, she prepares attractive, nutritious meals for her family; quickly has her house gleaming because she's so efficient; uses her free time to read and improve herself; is an active, responsible citizen; and is always perfectly dressed for every occasion.

Bardsley notes that unlike the Japanese wife who toiled alone, the American wife who emerges from these articles "receives help from her children and her husband, who treats her as an equal."