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Discusses the link between the changing position of women and gender relations and the changes in the global political economy. Arguments on the competition of states for respectability; Changes in the condition and representation of women in Japan; Proposed conceptual framework for analysing the significance of women and gender in the global political economy.

The article discusses representation of women in positions of public power. Women are heavily under-represented in positions of public power. In most industrialized countries women are no longer confined to the family and excluded from the public sphere, but the radical changes in gender relations that have taken place over the second half of twentieth century have had limited effects in changing the gender balance of public power or increasing women's participation in decision-making positions. Several explanations have been put forward to understand women's segregation into low value, powerless positions in public life. The most influential explanations have attempted to understand women's exclusion or nationalization from power within the context of the intersection of important structural divisions in society such as class, gender and race. In the last decade of twentieth century, women have made significant encroachments into areas of public influence, in which even 20 years ago women were considered exceptional, if not abnormal.