Women in postwar Japan have never felt completely free from the social role and cultural concept of the housewife. Drawing on a unique ethnographic inquiry, Ofra Goldstein-Gidoni explores the complexities of the relationship between socially and culturally constructed roles bestowed on Japanese women and their real lives. With a novel approach to the use of the Internet and email in the production of ethnographic knowledge, this book gives voice to the lives and thoughts of "professional housewives."