Chizuko Ueno (上野 千鶴子, Ueno Chizuko, born July 12, 1948, in Toyama Prefecture)^[1] is a Japanese sociologist and Japan's "best-known feminist".^[2][3] Her work covers sociological issues including semiotics, capitalism, and feminism in Japan.^[1][4] Ueno's writing is high quality and readable. Some people have very strong opinions about her work..^[5]

Chizuko Ueno has worked her entire career for gender equality in the Japanese society. Her research helped to make gender studies as an acknowledged field of research in Japan.

In 1982, Ueno wrote The Study of the 'Sexy Girl' (セクシィ・ギャルの大研究) and Reading the Housewife Debates (主婦論争を読む),. These were called "The Flagbearers of 1980's Feminism".^[1] She studied the relationship between the "Women's Lib" (ウーマン・リブ) movement of the 1960s and Women's Liberation Movement (女性解放運動) of the 1970s.^[1] She used structuralist and semiotic theory to sociology to investigate how gender works in society. Along with Asada Akira, Nakazawa Shin'ichi, and Yomota Inuhiko, she was part of the New Academicism Boom (ニュー・アカデミズム・ブーム).^[1]

She dropped out of her doctoral course and Ueno worked in a marketing systems think tank. She wrote a lot about consumption and society.^[6]

From 1979 to 1989, she was a Lecturer and later Associate Professor at the Heian Women's College. She was an Associate Professor and Professor at the Kyoto Seika University at the Department of Humanities from 1989 to 1994.^[1] She is a special guest professor at the Graduate School of Core Ethics and Frontier Sciences at Ritsumeikan University and a professor emeritus at the University of Tokyo.^[7] She retired from University of Tokyo to become Chief Director of the Women's Action Network (WAN).^[8][9] The group connects feminists from different backgrounds.^[10] In 1994, Ueno received the Suntory Arts and Sciences award for her work, The Rise and Fall of the Modern Family.^[1]