Invisibility by Design: Women and Labor in Japan’s Digital Economy

In the midst of an ever-growing digital mediation of human relations, Gabriella Lukács recovers the invisible labor of women that served as a base for the development of Japan’s digital economy. In order to consider the effect that our online presence has on the meaning of labor, Lukács’s book Invisibility by Design: Women and Labor in Japan’s Economy focuses on how women were deprived of entrepreneurial success, and despite playing an important role in developing Japan’s digital economy were excluded from attaining entrepreneurial success within it (4). In this context, the digital economy is defined as all business activities conducted on the Internet. For Lukács, because the industries that transitioned to or formed within this new economy reproduced social gender stereotypes, they fostered women’s failure to develop professional careers. Under the guise of providing platforms where anyone could gain popularity and promote their talents, these industries harnessed women’s free affective...