（5）The Organization of the Greater Japan Association of Women

Prior to the China Incident, there were several nationwide women's organizations supervised by different Ministries. Under the Ministry of Education were the Greater Japan Federation of Women's Groups (Dai Nippon Rengo Fujinkai), which was founded in 1930, and the Greater Japan Federation of Girls' Youth Groups. The Women's Patriotic Association (Aikoku Fujinkai) set up earlier, in 1901 by Okumura Ioko was under the supervision of the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Ministry of Health and Welfare and the Greater Japan Women's National Defense Association (Dai Nippon Kokubo Fujinkai) was established in 1932 under the supervision of the Ministries of the Army and the Navy. In 1941, the Greater Japan Federation of Girls' Youth Groups was unified with the other nationwide youth and child groups including its boys' counterpart, the Greater Japan Youth Group, to organize the Greater Japan Youth and Child Group, but the other three women's groups continued to compete with each other.

However, in June, 1941, the Cabinet adopted Guidelines for Making a New Women's Organization to Meet the Critical Need of National Defense and, despite strong pressure from the military concerning certain items, the three groups merged in February, 1942, to create the Greater Japan Women's Association (Dai Nippon Fujinkai). This Association committed itself to the cultivation of the concept of national polity, the indoctrination of womanly virtues, the propagation of the importance of national defense, the purification of family life, the disciplining of youths, the promotion of home education, the encouragement of soldiers, training for national defense, service to the nation through performing everyone's duties, cooperation among neighbors and the promotion of savings among other goals. The Greater Japan Women's Association reached out to all adult Japanese women through a nationwide network of neighborhood and village associations. The headquarters was affiliated with the Imperial Rule Assistance Association (Taisei Yokusankai) whose opening ceremony took place on October 12, 1940.