The importance of Ethel Weed's role as an adviser to Japanese women and advocate of women’s rights in Occupied Japan was unfortunately only partially known at the time of her death in 1975 and before historians had a chance to interview her. The extent of Weed's activities on behalf of Japanese women is, however, well-documented in Occupation records at the National Archives, College Park, Maryland.

Weed arrived in Japan as a lieutenant in the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WACs) in October 1945. She remained until the end of the Occupation, April 1952, shifting from military to civilian status in 1947. Although the initial plans in Washington, D.C. for the democratization and demilitarization of Occupied Japan gave little attention to women’s emancipation, including increased educational and professional opportunities, this was soon corrected by MacArthur’s headquarters. A new Women's Bureau was set up within the Civil Information and Education Section (CI&E) toward the end of the year, and Lt. Weed, already on duty as a women’s information officer, was placed in charge. The exact date of the establishment of this bureau is somewhat obscure, but it was in operation by January 1946 when Shufu no tomo (Housewive's Friend), a popular Japanese women's magazine, included her remarks in a published round-table discussion publicizing the Women’s Bureau.

One of the most interesting things about Weed is the concerted effort she made to establish relations with activist Japanese women and to work with and through them in tackling the many issues of women's democratization and equality. She had been an English major in college and had tried her hand at newspaper work and public relations in the 1930s. Perhaps she had learned during her stint at the Cleveland Plain Dealer how hard it was for women to advance in journalism. After enlistment in the WACs in 1943, she was one of only a few women officers who were trained for civil affairs activities in defeated Japan. Once in Tokyo, Weed recruited a select group of expert Japanese women to help her in carrying out assignments. They became known as “Weed's Girl's” (an unfortunate label and perhaps not of her making). It was their research on the Japanese family which prompted her to give high priority to reform of the 1898 Civil Code. She subsequently became deeply involved in the politics of raising the legal status of Japanese women. Her group had to overcome male opponents within CI&E as well as conservative Japanese skeptics.

In addition, Weed urged Japanese women to exercise their new voting rights and to run for office. She made frequent field trips throughout Japan to meet local women's groups in rural and urban settings. She gave talks, held press conferences, and helped prepare guides to organizing and running meetings. She kept track of a wide variety of women’s clubs and groups and held interviews with their leaders. In 1950, Weed led a group of prominent Japanese women to the United States, where they met counterpart American women leaders and had a special audience with one of their idols, Eleanor Roosevelt. She accompanied a second group in 1951. Over her years in Japan, Weed acquired a working knowledge of prior Japanese women’s history and activism. For example, she learned about activist Hiratsuka Raicho and the founding of the 1911 Bluestockings (the famed Seitosha), which may explain why Hiratsuka was recruited so many years later in 1949 as a consultant for a proposed film on Japanese women's history.

If Weed erred, it was perhaps in too narrowly defining her circle of women consultants. She was not as perceptive as she might have been about the housewive's movement, for example, and seemed to be more attuned to the political movements of middle and upper class women than of lower class working women, although she backed the creation of the Women’s and Children's Bureau in the new Labor Department, September 1947. Since Weed was careful to avoid close contact with Japanese women who were considered to be complicit in Japan's Asia/Pacific War, she excluded famed suffragist Ichikawa Fusae from her inner circle and did not back Japanese women’s groups who were frantic to remove Ichikawa from the political purge. In 1952, when the Occupation ended, Weed decided on the life of a bookseller in New York City. From 1954 to 1969, she kept her hand in U.S.-Japan relations by specializing in books about Japan and East Asia at the East-West Bookshop, which she ran with her cousin near Bloomingdale's Department Store and Hunter College and later moved to Newtown, Connecticut. The Japanese were first to remember and honor her accomplishments, 1970-1971. Within five years of her death, she was selected for inclusion in a prestigious dictionary, Notable American Women, The Modern Period.