Organizer: Sumiko Otsubo, Ohio State University
Chair: James R. Bartholomew, Ohio State University
Discussant: Miriam R. Silverberg, University of California, Los Angeles
This panel focuses on three groups of middle-class women and their respective contributions to the Woman Problem debate in Taisho Japan. Dina Lowy and Sumiko Otsubo will discuss two separate movements that enjoyed Hiratsuka Raicho's leadership: Dina Lowy concentrates on the literary society of Seito in the 1910s, while Sumiko Otsubo analyzes the politically active New Woman Association (NWA) between 1919 and 1921. Rumi Yasutake will examine the Japan Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) in the 1910s.
Our subjects and concerns overlap. Lowy argues that the Seito women, frustrated by the scandalous image of the New Woman depicted by the male-dominated media, began constructing their own gender roles; Yasutake demonstrates that the WCTU leaders redefined their "respectable" role in response to the very media image of the immoral "New Woman." Otsubo contends that Hiratsuka unsettled the existing gender hierarchy in her eugenics-inspired anti-V.D. campaign by asserting the biological superiority of the feminine sex. Both NWA and WCTU were interested in taking a female initiative in regulating "sexual morality."
These Taisho women tried to improve their status by strategically employing Western ideas including "independent women," "female morality," and "eugenic motherhood protection." In a nation driven to industrialize, the authority of Western (thereby "modern") values was often too great to dismiss. By exploring the tensions between male and female, the old and the new, and the state and its citizens, we hope that our panel can contribute to a better understanding of such larger issues as gender, modernity, nationalism, science, and sexuality/reproduction.
Defining Womanhood: Hiratsuka Raicho and the New Woman of Taisho Japan
Dina Lowy, Rutgers University
My paper will discuss the emergence of the New Woman as a major figure in the Woman Problem debate in Taisho Japan. I will particularly focus on the prominent New Woman Hiratsuka Raicho's attempts to reclaim and redefine the term. Raicho argues the positive aspects of the much maligned image, presenting a strong and independent view of what modern Japanese womanhood should be.
In September 1911, a group of women founded Seito, Japan's first magazine for women and exclusively by women. It started as a literary outlet for woman writers, but quickly turned into a forum for discussing various feminist issues. The women of Seito, who came from largely upper-middle class families, were quickly labeled New Women because of their unconventional lifestyles. Living arrangements (many refused to marry under the existing marriages laws) and unladylike recreational activities made some Seito women regulars in the scandal sheets. They were seen by many as selfish, immoral women out to destroy the family, and therefore the nation. In 1913, the women of Seito decided it was time to actively engage in some gender constructing of their own. Tired of being defined and misunderstood by others, they devoted special supplements in three of their monthly issues to defining the New Woman. They dared to enter the debate over gender roles which until then had been dominated almost exclusively by men.
I will examine some of the tabloid depictions of Seito members that provoked Raicho and other members of Seito to respond. I also will explore how Raicho actively led this re-examination of the New Woman through articles for Seito and other journals. This analysis will provide insights into the conscious act of gender construction, and its application in a modernizing nation.
Engendering Eugenics: Women's Pursuit of Anti-V.D. Marriage Restriction Law in
Taisho Japan
Sumiko Otsubo, Ohio State University
Eugenics, the science of the improvement of the human race by better breeding, became a source of great inspiration among reform-minded people across national borders in the early twentieth century. My paper deals with one such example: the pursuit of a eugenic marriage restriction law in Taisho Japan. The New Woman Association-organized by the canonized female activist, Hiratsuka Raicho-led this movement between 1919 and 1921.
In her effort, Hiratsuka maintained that most men at the time were sexually dissolute and brought V.D. home, infecting innocent wives and children. The extent of the V.D. spread became so alarming that the public began noticing the deteriorating health of the Japanese "race." Appropriating eugenic rationalizations, she called for state protection of women and children by making it illegal for men afflicted with V.D. to get married. The primary sources I examine include the association's main publication Josei domei (Women's Alliance), Imperial Diet records, Hiratsuka's biography, and memoirs of other activists.
What was unique about this anti-V.D. campaign, though it eventually failed, was that Hiratsuka "engendered" eugenics and saw women as the "fit" (biological Self) and men as the "unfit" (biological Other). Ironically she revealed her middle-class bias by excluding prostitutes from the "fit womanhood" category. By placing Hiratsuka's legislative effort in the context of the history of eugenics, I will hypothesize that the emphasis on non-hereditary elements in Japan may be a variation of "quasi-colonial" response to Western eugenic discourse by non-Western societies.
From Potentially Radical to Respectable: The Woman's Christian Temperance Union
(WCTU) in Taisho Japan
Rumi Yasutake, University of California, Los Angeles
My paper analyzes the activism of the Japan WCTU (Nihon Kirisutokyo Fujin Kyofukai), which preached the absolute importance of "teiso" (chastity/purity) against emerging "atarashii onna" (New Woman) in the 1910s.
In 1886, Japanese women participated in the transnational activism of the World WCTU which championed nineteenth-century Protestant middle-class American womanhood. In the late 1880s, WCTU activism in Japan was potentially radical, networking a variety of Japanese women who sensed that Western values could possibly improve their status. In the late Meiji era, however, radical factions within the Japan WCTU lost their influence in the backlash against rapid Westernization/modernization and the heightened nationalism resulting from the effort to win the two wars. Significantly, the Japan WCTU's connection to the World WCTU contributed to this change. The World WCTU led by Anglo-American women helped the Japan WCTU sustain and to grow by providing funds and organizational skills; but it required Japan WCTU's activism in Japan to conform to their methods and causes. In the 1910s when "teiso" became a popular topic of public debate with the emergence of "atarashii onna," the Japan WCTU was viewed as more respectable and conservative preaching "teiso" among the new generation of the women activists.
Taking a transnational perspective by using the WCTU materials both in English and Japanese, my paper examines the trajectory of the Japan WCTU from a potentially radical organization to a respectable one.