Women and Public Life in Early Meiji Japan by Mara Patessio

Author:Mara Patessio
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Michigan Center for Japanese Studies
Published: 2020-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

5

Women’s Political Participation

What would happen if women [in Japan] joined political associations or engaged in political discussions? Family education would be hindered terribly…. If they are allowed to join political associations, they will neglect their duties as women (Joshi no honburi). Such a situation would greatly disturb household management, as well as harm family education.

—Kiyoura Keigo

chief of the Home Ministry’s Police Bureau

and later prime minister, 18901

Analyzing early Meiji women’s political activities and opinions means highlighting the opportunities women had to make political statements, to work politically at the local level, and to politicize their existences in the public sphere. “Women’s involvement in political activities” did not mean that there was a national women’s movement fighting for political rights or political participation in the same way that there was no national male movement. As Japan was still characterized by great regional diversity, which also manifested itself in the political arena, it makes sense to examine, as far as the sources allow, the activities of groups of women working in different geographic areas, which were often strongly influenced by the male-centered Jiyū minken undō (Movement for Freedom and Popular Rights), rather than trying to form a national picture of women’s political activities, which did not exist.

Women’s involvement in politics during the early Meiji period came about in different ways. Some met famous female or male political activists, others were part of women’s groups whose activities grew out of their husbands’ participation in the Movement for Freedom and Popular Rights, while others regarded political rights as part of their quest for women’s advancement.

What did “involvement in politics” mean for the early Meiji women presented here? For some, the goal was the right to vote. For the majority, it meant the possibility of becoming members of political associations, of participating in political discussions, of collecting funds for male political activities, of supporting local reading rooms opened by the Movement for Freedom and Popular Rights, of publishing small-scale journals featuring their opinions on political matters, and of discussing female political rights abroad.

There are two main reasons why I did not include political activities among the “topics” discussed by early Meiji women presented in chapter 4, writing instead a separate chapter. First of all, with the notable exception of the Kyōfūkai, whose petitions provide us with some of the most striking examples of Meiji period women’s ability to influence political decisions through public actions, I have not found among the fujinkai covered in chapter 4 groups clearly stating that they were interested in “political education” or “political participation.” Second, the terms used by the women presented here in their groups’ statements and their speeches often differed from those used by the women discussed earlier; these women used the same gendered words, but in addition we also find in these groups’ statements phrases such as “equal rights between men and women,” danjo dōken or “women’s rights,” joken. Only a few women explained what they meant when they used such expressions, so I decided to take them to also mean “political rights for women” only when their speeches or writings allowed for it.

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