Women and Public Life in Early Meiji Japan: The Development of the Feminist Movement (Volume 71)

Michigan Monograph Series in Japanese Studies #71

by Mara Patessio

Women and Public Life in Early Meiji Japan focuses on women’s activities in the new public spaces of Meiji Japan. With chapters on public, private, and missionary schools for girls, their students, and teachers, on social and political groups women created, on female employment, and on women’s participation in print media, this book offers a new perspective on nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Japanese history. Women’s founding of and participation in conflicting discourses over the value of women in Meiji public life demonstrate that during this period active and vocal women were everywhere, that they did not meekly submit to the dictates of the government and intellectuals over what women could or should do, and that they were fully integrated in the production of Meiji culture.

Mara Patessio shows that the study of women is fundamental not only in order to understand fully the transformations of the Meiji period, but also to understand how later generations of women could successfully move the battle forward. Women and Public Life in Early Meiji Japan is essential reading for all students and teachers of 19th- and early 20th-century Japanese history and is of interest to scholars of women’s history more generally.

Genres: Japan

240 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2011

About the author

Mara Patessio is a Lecturer in Japanese history at the University of Manchester.

Reviews

[Aengus]

This book traces the new status and actions of women in the early Meiji period. The author distinguishes this period from the proto feminist actions of earlier eras in two ways. The less important one was the attitude of the modernizing government. The early Meiji government leaders were influenced by western ideas that women should be educated and removed at least partially from seclusion to strengthen the nation. They needed to be able to educate their sons in order for the sons to take their place in the modern world and strengthen the nation. However far more important was the creation of a modern public sphere in which women could express their opinions and spread the example of educated and engaged women. This included newspapers which would occasionally have female contributors and women’s groups and societies which pushed for reform of the place of women and society in general.

The author divides her treatment of this subject into 3 areas. The first was the education of women. This was manifested in the creation of girls private schools and the inclusion of women in coed local schools. During this period it was still not the rule for women to attend schooling but an increasing number did and a vanguard of women would pursue as much education as they could get including going to university in North America since they could not attend tertiary education in Japan. A small but important number of women would use this education to enter new professions, becoming nurses, in rare cases even doctors, teachers, and writers. The second area of treatment is women’s societies. These societies largely had to conform themselves to the prevailing modernizing nationalism but could put emphasis on women’s issues like prostitution, concubinage, women’s property rights etc. The issue of prostitution and concubinage is one on which women were particularly well placed to speak. The issue was one that looked particularly bad to the foreign states that Japan wished to impress and join as the leaders of the world. This allowed women to exert moral pressure to end these practices. In politics things were tougher going. The Meiji authorities felt perfectly free to restrict women’s involvement in political groups and at one point even their right to view sessions of the Imperial Diet. However here too vanguard women set down a marker in their desire and advocacy for political rights.

It is constantly emphasized that the women in this work who attained new professions, who joined advocacy groups, sought political rights and even those who attended school were not a majority of the female population in this early state of meiji modernization. However advancement in these spheres is only possible building on the work and struggles of the vanguard women described in these pages.