Hmm... this seems as good a time as any for a quick interlude on
Love and the “New Women” of Early Modern Japan.
Let me set the scene: we’re roughly twenty years into the Meiji-era and life has already forever changed to the point of being unrecognizable; the transition from a loose collection of feudal states into one unified empire. Not only has the samurai class been abolished, but the nation’s borders are now fully opened for the first time in two hundred years resulting in a rapid influx of new foreign goods and ideas, shifting the established social hierarchy and traditional ways of life. More than anything, though, the biggest change is regarding the position and (perceived) status of women.
Before we go any further down this train of thought, though, it is so important to take a moment to try to understand what life was like for women in the not-so-distant past. In her 1958 article "Fukuzawa Yukichi on Family Relationships," Carmen Blacker details a collection of essays written by the eponymous Japanese author and philosopher, criticizing the social structures of his day (namely, the mid to late 1800’s), which proved to be a major influence on the Meiji-era. He particularly took issue with the Onna Daigaku ("The Great Learning for Women"), a treatise written in the 1700's which basically dictated how women behaved and were treated for the following several hundred years; namely by saying that women were evil in every way and must fully submit to the men in their lives for even an attempt at keeping their ~inherent evil natures~ at bay [1] (51). Blacker summarizes his beliefs:
Japanese women were like dwarf trees. The artificial restraints imposed by the precepts had stunted and frustrated their lives in almost every conceivable way. They were undeveloped intellectually - indeed it was considered a mark of virtue in a woman to be stupid. They were unfulfilled emotionally by reason of the artificial restraints on their intercourse with men, and because there was in fact a moral premium on unhappiness. The more exacting and querulous her parents-in-law, and the more licentious her husband, the greater chance she had of acquiring merit through uncomplaining meekness. (55-6)
There is no way for her to win in this scenario: every path simply leads her to further pain and isolation from society and from her sense of self, nothing short of generations of sustained psychological torture on every level. How do you even begin to move beyond something like this??
With this in mind, let’s move back to the Meiji-era and what it attempts to do and why.
Japanese elites desperately want to be respected and seen as equals by Western nations. And, as historian Suzuki Michiko explains in her 2009 book Becoming Modern Women, the way to do this is to improve conditions for Japanese women, stemming from a Western belief in the early 1900’s that “the woman’s status reflects the level of the nation’s enlightenment and becomes a gauge for assessing its process of growth” (2). So, a law was introduced in 1872 requiring equal primary education for both sexes, broadening its scope over the next several decades from a starting point of sixteen months of compulsory classes to six years in 1907. And this plan works! Japan receives much praise on the world stage (read: Europe and the US) for its “amazing progress.”
Again, it’s important to realize that this is literally just virtue signaling, based on the arbitrary thoughts of men without so much as talking to the women about what they want or how they feel about their treatment in society or anything like that… because that doesn’t matter to them, they just want something to hold up over other cultures to prove their own “moral superiority,” no matter what it is. Such an empty idea of “progress” can never lead to true liberation for any oppressed class.
We see this very clearly when we take a closer look at the state of women’s education at the time. As Ann Harrington explains in her 1987 article "Women and Higher Education in the Japanese Empire," while a law was introduced in 1872 requiring equal, mandatory primary education for both sexes, girls were left in the dust after that, with no real options to move forward or explore other opportunities in life besides marriage and motherhood. When this issue was brought up in the 1890 "Imperial Rescript on Education," describing the Meiji-era's official policies regarding education, all it had to say was that a) it “wasn't a big deal to the general public” and b):
This may possibly be owing to the traditional national idea that that amount of education is quite sufficient for a woman which makes her 'a good wife and a wise mother.' (180)
Due to the government's lack of interest, some young women from well-to-do families ended up going to missionary schools to continue their education (who were then criticized for being “corrupted” by Western influences) (Harrington 174). But, even then, higher education is useless if women cannot own property, cannot inherit, cannot vote, cannot support themselves financially! Any time structural change was brought up, the only response was: “Japan was not ready yet” (181).
Alongside all of this, we also see the rise of magazines catering to all sorts of new demographics and subjects, particularly involving Western things like Christianity and Socialism (both of which the government disapproved of, and mostly saw as one and the same). And so, the defining topic of the Meiji-era was brought into the limelight: Spiritual Love (ren’ai), as opposed to the traditional idea of carnal love / lust (iro). It was believed that, through spiritual love, connecting on an intellectual level rather than physical, one can develop their sense of self (jiko) and reach a state of enlightenment.
Now, this may sound remarkably similar to what we talked about in the last chapter with the chivalric poets and their "religion of Love," and that’s because it basically is. In his 1892 essay for Jogaku zasshi ("Women’s Education Magazine") which popularized the idea of spiritual love, Kitamura Tōkoku explains: "Love begins with one's falling in love with one's own idea [ishō]; the object of love is but a phantom [kabutsu]" (Shamoon 18). To him, again, the woman herself doesn’t matter, all that matters was what was going on in the man’s head.
We can see this in action in what is considered the first modern Japanese novel, Futabatei Shimei's Ukigumo (Drifting Clouds, 1897 – 9). It follows a young man named Bunz¬ō who falls deeply in love with his cousin Osei, a Western-educated girl who initially enjoys his company (as a friend) but vows to never speak to him ever again after he calls her a whore for talking to another boy. He’s obsessed with her, unable to think about anything but her, but also seems to genuinely hate everything about her? Like, he literally spends three full pages detailing every personality flaw of hers: according to him, she’s faddish and “meretricious” (“apparently attractive but having in reality no value or integrity, or like a prostitute,” according to Oxford Dictionary), etc etc. But then, he tops off this rant by saying:
She was certainly rash and impulsive, but this was her nature and she could not be blamed for it. The most mature, intelligent person cannot overcome his basic personality; certainly such an innocent young girl should not be expected to. She did not have the slightest degree of self-awareness and behaved as her instincts dictated. If you condemn Osei for her foolishness, what might you say of a more educated and knowledgeable person who loses control of himself? What might you say of Bunzō – yes, indeed, Bunzō himself? (Futabatei 334-5)
What a jackass! He has no respect for her, at all. [2]
However, unlike with our medieval friends (derogatory), there is another side of this story: with the rise of magazines and women’s education, we are able to hear women’s perspectives, too. And so, women claimed the power of Love as a tool for themselves to achieve a higher state of enlightenment, as well; with a focus on finding a marriage for the sake of Love (ren'ai kekkon), where both partners would be equal and help each other achieve their dreams. One particularly notable short story regarding this, also originally published in “Women's Education Magazine” (Jogaku zasshi) was Shimizu Shikin’s “Broken Ring” (Koware yubiwa, 1891). It's about a woman who, inspired by reading these women’s magazines about love and the formation of self, finally decides to leave her horrible arranged marriage and find her own path in life. She rips the gem out of her wedding ring and continues to wear it as a reminder not only of her painful past and how she overcame it nonetheless, but also as a reminder to continue speaking out to and for other women. [3]
This discussion continues well into the 1910’s and beyond. In Becoming Modern Women, Suzuki summarizes the founder of Japan’s first feminist journal Seitō (Bluestocking, 1911-1916), Hiratsuka Raichō’s position on “’the women of today’ as barely sentient beings ‘just newly awaken[ed] from a state of infancy,’ who need to ‘move forward’ resolutely with ‘an attitude that focuses on the self’ (shugateki taido)” (19). She believed this pursuit of love was the best way for women to achieve equality with men, just like how it was believed the nation of Japan simply needed to continue to “progress” to “catch up to” the West. [4]
Marion Saucier’s 2012 article, “The Debate in Seitō on New Women, Atarashii Onna” goes into more detail regarding Raichō’s thoughts, as well as those of other women in the movement. Inspired by Swedish authors like Ellen Key and the play "A Doll's House" by Hendrik Ibsen, many of these feminists seemed to largely conceptualize themselves as pioneers marching through a painful, unknown path. They specifically prided themselves on this idea of being the first women to “truly achieve consciousness” and rebel, like we see in this quote from Itō Noe:
The pioneers do not allow any situation to interfere with their work. They are not interested in those who follow them. Those who follow them are not in a position to criticize them. They have no right. They only have to walk in the pioneers’ footsteps with gratitude. They do not know how to advance by themselves. They only know how to advance in the pioneer’s footsteps, following their example. (Saucier)
In this unrelenting desire for “progress,” they talked about wanting to destroy the old ways of society and replace them with something new… but weren't really sure what should follow. And, again, this lack of direction was also romanticized, apparently as further proof of their struggle. As Raichō wrote:
And what is this new kingdom? What is this new religion? The new women still don’t know. But they study and gather, multiplying their efforts for this that they still don’t know. (Saucier)
I feel like we see similar sentiments on social media today: this belief that we are the ~most enlightened~ people to have ever lived, that we are the first and only people to ever be in the situations we’re in, to feel the emotions we feel. And we also feel this sense of being completely lost and not sure where to turn, how to fight back against injustice, what sort of future we’re even fighting for in the first place…
What’s ironic is that the author of the short story I mentioned earlier, Shikin Shimizu, felt the same way, back in 1891. In “A Pioneering Feminist with a Pioneering Writing Style,” Joseph Essertier quotes another essay Shikin wrote for “Women's Education Magazine” (Jogaku zasshi):
Long ago in Japan it was considered natural that there were no women literati. It was said girls must not study books, and that, in fact, girls could hurt themselves by learning from books. Girls were taught how to write as little as possible. Perhaps this is why even for those who possessed natural talent, there was no path through which they could develop it. […] Yet it is now the Meiji Period, the road to education for women has already been open more than 10 years, and women’s education has been extended beyond the basic education to more or less include literature. When one actually looks at the girl’s schools of Tokyo and Yokohama, one sees a very large number of girls who have amassed a level of training that almost compares with that of [male] university students. Yet what are these women doing now? They are dead quiet, not letting out a peep. I ask these sisters of ours why, even after they have so energetically spent so many years with books, and woken up and gone to sleep with books, why, at a time when they have stored up so much learning in their minds, they then hide in the background of public life? (2-3)
Her whole thing was that she desperately wanted more women to join her in writing, in “standing up” to male dominated society despite what abuse might be hurled at them or other forms of social pressures that might be keeping them pushed down. Her argument is maybe a bit less abrasive than Itō Noe’s, but it is essentially that same feeling of “that was then and this is now – it is [current year] and everything should be different now!” Unfortunate as it is, perhaps it really is just human nature to disregard the past, to focus only on your differences rather than try to metaphors or rhyming situations that you can relate to…?
In any case, as time goes on, Shikin's pleas for women literati to emerge on the public scene have been answered, not only in magazines but also full novels – and they'll keep coming and help continue to shape what it means to be a "modern Japanese woman." While many do still focus on (heterosexual) love and marriage, there are some very interesting subversions of this trope, as well.
Take, for instance, Tamura Toshiko's novel Akirame (Resignation, 1911) following a woman's quest for freedom, which she thought was achieved through financial independence from men and bonding with other women. In his 2012 article "Why a Good Man Is Hard to Find in Meiji Fiction: Tamura Toshiko’s Akirame (Resignation)," Timothy J. Van Compernolle explains how Tamura interweaves these ideas, showing the difficult choices a female writer in the Meiji era had to make and how much was going against her in patriarchal society.
Our protagonist Tomie wants to be an author and, in fact, by the start of the book has just won a writing contest for a play she wrote. Issue is, the college she goes to thinks it's "immodest" and "unladylike" for a woman to draw attention to herself like this – so she drops out and pursues her writing career, simple enough. The next choice she has to make is not so easy, however: a) her stepmother and aunt in the countryside are growing older and need someone to come take care of them and b) someone needs to continue the family name. Tomie doesn't care about lineage and quickly dismisses that, but she spends much time mentally wrestling with herself over what to do about her family members.
Through her relationships with her sisters and various old classmates, she comes to realize that Tokyo isn't as freeing as she originally thought it was; after all, she can only stay there due to her brother-in-law's generosity, letting her stay in his house. He's kind of a cheating dick, though, and she hates him. She also realizes that she can only really make it in the literary world by "appealing" to men, an idea that disgusts her. Her last solace is her relationship with her "close friend," Someko: they talk about seeing each other in their dreams, never wanting to leave their sides, but, ultimately, this too is ruined when Someko's mother disapproves and sets her up to be married. Every road seems to be blocked by men...
The book finally ends with her on a train, vowing:
"I have to care for my stepmother and my aunt myself. I don't want to return to the provinces only to marry one of the locals. I will care for my family using my own strength." (van Compernolle 21)
At every turn, she specifically chooses a) freedom (read: financial independence), and b) to be around other women, romantically or not. And, while Tomie's fate is left open, we can still hope that things will go well for her… Just like how, circa 1910, Japanese women had more opportunities available to them than before with even more opening up in the following decades, the obvious example being writing. While, in the 1890's, literature and literary spaces were entirely dominated by men (including Jogaku zasshi, which we've been continuously referring back to), women begin to carve out their own spaces in the 1910's (like with Seitō, entirely edited and published by women). That's not to say that things were easy, obviously, but there were different paths emerging, at least – you can always keep going, hoping to find happiness and fulfillment, these doors aren't closed to you.
And as we continue into the 1920's, things get brighter still – we see the development of girl's culture (shoujo bunka) and more writing contests aimed directly towards young girls, encouraging their writing careers which are now allowed to flourish beyond belief. Again, at her prime, author Yoshiya Nobuko was making three times more a year than the prime minister! Things are looking up! …and then, of course, they quickly and horrifically plummet.
…So, that's a small look into what we have to look forward to next time (as well as how it relates to anime and other forms of modern pop culture from Japan). Hope to see you then!
Endnotes
You can read an English translation of it from 1909 on archive.org, if you were curious. The introduction is… interesting, in the most disgusting, racist, misogynistic way possible. A small sample:
How sweet Japanese woman is ! All the possibilities of the race for goodness seem to concentrate in her. It shakes one's faith in some Oriental doctrines. If this be the result of suppression and oppression, then these are not altogether bad. On the other hand, how diamond-hearted the character of the American woman becomes under the idolatry of which she is the object. In the eternal order of things, which is the higher being — the childlike, confiding, sweet Japanese girl, or the superb, calculating, penetrating Occidental Circe of our more artificial society, with the enormous power for evil and her limited capacity for good ? (25)
I'm sorry this essay is turning out to be so man-hating, but how else are you supposed to respond to stuff like this? Like, he literally admits how Japanese women are traumatized en masse, then says American women should be more like them! ➥
Honestly, it might just be that I feel a need to defend Osei, but I genuinely do like her! I'm planning on talking a bit more about her in the next chapter, but in the meantime, I wrote up a character study of her and her arc here, if you were curious. For everything Bunzō says about her, she really is a much more logical minded character than he is and I find her bluntness funny and refreshing, as well as appreciating how she stands up for herself. ➥
I wanna take a minute to talk a little about this metaphor that keeps reoccurring in my research. For example, earlier in this chapter, Suzuki quotes American missionary Sidney Gulick who refers to Japan circa 1903 as being like a teenage girl coming into her own in much the same words as Raichō:
New Japan is in a state of rapid growth. She is in a critical period, resembling a youth, just coming to manhood, when all the powers of growth are most vigorous.... In the course of four or five short years the green boy develops into a refined and noble man; the thoughtless girl ripens into the full maturity of womanhood and of motherhood. These are the years of special interest to those who would observe nature in her time of most critical activity.
[…] Her intellect, hitherto largely dormant, is but now awaking. Her ambition is equaled only by her self-reliance.... The growth of the past half-century is only the beginning of what we may expect to see. (1)
Personally, I just find this whole framing to be extremely uncomfortable, both in terms of racism and sexism, and don't really know how to talk about it, despite thinking that it is an important topic to discuss… So, instead, I'll recommend Rebecca Copeland’s “Sex and the Lady Translator in Meiji Japan, or Translation as a Transsexual Act,” if you were interested in this idea of power dynamics and social inequality as a metaphor for sex (both biological sex and the act). ➥
Works Cited
Blacker, Carmen. "Fukuzawa Yukichi on Family Relationships." Monumenta Nipponica, Vol. 14, No. 1/2 (Apr. - Jul., 1958), pp. 40-60. Online.
Essertier, Joseph. "A Pioneering Feminist with a Pioneering Writing Style: Shimizu Shikin’s “Broken Ring” (Koware yubiwa, 1891)." New Directions, 33(33) 1-16, Mar 31, 2015. Digital.
Futabatei, Shimei. Ukigumo. Translated by Marleigh Grayer Ryan. Colombia University Press, 1971. Online.
Harrington, Ann M. “Women and Higher Education in the Japanese Empire (1895—1945).” Journal of Asian History, vol. 21, no. 2, 1987, pp. 169–86. Online.
Saucier, Marion. “The Debate in Seitō on New Women, Atarashii Onna.” Ebisu, Vol. 48 (automne-hiver 2012). Online. (Note: this source is in French; I personally translated the quotes I used.)
Shamoon, Deborah. Passionate Friendship: The Aesthetics of Girl's Culture in Japan. University of Hawai'I Press, 2012. Digital.
Suzuki, Michiko. Becoming Modern Women: Love and Female Identity in Pre-War Japanese Literature and Culture. Stanford University Press, 2009. Digital.
van Compernolle, Timothy J. "Why a Good Man Is Hard to Find in Meiji Fiction: Tamura Toshiko’s Akirame (Resignation)." U.S.-Japan Women's Journal, Number 43, 2012, pp. 11-32. Digital.