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Through Americanized Japanese Women’s Eyes: Tsuda Umeko and the Women’s
Movement in Japan in the 1910s
However, Tsuda’s 1913 essay showed that sociopolitical
conditions in the era impeded her goals. Tsuda
wrote,
..., there is in Japan even in this new age, the family
and social relationship, which bind one to old and
traditional customs. In society where the unit is not the
individual but the family, acceptance of the new faith is
one attended at times with great mental struggle and
difficulty (Tsuda, 1980, p. 502).
It was clear that Tsuda regarded traditional family system
and social structure as hindrances of women’s individual
development.
Tsuda’s analysis of social condition of the era can be
seen to have been accurate, as was shown by the rejection of
women’s suffrage cause among women educators. When
American suffragist and president of International Woman’s
Suffrage Association, Carrie Chapman Catt visited Japan for
the suffrage cause in 1912, leading women educators,
including Tsuda, Hatoyama Haruko and Yamawaki Fusako
did not support Catt. ix Hatoyama explained their refusal to
support suffrage cause:
Given the fact that even sixty to seventy percent of men
were not yet enfranchised in Japan, to require women’s
suffrage was unconceivable. I believe there is no other
urgent need but become an ideal wife, mother and
mother-in-law (Yomiuri Shimbun, February 28, 1911).
These educators advocated or accepted the governmentdefined
notion of womanhood rather than pursuing gender
equality in the 1910s.
However, this is not to say that Japanese women in the
1910s were left alienated from western liberal ideologies. In
fact, to bridge such a knowledge gap, some feminists
organized women’s groups and used their magazines to
publicize the idea of women’s liberation. For example,
feminist writer Hiratsuka Raicho organized a literary group,
the Blue-stocking Society (Seito Sha) in 1911 and published
its journal, the Blue-Stocking (Seito). Focusing on women’s
liberation from traditional womanhood, Hiratsuka edited the
journal in such a way as to have readers recognize women’s
creative talents and women’s right to control sexuality
(Sievers, 1983, pp. 122-30). On the other hand, a former
socialist, Nishikawa Fumiko dealt with political and
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