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Through Americanized Japanese Women’s Eyes: Tsuda Umeko and the Women’s
Movement in Japan in the 1910s
social reform by taking advantage of western ideology.
Pointing out moral decline among men in the wake of the
influx of liberal thoughts that accompanied modernization,
she stated, “Is it not time for the women of Japan to arise
and realize what their husbands and sons are doing?”
(Tsuda, 1980, p. 24). She believed that Japanese women
needed to act on their own initiative, to occupy a responsible
position in society by means of social reform work, because
“usefulness and responsibility” (Tsuda, 1980, p. 122) was
the way to both exercise their agency in society and to find
meaning in life. However, as the educators demonstrated,
the government-assigned definition of gender roles was still
largely taken as the norm, even among progressive educators
and women activists of the era.
Yet, such conservative definitions of women’s position in
Japan in the 1910s contained ambiguities that impeded
many women from identifying with such construction. As
statements by Tsuda showed, the ideology confirmed
national ties and pride among Japanese women, while still
relegating women to a position “separate from” full public
participation. In particular, bourgeois women, who were the
focus of these politics, were left to a condition of mental
backwardness, because, as Tsuda deplored, those women
were “a mere ornament for the home, or playing for the men”
(Tsuda, 1980, p. 22). The central problem posed by the
ideology of womanhood was, as Tsuda noted, that “her
identity was merged in that of father, husband, or some male
relative” (Tsuda, 1980, p. 22). Bourgeois women located in
this rigid patriarchy had no means to identify themselves
other than via relationship with men. Consequently those
women in the privileged class, who were prevented from full
participation in society, and largely alienated from society
and from women in other classes as well, were not able to
overcome the double standards embedded in gendered
policies to transform knowledge into social movement.
The acceptance of linkage between women’s education
and the promotion of social reform that supported a belief in
social progress indicated Tsuda’s strong identification with
Christian social activism and western ideology under the
discourse of the civilization. These shared identifications
were effective to facilitate dialogue between women in the
east and the west, such as Tsuda Umeko and Carrie
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