Often in the discussion of civil rights history, Asian-Americans are overlooked. Let’s reverse that trend and learn a little bit about Yuri Kochiyama. The disappearance of her father following the bombing of Pearl Harbor and her subsequent imprisonment in a Japanese internment camp inspired a lifetime of human rights activism and scholarship. She met her husband, Bill Kochiyama, while “interned” in Jerome, Arkansas.
In 1960, she relocated to Harlem, where she became familiar with the one and only Malcolm X. She has advocated on behalf of Puerto Rican sovereignty, peace movements, the rights of political prisoners, and nuclear disarmament.
Author Diane Fujino does Kochiyama significantly more justice in her NPR Brief.
A woman only identified as “Shiori” was the first to speak out to news media in Japan’s #MeToo movement. Shiori was assaulted in a hotel room in 2015 by a very famous Journalist who has written books about Prime Minister Abe. Shiori has yet to recieve justie
The tag #FightTogetherWithShiori has since become synonymous with #MeToo and #TimesUp on Japanese Twitter.
This is the first woman in Japan to speak out in a high profile sexual assault case against a very famous journalist who has written books about Prime Minister Abe. The first of the #MeToo movement surfacing in japan was based on this case that came out May 2017 as the first brave voice to speak up.
The #MeToo movement in America has greatly helped give women the courage globally to speak up against sexual assault and violence
Now, #standtogetherwithshiori has become the Japanese #metoo and #timesup synonymous rally cry.
Friends of Japan and global women’s rights, I implore you to add #FightTogetherWithShiori to your tweet about women’s rights so you can show your support for Japanese women’s liberation
“Dusting off the Male Gaze” by Yuko Shimizu for Chronicle of Higher Education. Published in their Women and Power in the Academy issue where multiple artists were asked to illustrate their tales on #metoo.
Famous Japanese Feminist Authors. Left Yoshiko Yusa who was a famous russian/japanese translater and right her long term partner, another feminist author Toshiko Tamura.
First issue of Seito in 1911, which became an integral part of the Japanese Women’s Rights Movement.
“The magazine’s name, Seitō, translated to “Bluestockings,” a nod to an unorthodox group of 18th-century English women who gathered to discuss politics and art, which was an extraordinary activity for their time.
But Seitō was not intended to be a radical or political publication. “We did not launch the journal to awaken the social consciousness of women or to contribute to the feminist movement,” wrote the magazine’s founder, Haruko Hiratsuka, who went by the penname Raichō, or “Thunderbird.” “Our only special achievement was creating a literary journal that was solely for women.” Raichō was most interested in self-discovery—“to plumb the depths of my being and realize my true self,” she wrote—and much of the writing in the magazine was confessional and personal, a 1910s version of the essays that might now be found in or Catapult.
Women’s feelings and inner thoughts, however, turned out to be a provocative challenge to the social and legal strictures of this era, when a woman’s role was to be a good wife and mother. The Seitō women imagined much wider and wilder emotional and professional lives for themselves. They fell in love, they indulged in alcohol, they built careers as writers, and they wrote about it all—publicly. The stories were radical enough that the government censored them. The story that prompted policemen to visit the magazine’s office late at night was a piece of fiction about a married women writing to her lover to ask him to meet her while her husband was away.
As they attracted public attention and disapproval, instead of shying away from the controversy they’d created, the editors of Seitō were forced to confront more baldly political questions, and this in turn earned them more banned issues. In the pages of their magazine they came to debate women’s equality, chastity, and abortion. Without originally intending to, they became some of Japan’s pioneering feminists.”
-Excerpt from HERE documenting women’s history in Japan
Nobuku Yoshia’s Stories on Forbidden Lesbian Love Started Shoujou Manga Genre
A prominent lesbian writer in the Taisho and Showa era, she is most famous for books like “Husbands are Useless” and “Virgins in the attic” she began using motifs that would later make women the prominent shoujou manga writers as they could imagine themselves in these positions.
Nobuko Yoshiya! Out and proud lesbian! Author of lesbian lit & stories with titles like “Husbands Are Useless”! What’s not to love about her?
Her middle-class, conservative background did not necessarily predispose her to become the lesbian icon she’s known as today, but Nobuka Yoshiya never quite seem to fit the role of the good, dutiful wife she was supposed to take on. She developed early on a love of reading and writing that came in the way of her learning domestic skills (who can relate?). When she moved to Tokyo in 1915, she started breaking away more visibly from gender norms and expectations: she adopted a more androgynous style, cutting her hair short (thus also emulating Western fashion of the 20s), she traveled extensively, and she’s recognized as one of the first Japanese women to own a car and a racehorse. She loved horse racing and golf, and designed her own house, which became the Yoshiya Nobuko Memorial Museum after her death (but if you want to go see it, make sure to plan in advance: it’s open only twice a year, in early May and November, for three days each time).
Even though she was one of 20th-century Japan’s most popular, commercially successful and prolific writers, there’s not a whole lot of scholarly work on her or translations of her writings, at least in the English-speaking Western world – perhaps because the bulk of her writing was serialized romance and teen girls’ novels, and thus not seen as a contender for the ‘serious literature’ category. Even so, she enjoyed an especially broad readership among young women; she pioneered the Class S genre – which refers to literature dealing with strong friendships and romance between schoolgirls – and was influential in developing shōjo (schoolgirl) anime, manga, and literature.
Yoshiya was in a lifelong partnership with Chiyo Monma, a math teacher in Tokyo whom she met in 1923. Their life together was no secret, and Yoshiay openly talked about it in personal essays and magazine interviews. Their relationship was both romantic and professional, as they worked together as author and secretary. Since same-sex marriage was not possible in Japan, Yoshiya adopted Monma in 1957: this was the only legal way that made it possible for lesbians to share property and make medical decisions for each other – in short, to be recognized as family for each other. Their relationship only ended with Yoshiya’s death in 1973.
(I STILL can’t get over the “husbands are useless” thing.)
–Aiko Watanabe es, sin duda, una gran jugadora. Flexible, ágil e inteligente. Pero tiene un hándicap que puede causarnos muchos problemas –la preocupación se refleja en el rostro seleccionador japonés de futbol femenino. –Ciertamente tiene problemas para resolver el uno contra uno a su favor –corrobora el entrenador de porteros de la Selección. –No me gustaría tener que prescindir de ella, sin embargo necesitamos a las mejores si queremos volver a conseguir la Copa Mundial. Desde que viera a Miho Fukumoto, defender la portería nipona en el Mundial de Alemania en el 2011, en el que las japonesas, contra pronóstico, se impusieron al equipo estadounidense, Aiko no ha soñado más que con emularla. Aiko es introvertida e individualista. No se relaciona demasiado con sus compañeras. Le falta conciencia de equipo. Conoce sus limitaciones, pero no está acostumbrada a pedir ayuda. Su código personal le impide mostrar lo que ella considera debilidades. Se sabe observada por el equipo técnico de la selección y hace que se sienta profundamente vulnerable. –¿Tú eres Aiko, verdad? No nos conocíamos. Yo soy Hisui Sato, delantera. Me han convocado por primera vez y estoy muy emocionada. Me envía el seleccionador para que entrenemos juntas –dice con voz cantarina una muchacha de pelo corto y mirada franca. –Sí, soy Aiko Watanabe –responde lacónicamente la arquera que, automáticamente se coloca a la defensiva. –Empezamos cuando quieras. Hisui se coloca en el centro del campo para iniciar una vertiginosa carrera en dirección a Aiko y su portería. A medida que la delantera se acerca al arco, su defensora aparece mas insegura y nerviosa. Tiene las manos húmedas por el pánico que se ha apoderado de ella. Está segura que, una vez más, su rival saldrá victoriosa y una sensación de desánimo y frustración la invade. Unos minutos más tarde Aiko se desploma sobre el césped, cubriendo con las manos aún enguantadas, su bello rostro. –No te desesperes. Puedes hacerlo. Recuerda que es importante mantener la calma para poder calcular la distancia y la velocidad de la jugadora que se acerca y modificar el centro de gravedad de tu cuerpo para cubrir el mayor espacio posible. –¿Como sabes todo eso? –Mi padre fue portero de la selección –contesta la joven con una sonrisa. Hisui ha abierto la puerta de un nuevo mundo. El camino hacia el próximo mundial enFrancia es todavía largo, pero Aiko Watanabe acaba de conseguir su primera victoria.
Ito Shinsui (1898 - 1972) fue uno de los más grandes artistas de la shin hanga o el nuevo movimiento impreso en el siglo XX en Japón. Shinsui estudió con el impresor ukiyo-eKiyokata. A la edad de dieciocho años, el editor Watanabe Shozaburo pidió a Shinsui hacer diseños de bloques de madera para su compañía después de ver las pinturas de la joven artista en exposición. Shinsui creó impresiones para Watanabe de 1916 a 1960, ganando gran estima por sus imágenes de mujeres hermosas. En 1952, el gobierno de Japón declaró los talentos de Shinsui como un Tesoro Nacional Intangible, y en 1970 recibió la Orden del Sol Naciente. Hoy sus imágenes elegantes y modernas de bellezas son muy apreciadas por los coleccionistas.
