Women writers in Meiji period

Miyake Kaho

4 february 1868 – 18july 1943

She was born in Edo (Tokyo) as the oldest daughter of goverment official Tanabe Taichi. She
graduated Tokyo Women’s higher school ( now Ochanomizu Women’s university), she also
sudied wih he woman poe Nakajima Utako. In 1920 she married philosopher and journalist
Miyake Setsurei. In 1920 Miyake and her husband published Josei Nihonjin, a magazine on
women’s issues.
Warbler appears to have a simple plot, in which a young girl’s selfless act is rewarded by
marriage to a wealthy gentleman. At a deeper level, however, it delivers progressive ideas about
modern women’s lives in high society, ideas which often go against the contemporary
government policies. In Warbler, I recognize Kaho’s resistance against the pressures from the
dominant discourse in the Meiji era as well as the hope she has provided to her fellow female
students. This paper examines the interactions of such issues as women’s education, gender
norms in relation to class, and construction of female sexuality in the Meiji period under
overwhelming Western influences. I will argue that the main theme of Warbler is the need of a
modern education for women in the upper class, which is thought by the author to give them
access to national politics. Also, contrary to the conventional views that Warbler is a mere
imitation of contemporary male writers’ works, this paper argues that Warbler actually inspired
the contemporary male writer’s work, namely, Saganoya Omuro’s Hakumei no Suzuko (Suzuko,
the Unfortunate).

Japanese novelist, essayist and poet. Her most notable work is “Warbler in the Grove”
Miyake Kaho’s literary debut in 1888 was the catalyst that roused aspiring women authors from
their “century of silence”. After Kaho opened the gates, works by women trickled out yearly: 11
in 1889; 13 in 1891; and finally, in a relative deluge of activity, 24 in 1895. Most notable among
these early writers were, in additional to Kaho, Wakamatsu Shizuko, Nakajima Shōen, Shimizu
Shikin, Koganei Kimiko, Kittada Usurai and Higuchi Ichiyō. As diverse as hese women were-
hailing from different classes, regions, and economic situations – almost all, with the exception
of Usurai and Ichiyō, shared one thing in common. Either they had attended Christian school or
they had associated with Jogaku zasshi (Woman’s Education Magazine).

https://escholarship.org/uc/item/62w3t33f
https://books.google.lv/books?
printsec=frontcover&vid=LCCN99058864&redir_esc=y#v=twopage&q&f=false
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miyake_Kaho

Wakamatsu Shizuko

(6 September 1864 – 10 February 1896) is an educator, translator, and novelist best known for
translating Little Lord Fauntleroy written by Frances Hodgson Burnett. She is also renowned for
introducing literature with Christianity for children's novels.  best known for translating Little
Lord Fauntleroy

Born to Katsujirō Matsukawa as the eldest daughter in Aizu. At the age of one in 1868, her father
left his family as an espionage who served for Aizu clan against the revolutionist during Boshin
war. Kashi, her mother and the newborn sister Miya endured poverty and adverse circumstances
during that period in Aizu, while Kashi's mother died in 1870.
Ōkawa Jinbei, a wealthy merchant from Yokohama was visiting Aizu Wakamatsu and adopted
Kashi as his daughter. In 1871 at the age of seven, 
Kashi graduated from Isaac Ferris Seminary among the first alumnae in 1881[3] at the age of
seventeen and was hired as a teacher for Japanese literature at her alma mater, which was by then
called フェリス女学院高等科 (Ferris Girls' High School).
Kashi met Iwamoto Yoshiharu when he lectured at her school, and in 1886 he published two of
her articles in his magazine[6] Jogaku zasshi;

Starting in 1894 when she was 30, she edited those collumns for women and children in a
journal The Japan Evangelist and posted some 70 essays introducing Japanese books, annual
events and customs in English.
Her health deteriorated while leading busy life between chores of a housewife and a writer
suffered tuberclosis. A fire broke out at Meiji Girls' School in February 1896, and five days after
that, Wakamatsu Shizuko passed away due to heart attack. She rests in Somei cemetery in
Tokyo.

https://peoplepill.com/people/wakamatsu-shizuko/

Shimizu Shikin

pen name of Shimizu Toyoko, was a Japanese novelist and women's rights activist of the Meiji

period in Japan. A lecturer on equality and social issues, she was forced to turn to writing when
the law changed to bar women from political assembly. She became one of the first women
professional journalists in Japan.

was born on 11 January 1868 in Bizen, Okayama, Japan

Most of her childhood was spent in Kyoto, where her father worked as a government bureaucrat.
[1] She graduated from Kyoto Municipal Women’s Teacher Training School at the age of
fourteen[2] and was considered highly educated in a society which still believed education
beyond primary school for women was not worthwhile.
In 1885, she married[4] Okazaki Masaharu, who was involved with the Freedom and People's
Rights Movement in Kyoto.[5] Two years later they were divorced
She was one of the activists who presented a petition in 1888 hoping to reform the penal code,
which among other things made adultery by women a punishable crime.[9] She also spoke out
against polygyny and its impact on women.[10] That same year, she was one of the women who
wrote essays for the preface of Ueki's Tðyð no fujo (Women of the Orient) (1889).
At 23, Shimizu moved to Tokyo to work at Iwamoto Zenji's journal Jogaku zasshi , just a few
months after a legislative act had been passed prohibiting women from political participation in
assemblies. Opposed to the ban, she wrote essays in favor of women's inclusion, like her 1890
piece, "Tōkon jogakusei no kakugo wa ikan?" (How Determined Are Today's Women
Students?).
Within six months, she had become the journal's editor in chief.
This essay introduces the translation of Shimizu Shikin's "Tosei futari musume" (Two Modern
Girls, 1897), which follows, and argues that by separating the body from gender, Shikin (1868-
1933) effectively threatened the dimorphic ideology of sex that underpinned the literary
establishment of Meiji Japan. In an essay written in 1896, Shikin posits an hermaphrodite
combining allegedly gendered character traits in a "perfect" body, thus asserting that behavioral
traits are not limited to one sex. Shikin calls attention not only to "the second sex" but a third sex
decades before twentieth-century writers did in Japan and elsewhere, and she was erased because
of it
ABSTRACT:
This essay introduces the translation of Shimizu Shikin’s “Tðsei futarimusume” (Two Modern
Girls, 1897), which follows, and argues that by separatingthebodyfromgender,Shikin(1868–
1933)effectivelythreatenedthedimorphicide-ology of sex that underpinned the literary
establishment of Meiji Japan. In an essay  written in 1896, Shikin posits an hermaphrodite
combining allegedly genderedcharacter traits in a “perfect” body, thus asserting that behavioral
traits are not lim-itedtoonesex.Shikincallsattentionnotonlyto“thesecondsex”butathirdsexde-cades
before twentieth-century writers did in Japan and elsewhere, and she waserased because of it

That Shimizu Shikin (1868–1933)

1
should have been neglected by the Meiji lit-eraryestablishment( 
bundan
 ),aswellasthoseinsubsequentperiods,comesasno surprise. That she was also neglected by
“feminist” thinkers and writers of the magazine
Seitð
( 
 Bluestocking,
c. 1911) and its generation underscores
justhowprovocativeshewas.Shikin’sshortstory“Tðseifutarimusume”(TwoMod-ern Girls, 1897),
2
the translation of which follows, dramatizes her ideas on sex,marriage,andschoolgirls( 
 jogakusei
 ).Positingtheschoolgirlasaself-determin-ing subject, Shikin offers an alternative possibility to the
male-reinscribed fe-male subject who eventually prevails in society. Moreover, she endeavors
tosever the link between sex and gender in her protagonist, whose assertive be-
haviordoesnotfollowfromhersex.Ononelevel,thestoryseemsabitoffluffby a “woman writer,” a
category designated for the emotional and frivolous.
3
Be-low the surface, however, threatens a female subject of her own creation whoendeavors to
dismantle categories of sex

Shikin’sworksuggestssexualitiesthatdefybinariesreifiedinmainstreamlit-
eratureandpolitical,legal,andmedicaldiscourseattheturnofthecentury.Itisimportant to give voice
to Shikin through “Two Modern Girls” and through her craft to remind us that she was one Meiji
writer who challenged these natural-
izedandoverdeterminedbinaries.RereadingShikinimpartsaviewofthemod-
ernsubjectseldomvisibleinmainlymale-authored,canonizedliteratureofthetime. To that end, I start
with a brief discussion of Shikin’s background. Next,
Iexaminetheroleoftheschoolgirl,herlanguageandsubjectivity,andhowtheseideasplayoutin“TwoMo
dernGirls.”Withinthatsection,Iexploretheconceptofintersexualityasameansofcleavingthesexedbod
yfrompredestinedbehav-ior. And finally, I interrogate how Shikin deploys notions of
subjectivity, lan-guage, and the schoolgirl in her use of parody and style.

Onthefaceofit,“TwoModernGirls”admonishesthereaderaboutthedangersof marriage. Similar to

Shikin’s breakthrough story “The Broken Ring,” it is anindictment of the marriage system; but in
contrast to it, “Two Modern Girls”more conclusively redeems its female subject. By rectifying
the terms upon which men and women conduct their relations, Shikin seeks to redefine mar-
riageandinsodoingpositsafemalesubjectivitythatisaviablealternativetotheMeijimale“other.”Thatis,
Shikindelineatesafemalesexedsubjectassumingaposition that is neither a male-reinscribed
subject, nor a projection of male de-sire, nor a position of abjection banished to an unintelligible
zone. Shikinachieves this alternate subjectivity in the shrewdest of ways, by offering upclichés of
schoolgirls and then subverting them.Miyako Inoue traces the genealogy of so-called women’s
language in Japa-nesefromtheschoolgirlspeechofthe1890s,typicallycharacterizedbythe