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Tag: Girl-Boss

Yamakawa Kikue

Published April 29, 2022 by Franchesca Johnson
Yamakawa Kikue, 1920

YAMAKAWA Kikue (1890-1980) was a renowned socialist, activist, and advisor to the Sekirankai throughout 1921. Born to a prominent family of former samurai, she attended a women’s academy, where she formulated her progressive philosophy. Through encounters with socialist literature, the hypocrisies of capitalist society, and her future husband and founder of the Japanese Communist Party, Yamakawa Hitoshi, Yamakawa Kikue cultivated a belief in the necessity of socialist revolution to attain freedom which transferred to her work with the Sekirankai.

In Mikiso Hane’s Reflections on the Way to the Gallows: Rebel Women in Prewar Japan, Yamakawa’s unique perspective emerges within her memoir. Via descriptions of her formative experiences, she demonstrates a desire to denounce labor abuses and the governmental oppression of women through a cooperative organization. Hence, even without being active in the Sekirankai’s political demonstrations, she engaged with the group through a unified desire to acquire female liberties by overthrowing capitalism. Therefore, despite her eventual disappointment with the Sekirankai’s dissolution, Yamakawa’s revolutionary views influenced the socialist ideology of the collective, which demonstrates feminine resistance throughout the modern period of Japan.

FURTHER READING

Hane, Mikiso. 1998. “The Sekirankai.” In Reflections on the Way to the Gallows: Rebel Women in Prewar Japan, 161–74. University of California Press.

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Hashiura Haruko and the Photographic Legacy of Protest

Published April 29, 2022 by Franchesca Johnson
Hashiura Haruko at the Second May Day Protest, 1921

HASHIURA Haruko (1898-1975) was one of the pivotal figures of the Sekirankai. While not a prominent leader of the small feminist collective, she is recognized for her acts of protest with the group, especially for her work in the second May Day Protest. Moreover, as she was born to a family of active socialists, she learned at an early age about socialist principles despite later embracing a nihilist perspective later in life.

Detailed in her testimonies within Mikiso Hane’s Reflections on the Way to the Gallows: Rebel Women in Prewar Japan, Hashiura was famously photographed at the age of 23 while being arrested for participating in the socialist demonstration and assaulting a police officer. Depicting her with confidence and composure, this photograph was published by the Yomiuri Shinbun, which rallied members of the left and represented the power evoked by the Sekirankai. While Hashiura died displeased with the success of her photo, her writings indicate that she utilized the abuse and struggles she encountered to advocate for feminist reform.

FURTHER READING

Hane, Mikiso. 1998. “The Sekirankai.” In Reflections on the Way to the Gallows: Rebel Women in Prewar Japan, 131–38. University of California Press.

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The Sekirankai

Published April 29, 2022 by Franchesca Johnson
Yamakawa Kikue, Itō Noe, Sakai Magara

The Sekirankai (1921), or Red Wave Society, was a Japanese women’s-rights organization born from leftist members of a Japanese newspaper group called the Seito circle. Established explicitly by Sakai Magara, Hashirura Haruko, Kutsumi Fusako, and Akizuki Shizue, these socialist figures assembled the group as a response to the Taisho government’s misogynistic policies, censorship, and increased militarism. Moreover, with the assistance of various political connections to the Japanese Communist Party and prominent advisors, Yamakawa Kikue and Itō Noe, the organization pushed for a reformist transformation of the Japanese government.

Overall, the Sekirankai is notable for its political rallies in support of feminism and its position as the first women’s socialist organization. Throughout 1921, the association participated in a variety of seminars, leftist book distributions, and public demonstrations, such as the prominent May Day Protest. However, following a surge in imprisonment and assassination of the leadership, the group eventually disbanded only six months after its inception. Regardless, the Sekirankai remains an organization that demonstrates the origins of organized female political resistance and reformist ideology within the Taisho period.

FURTHER READING

Hartley, Barbara. 2020. “Sakai Magara: Activist Girl of Early Twentieth Century Japan.” Girlhood Studies 13 (2): 103–18. https://doi.org/http://dx.doi.org/10.3167/ghs.2020.130209.

Hane, Mikiso. 1998. “The Sekirankai.” In Reflections on the Way to the Gallows: Rebel Women in Prewar Japan, 125-27. University of California Press.

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Kaneko Fumiko and Anarchism in the Meiji Restoration

Published April 1, 2022 by Franchesca Johnson

KANEKO Fumiko (1903-1926) was a political activist who advocated for an anarchist approach to Japanese society in response to the Meiji Restoration. Born out of wedlock to an impoverished mother and unrecognized by her father, Kaneko encountered the hardships of society very early in life, which eventually led her towards nihilism. However, even though these disadvantages could solely rationalize her anarchist perspective, her emigration to Korea and experience witnessing the mistreatment of Korean servants altered her stance on government and Japanese society.

Within interrogation records translated in Reflections on the Way to the Gallows: Rebel Women in Prewar Japan, Kaneko describes her initial endorsement of socialist policies and eventual criticism of the system. With frequent criticism of the upper-class and the emperor system, Kaneko became known as a thinker who embraced the futility of life and denounced all people’s greed and hypocrisy. Therefore, even though Kaneko was eventually imprisoned for her controversial opinions and ultimately committed suicide at age 23, her political perspectives remain markers of the disillusionment with the parliamentary government of the Meiji Era. 

FURTHER READING

Hane, Mikiso. 1998. Reflections on the Way to the Gallows: Rebel Women in Prewar Japan. University of California Press.

Theodore, William, Carol Gluck, and Arthur E Tiedemann. 2005. “Socialism and the Left.” In Sources of Japanese Tradition. Vol. 2. New York: Columbia University Press.

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