On Raicho Hiratsuka's Women Emancipation Thoughts

Raicho Hiratsuka(1886-1971),was a pioneering women liberator and a devoted practitioner of women movements who lived through three dynasties--the reigns of the Meiji Emperor,the Taish Emperor and the Showa Emperor.As a challenger of the existed morality,Hiratsuka was the standard-bearer of the women's liberation movement from a distinct position.The Meiji and Taisho era saw a rapid development of capitalism,accompanied by the disintegration of feudal Japan.Under the circumstance of a intermingling feudalism,nationalism and militarism,young people turned to explore the ethics,their locality and spiritual pursuit in the society.Born into a middle class family,and influenced by traditional Japanese culture and western currents of thought in those days,Hiratsuka was rebellious during her girlhood.She was a person of solitude and thinking,and aspired to spiritual freedom.During her study in the women's university,Hiratsuka detested the paradigm education which preached the ideal type of womanhood as an understanding wife and a loving mother;Instead,she began to practise meditation and introspection,in order to explore the true meaning of life with an intensive reading of western philosophy books.Through Vipassana and sitting introspection,Raicho formed a subjective idealist thought of “attaining Buddhahood by discovering one's own innate Buddha nature''.From 1911 to 1916,Hiratsuka founded Japan's first all-women literary magazine,Seit?(literally Bluestocking),and thus initiated her road to women revolution.During this period,she focused on women's self-awakening by digging women's capacities;she devoted herself to the Gynaecocentric theory,advocated free love,and rejected the existed marriage system and the kinship laws.With regard to women and social relations,on the one hand,Hiratsuka advocated women's breaking the shackles of families,and devoted themselves to their career in ordert o achieve the state of “soul and flesh in one”;on the other hand,she opposed those professional women who disregarded their love relationships and families,thinking that they had lost their true womanhood and thus become slaves of capitalism.Seit? was the milestone in the history of women's self-awakening;However,it did not strongly voiced against the doctrine of “good wife and wise mother” as well as the political system at that time,and struggled to survive in the cracks.During 1920 to 1922,Hiratsuka founded the New Women's Association together with fellow women's rights activist Ichikawa Fusae,and launched constitutional amendment activities for the protection of motherhood,children's rights and female workers,under which the Article 5 of the Police Security Regulations focusing onwomen's political rights,and the Ban on the marriage of men with venereal disease are included.In the end,the Article 5 of the Police Security Regulations was rammed through the Parliament,and thus for the first time modern Japanese women were given the right to participate in political affairs.Yet shortly after,the association disintegrated because of internal inconsistency;and since then Hiratsuka lived a family-centered life while continuing to lecture and write.At this stage,Hiratsuka finally established her notion of women liberation.It centred upon the protection of motherhood,which,in essence,aligned with the notion of eugenics.It contributed to the development of the women's liberation movements;but the ultimate maternity-focused belief let itself be easily exploited by nationalism,and also ignored the female individual differences.From 1928-1938,Hiratsuka participated and established the consumer cooperative organization,advocating an anarchism of self-sufficiency.She realized that the era of capitalism monopoly was an exploitation enacted by the capitalists against the working-class,and continued to advocate the idea of motherhood protection;Yet at the same time,she put her focus on the capitalists while subjecting to national policies.At heart,Hiratsuka ‘s national view was still an emperor view subconsciously;she responded actively to the pre-war national consumption savings mobilization,and reduced herself to a tool of the parties under the mask of women's rights movements.In World War Two(1937-1945),Hiratsuka avoided nowadays and moved to the countryside.However,some of her articles still based the imperial outlook as the country's cultural roots,misinterpreted eugenics as a nationalism,and supported wartime "National eugenics Protection Act”.After the war until 1971,Hiratsuka engaged in women peace movement,called for a unitization of worldwide women to fight against war factors like armed military and nuclear weapons,aiming to build a harmonious world federation.Nevetherless,she lacked a correct understanding of Japanese women's negative history,and avoided the talking of war responsibility.In short,Hiratsuka's view of women liberation was centered upon the protection of motherhood,and was an evolution from "consciousness revolution" to "social revolution",which committed itself to women's ultimate emancipation.Her view of women reflected the light and shadow of the entire history of modern Japanese women's liberation,and was a landmark figure of the history of women emancipation in modern Japan.