New Japan Women's League

The New Japan Women's League (NJWL or Shin Nihon Fujin Dōmei) was a non-partisan^[1] women's organization in Japan formed by Fusae Ichikawa on November 3, 1945, after WWII. The NJWL was established to improve women's legal status in Japan,^[2] gain women's suffrage, develop policies for women's lives, education and work,^[3] and inform Japanese women about democracy and citizenship.^[4] The NJWL was influenced by pre-World War II suffrage organizations and did not mention gender equality or women in the workforce in its founding principles.^[5] NJWL and Ichikawa worked to "struggle against conservative social taboos."^[6] NJWL lobbied the government over laws and policies that were unequal in treatment of men and women.^[1] In 1950, New Japan Women's League was renamed to the Women's Suffrage League of Japan. Thereafter, Women's Suffrage League of Japan had the basic principles of "equality, welfare, political purification, and permanent world peace" and promoted movements that connect between women and the Diet.^[3]

History of the establishment New Japan Women's League

In Japan, voting and joining associations were completely banned for women in 1889 after the establishment of the Constitution of the Japan Empire by the Assembly Regulations and Peace Police Act.^[7] In 1905, socialist women started an opposition movement to reform the law and get rid of the ban. Later named the New Women's Association, in 1919 the socialist women's organization succeeded in partly revising the Peace Police Act. In 1945, one of the members of New Women's Association, Fusae Ichikawa, established a new organization for women's suffrage movement, called the New Japan Women's League. The New Japan Women's League temporary declined because Ichikawa was purged by order of the General Headquarters of the Allied Forces in April 1947, but she was released from the purge and came back to the New Japan Women's League in October 1950.^[8][9] She renamed to the Women's Suffrage League of Japan in November 1950 and promoted women's movements.^[10]

Goals

The main goals of New Japan Women's League were:^[11]

• Abolition movement of legal system against women
• Political education movement for exercising of women's suffrage more effectively
• Establishment of policy related to women's life, education, and labor

Achievements

New Japan Women's League (NJWL) put a headquarters in Tokyo and opened 35 branches all over Japan.^[11] The president of New Japan Women's League, Fusae Ichikawa, had started a movement that interested a large number of Japanese women in politics and improved their knowledge of politics since November 3, 1945, and gathered about 3000 women to the NJWL.^[12] Women in NJWL and Ichikawa also shaped a plan of women's suffrage with the 43rd Prime Minister Higashikuni, and the politician Ichiro Hatoyama. The 44th Prime Minister Shidehara adapted women's suffrage in a cabinet decision and Home Minister Zenjiro Horikiri submitted the women suffrage bill of the House of Representative Election Law to the Diet on November 17, 1945.^[13] It was passed and women who are over 20 years of age voted for the first time under the Revised Election Law.^[14] The president of New Japan Women's League, Ichikawa, said in an interview, "Without the Occupation or the defeat of Japan, the realization of the Japanese women's constitutional rights would not have been achieved so quickly."^[14]

References

Citations

1. Kobayashi, Yoshie (2004). A Path Toward Gender Equality: State Feminism in Japan. Routledge. p. 40. ISBN 978-0203577950.
2. Hunter, Janet (1984). Concise Dictionary of Modern Japanese History. University of California Press. pp. 64–65. ISBN 978-0520043909.
3. Kurihara, Ryoko (September 1991). "The Japanese Woman Suffrage Movement". Feminist Issues. 11 (2): 81–100. doi:10.1007/BF02685617. S2CID 144644832.
4. Shigematsu, Setsu (2012). Scream From the Shadows: The Women's Liberation Movement in Japan. University of Minnesota Press. p. 8. ISBN 9780816667581.
5. Garon, Sheldon (1997). Molding Japanese Minds: The State in Everyday Life. Princeton University Press. p. 182. ISBN 978-0691044880.
6. Palmer, Alan (2002). Who's Who in Modern History: From 1860 to the Present Day. Routledge. p. 173. ISBN 978-0415118859.
7. Kimpara, Yoshiaki (2016). The Encyclopedia of Women's Liberation. Japan: Meikyosha, Isc. p. 231.
8. Hunter, Janet (1984). Concise Dictionary of Modern Japanese History. University of California Press. p. 243. ISBN 978-0520045576.
9. Ishizuki, Shizue (n.d.). "戦前の女性と政治参画-婦選運動と行政による女性の活用- Women's Movement in Prewar Period" (PDF). Nagasaki Junshin Catholic University: 12.
10. Vavich, Anne (1967). "The Japanese Woman's Movement: Ichikawa Fusae, A Pioneer in Woman's Suffrage". Monumenta Nipponica. 22 (3/4): 402–436. doi:10.2307/2383075. JSTOR 2383075.
11. 大原社会問題研究所 (1949). 日本労働年鑑 戦後特集. Tokyo: 第一出版. ASIN B000JBJHNG.
12. "「函館市史」通説編4 6編1章2節1-4". archives.c.fun.ac.jp. Retrieved 2021-10-31.
13. "戦後（昭和20年）から国際婦人年前（昭和40年代）まで". Gender Equality Bureau Office. 2016.
14. Vavich, Anne (1967). "The Japanese Woman's Movement: Ichikawa Fusae, A Pioneer in Woman's Suffrage". Monumenta Nipponica. 22 (3/4): 402–436. doi:10.2307/2383075. JSTOR 2383075.

Sources

• Lublin, Elizabeth Dorn (2013). "Ichikawa Fusae (1893-1981)". In Perez, Louis G. (ed.). Japan at War: An Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 9781598847420.

External links

• Japanese Press Translation on formation of New Japan Women's League