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Flowers in Salt: The Beginnings of Feminist Consciousness in Modern Japan
by
This is the first book to examine the changing roles of women in Japan during the four decades following the Meiji Restoration of 1868, a period of sweeping political, social, and economic change. The book concentrates on those Japanese women who were outspoken critics of their society and the roles women were assigned in it, but also assesses the contributions women made
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Paperback, 256 pages
Published
June 1st 1983
by Stanford University Press
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I found out about this book via my perusal of a bibliography of another book on women in Japan which I had read. I am glad I was able to get it via my local public library because it was quite well done.
Sievers did a great job of weaving the political and social history of Japan from the mid 19th century into the first two decades of the 20th with interesting depictions of individual women who struggled to gain the freedom and rights that (a small number of) men had in the country. Despite ther ...more
Sievers did a great job of weaving the political and social history of Japan from the mid 19th century into the first two decades of the 20th with interesting depictions of individual women who struggled to gain the freedom and rights that (a small number of) men had in the country. Despite ther ...more
Interesting research on the rise of feminism during the Meji era. Sievers writes about the past and the treatment of women throughout Japanese history (merely acting as "borrowed wombs") and their slow rise to recognition. Though there is still much work to be done regarding this subject world-wide, Sievers writes a commanding account of the problems and issues at the time, as well as the inherent root of the cause that lays within Confucianism.
I would give this book 5 stars, but I had to take a star (and maybe a star and a half?) off for inaccuracies.
Let me give you a direct quote written about the "High Treason Incident":
"After a secret trial, conducted with great dispatch, twelve socialists, including Koutoku Shuusui and Kanno Suga were hanged."
Kanno Suga was an anarchist, not a socialist and the "High Treason Incident" was a case of primarily anarchists being hanged. Sievers also mislabels Osugi Sakae as a Socialist. I am providi ...more
Let me give you a direct quote written about the "High Treason Incident":
"After a secret trial, conducted with great dispatch, twelve socialists, including Koutoku Shuusui and Kanno Suga were hanged."
Kanno Suga was an anarchist, not a socialist and the "High Treason Incident" was a case of primarily anarchists being hanged. Sievers also mislabels Osugi Sakae as a Socialist. I am providi ...more
A very interesting intro, though it skips between general history and biography in a slightly uninteresting way. Sievers gets mad props from me for putting this attempt together. The writing is sympathetic, nuanced, and careful in a way that i really appreciate (considering the subject matter and the author's status). It would have been easy to screw this up.
I would like to see how this connected to art more. Tough to find an anthology on visual art and feminist consciousness...
I would like to see how this connected to art more. Tough to find an anthology on visual art and feminist consciousness...
Kanna Suga (1906): "Rise up, women! Wake up! As in the struggle workers are engaged in against capitalists to break down the class system, our demands for freedom and equality with men will not be women easily just because we will it; they will not be won if we do not raise our voices, if no blood is shed." That is frickin' tough. I need to read more of her stuff. She seems to have bled righteousness.
Siever's application of the idea that in anxious times of rapid social change, women are forces into the role of the keepers of tradition plays out very nicely here. This is an important book because it offers a corrective to so many histories of modern Japan in which men are the only actors. However, its analytic mode of "feminist consciousness" seems a little tired and outdated.
Actually a really interesting "educational" book!
"If it is true that men are better than women because they are stronger, why aren't our sumo wrestlers in the government?"
Kishida Toshiko, 19th Century Japanese Feminist
Kishida Toshiko, 19th Century Japanese Feminist
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