{"id":687,"date":"2020-11-24T16:14:20","date_gmt":"2020-11-24T16:14:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/world\/?p=687"},"modified":"2021-07-18T11:22:07","modified_gmt":"2021-07-18T11:22:07","slug":"devoted-wives-and-wise-mothers-the-irony-of-kita-ikkis-suffrage-reform-in-relation-to-choson-korea-and-qing-china","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/world\/2020\/11\/devoted-wives-and-wise-mothers-the-irony-of-kita-ikkis-suffrage-reform-in-relation-to-choson-korea-and-qing-china\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Devoted wives and wise mothers’: The irony of Kita Ikki’s suffrage reform in relation to Choson Korea and Qing China"},"content":{"rendered":"

In 1919 Kita Ikki, in response to an apparent national crisis \u2018unparalleled\u2019 in Japan\u2019s history, proposed a series of reforms for which he believed could propel Japan to leadership in the Asian continent, thereby expunging the toxins of western imperialism that threatened the culture and livelihood of the Asian nations[1]<\/a>. Universal suffrage was one such reform, declared by Kita as an \u2018innate right of the people\u2019, necessary to protect the Japanese people against subjugation by an oppressive ruling class[2]<\/a>.<\/p>\n

However, paradoxically, Kita proclaimed that \u201cwomen will not have the right to participate in politics\u201d, because Japanese women have \u201ccontinued to be devoted wives and wise mothers\u201d who have looked down upon politics as a realm of verbal warfare and violence not suited to their natural aptitudes[3]<\/a>. This trope of the \u2018devoted wife and wise mother\u2019 evokes a particular irony with regards to Kita\u2019s attempt at reform, most notably because it was an idea embodied within the societies of Choson Korea and Qing China, which were dynasties both subject to foreign humiliation: a scenario that Kita\u2019s reform steadfastly desired to avoid.<\/p>\n

For example, in Choson Korea, women were denied access to the civil service and public life more generally[4]<\/a>. A woman\u2019s role was conceived as participating in the moral education of her children, and more importantly, in creating a stable order at home, which was considered the sine qua non<\/em> of female virtue[5]<\/a>. In addition, any attempt to transcend this repressive order, such as through education, was generally chastised, and perceived as an ominous sign of misfortune within the family[6]<\/a>. Furthermore, in Qing China, a chastity cult flourished that idolized this idea of the \u2018devoted wife and wise mother\u2019. Absolute fidelity to one\u2019s husband, refusal to remarry after the death of one\u2019s husband and even committing suicide after his death were behaviours considered central to the idea of the perfect woman[7]<\/a>. In addition, women were denied access to public life, meaning they could not participate in the political sphere or even gain an education equivalent to their male counterparts[8]<\/a>.<\/p>\n

By no means was Kita Ikki\u2019s vision for a new political and social order for Japan as repressive as those exhibited above. For example, Kita believed that boys and girls should have the right to same education and work prospects (excluding politics), but also that the rights of women within marriages should be protected, such as by outlawing adultery and prostitution[9]<\/a>. However, the significant factor that links these three phenomena is their veneration of the \u2018devoted wife, wise mother\u2019 type of woman. All three social orders exclude women from the political process and stress the importance of such concepts as chastity and devotion to one\u2019s husband. The great irony here is that Kita Ikki was attempting to reform Japan into a progressive and modern state, capable of repelling western imperialism. Yet, Choson Korea and Qing China were relics of the past, and states that were subject to great amounts of foreign interference and humiliation (as Korea was annexed by Japan in 1910 and China suffered at the hands of the both the west and Japan in the Opium wars and the Sino-Japanese War of 1895). By invoking the idea of a \u2018devoted wife, wise mother\u2019 Kita appealed to an image that was indicative of more backward societies, antithetical to the image of Japan that he was trying to create. His logic here appears self-defeating, as not only does the exclusion of women from politics negate the notion of \u2018universal\u2019 suffrage, but the veneration of such a trope as \u2018devoted wife, wise mother\u2019 subverts the more progressive elements of his reform such as equal education, as it emphasizes a woman’s supposed proclivity to the domestic sphere.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Ikki, Kita, \u2018An Outline for the Reorganization of Japan\u2019, in Wm. Theodore De Bary, Carol Gluck and Arthur Tiedemann (eds), Sources of Japanese Tradition 1600 to 2000<\/em> (New York, 2005), p.961<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Ibid.,<\/em> p.964<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Ibid.,<\/em> p.964-965<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Martina Deuchler, \u2018Propagating Female Virtues in Choson Korea\u2019, in Dorothy Ko, JaHyun Kim Haboush and Joan Piggott (eds), Women and Confucian Cultures in Premodern China, Korea, and Japan<\/em> (Berkeley, 2003), p.152.<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Ibid.,<\/em> p.153<\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> Ibid.,<\/em> p.153<\/p>\n

[7]<\/a> Fangqin Du and Susan Mann, \u2018Competing Claims on Womanly Virtue in Late Imperial China\u2019 in Dorothy Ko, JaHyun Kim Haboush and Joan Piggott (eds), Women and Confucian Cultures in Premodern China, Korea, and Japan <\/em>(Berkeley, 2003), p.220.<\/p>\n

[8]<\/a> Yi-Tsi Feuerweker, \u2018Women as Writers in the 1920s and 1930s\u2019 in Margery Wolf, Roxanne Witke and Emily Martin (eds), Women in Chinese Society<\/em> (Stanford, 1975), p.144.<\/p>\n

[9]<\/a> Ikki, Kita, \u2018People\u2019s Right to a Livelihood\u2019 in Brij Tanka (ed), Kita Ikki and the Making of Modern Japan: A vision of Empire<\/em>, (Kent, 2006), pp.197-203.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 1919 Kita Ikki, in response to an apparent national crisis \u2018unparalleled\u2019 in Japan\u2019s history, proposed a series of reforms for which he believed could propel Japan to leadership in the Asian continent, thereby expunging the toxins of western imperialism that threatened the culture and livelihood of the Asian nations[1]. Universal suffrage was one such … Continue reading “‘Devoted wives and wise mothers’: The irony of Kita Ikki’s suffrage reform in relation to Choson Korea and Qing China”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[115,114,116],"class_list":["post-687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-choson-korea","tag-kita-ikki","tag-qing-china"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/687","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=687"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/687\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":748,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/687\/revisions\/748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}