Hello, ladies!!
How are you??
Long, long time no see…I found it was not so easy to practice English every day.
As for the issue of the summer seminar, I found the more I read about Kiyoko's life, the more complicated I felt about her feelings. She often called herself a new woman, atarashi onna, who tried to get the right for women. But at the same time, she worried too much about her position as a legal wife. She seemed to have some contradictions. I have to read more deeply in order to deal with her issues at the seminar.
See you again, bye for now!
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Hello, Cherry and my friends.
Cherry, I was reading a new woman through "Feminism in Modern Japan" by Vera Mackie because I wanted to know whether Shoen Uemura belonged to a new woman or not.
I deeply appreciate if someone tells me the clear definition of a new woman.
According to Vera Mackie's book,
*In 1911, under the leadership of Hireatsuka Raicho, a new women’s literary journal, Seito (Bluestockings) was established.
*The bluestocking journal was launched with two manifestos by Hiratsuka Raicho and Yosano Akiko.
*Hiratsuka used the metaphor of light.
In the beginning woman was the Sun. Today, she is the moon. Living through others, reflecting the brilliance of others…
*Yosano’s poem referred to potential power of the volcano. The day of the mountains move has come. As long as you believe: all the sleeping women are now awake and moving.
***
Anyway, I tried to explore whether Shoen Uemura would be a new women.
The folloing was what Shoen answered the question of a new woman.
I would be a single, career woman rather than a new woman. Although I devoted myself into painting pictures, I shared with several points with what they called a new woman.
First I thought I belonged to so-called a new woman in terms of financial independence.
Raicho Hiratsuka stressed the importance of women’s economic independence in her statement “To the Women of the World’ (Yo no Fujintachi ni) in 1913.
As I was financially independent, I had the ability to support my child through my own earnings.
My painting provided the major source of income for myself, my mother, son, and my elder sister.
For this reason, I am the Sun and not the moon. I provided the light and energy to my family.
I was living on my own. I was glittering by myself.
Secondly, Raicho Hiratsuka defended women who chose not to marry. She attacked the existing family system or the patriarchal family where women were subordinate to the common good.
I chose not to marry. I had no husband. I am outside the conventional family system.
Thirdly, a new woman discussed romantic love, chastity and monogamy, questioning why the same demands for chastity were not made of men.
Although I had been taught that women’s chastity was absolutely necessary, I always wondered why men’s chastity was not questioned.
In the current society, women needed to marry in order to ensure their survival, and virginity was necessary for men to monopolize women’s sexuality.
However, the importance of chastity for women was too much stressed and men’s chastity was less stressed. I felt hatred towards the man who made me pregnant and neglected of taking care of me and a baby.
I am not the new woman becasue the New Woman was radical and challenged chastity and monogamy in a society, but I just shielded myself from social curiosity. Those issues were not my topic to discuss.
In conclusion, I was a professional, single mother and not a new woman.
Hi, ladies!
Cherry, I’m very glad to get your message and read about complicated character of Kiyoko. And it is also intriguing to know Shoen, who is an extraordinary painter of integrity with backbone. We, Japanese as well as many foreigners, tend to think Japanese women are so temperate and docile that they seldom assert themselves.
However, we have now known that there were so many women had lived their own lives with strong passion. We can’t lump women together by saying “typical Japanese women”.
By the way, the season of AISEMI is always so muggy. Let’s take care of ourselves, friends. Bye.
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