Living As a Woman and Thinking As a Mother in Japan

Living as a Woman and Thinking as a Mother in Japan A Feminine Line of Japanese Moral Philosophy Kitagawa Sakiko When it comes to gender, Asian cultures in general are marked by enormous fluidity. We often find femininity widely used as a cultural category distinct from biological sexuality. When talking about gender in Japan, therefore, we need always to keep the diversity of usage in mind, lest we uniformly impose modern dualistic notions of gender on femininity where they do not really belong. As a cultural category by and large independent of the duality of the sexes, femininity has held an essential place in Japan’s cultural self-understanding. Gender in japan Tessa Morris-Suzuki has analyzed the perspective of “female Japan” from two sides: the viewpoint of Western Orientalists and the traditional Japanese equation of woman and nature in mono no aware もののあわれ (Suzuki 1998, 110–39.). She focuses attention on the hidden but important role that gender played in Japan’s process of modernization, arguing that the formation of modern Japan’s identity as a nation state was conditioned throughout by a strategy of dividing Japan into female 141 142 | Living as a Woman and Thinking as a Mother in Japan and male domains. Femininity was associated with the home, and the home with stability and continuity, while modernity and national power were associated with masculinity. In this sense we may speak of a process of re-inventing modern Japan as a powerful form of masculinity. Suzuki’s analysis shows how the strategy of gender division was put to use effec- tively to enable rapid modernization and Westernization, while at the same time maintaining a certain continuity with tradition. The aspect of gender reveals the paradoxical character of Japanese modernization, because it was precisely at these early stages of Japanese modernization and the rise of capitalism that women were mobilized as the vanguard of modernization by being exploited in large measure as factory workers. As Suzuki’s analysis makes clear, when viewed from the standpoint of gender, Japanese modernization was a Janus-faced process of liberation and repression. Modern women thinkers like Hiratsuka Raichō 平塚らいてう and Yosano Akiko 与謝野晶子, as representatives of prewar Japanese feminism, were greatly conscious of this dialectic of gender. They sought to recall the feminine line of Japanese cultural tradition to deconstruct modernity. In this sense, Japanese feminism may be seen as a kind of radical postmodernism, one that sought to overcome the rapid modernization and Westernization that had taken hold of the country. Before taking up particular women thinkers, we may take a brief look at the general place of femininity in Japanese culture. This is crucial, given that the modern idea of gender with its strict and systematic dichotomy of the sexes is a modern invention were Japan is concerned. If we are to understand its place in premodern Japan, we need to disassociate the meaning of femininity from questions of biological and social dualism. As a cultural category, femininity clearly holds sway over masculinity. It is also not enough to consider femininity as a principle on an even par with masculinity, and to understand both in analogy to yin 陰 and yang 陽. Ichikawa Tazumaro 市川匡麿, who was very critical of Motoori Norinaga 本居宣長 insists in his Maganohire『末賀能比連』 (1772–80) that man and woman are not to be understood in terms of an interdependent yin and yang relationship but as two altogether different principles.1 1. He describes the relation between man and woman in this way: 男女は男女、月日は月日、水火は水火にて、目に見えたるままにて [Men and women are men and women, the sun kitagawa sakiko | 143 Femininity belongs first and foremost to Japanese aesthetics, as notions like たおやめぶり taoyame-buri (delicate elegance), 幽玄 yūgen (graceful subtlety), and iki (“chic”) indicate. It is hardly surprising to find a strong tradition of women’s poetry in Japanese literature. Referring to Ki no Tsurayuki’s “Kana Introduction” 仮名序 to the Kokinwakashu 古今和歌集, where the feminine style is compared to a woman said to be あわれなようにて、つよからず、いはば、よき女のなやめるところある [like something that appears as it is, without having to do with strength, as if something a noble woman might be troubled over], Baba tries to recover the lost premodern tradition of female poetry by tracing its origins to the poems of princess Sotoori in the Kojiki 古事記.2 In doing so, she demonstrates how this tradition of female poetry was marked by a principle of polyphony, giv- ing voice to the manifold interiority that she characterizes as momi-momi shite もみもみして . Women’s poetry is an expression of a complex emotional dynamic that draws on poetic tools of indirect depiction like tsuya 艶 (gloss). To be sure, this is an image of femininity borrowed from a traditional way of considering woman’s nature, but as a cultural category it was widely adopted without reference to women. In the Japanese con- text femininity needs to be seen primarily as a principle of polyphony. The tradition of the culture of femininity is not limited to poetry or literature. Sakabe Megumi 坂部恵 points out the philosophical implications of this culture of femininity and sees in it the ground of the Japanese idea of the subject.3 In treating the meaning of femininity for Japanese culture, Sakabe emphasizes the dynamic crossover in the relation between masculinity and femininity, citing Hikaru Genji 光源氏as “a typical example of the hero with taoyame-buri” たおやめぶり.4 and moon are the sun and moon, water and fire are water and fire, just as they appear to the eye.] (Ichikawa n.d.). 2. This tradition of feminine poetry has been differently revitalized at various times. Especially important in its modern revitalization was Origuchi Shinobu 折口信夫. 3. “Polyphonic Subject and the Transversality of Genders: Possession, Narrative and Femininity in the Japanese Cultural Tradition,” a lecture delivered at the Berlin Japanese German Center in 2006. 4. We see another example of such reversible gender relationships in the Tori- kae baya monogatari『とりかへばや物語』 (Tale of the Changelings) where an aristocratic woman was forced to play a young nobleman and in doing so became involved in very complex love relationships with women as well as with men. 144 | Living as a Woman and Thinking as a Mother in Japan The reversibility of gender is clearly one of the basic elements of Japa- nese culture, suggesting a use of femininity completely different from that of sexual dichotomy. This, in turn, suggests that the modern con- cept of the “subject,” both because of its individualistic overtones as well as because of its clear distinction between the sexes, is largely alien to traditional Japanese modes of thought. It is for this reason that Sakabe recommends approaching the Japanese “subject” as a polyphonic phe- nomenon. Gender and japanese modernization These reversible gender relations disappeared in the course of Japan’s modernization. Like modernization pretty much everywhere, the direction of the process in Japan was strongly dominated by masculinity. It is interesting to note how the ruling powers invented modern gender dualism by disassociating modernity from more traditional images of gender. As convenient as this was for speeding up the social adjustment to modernization, the invention was obviously an importation from Western modernization. The modern notion of gender in general has two defining character- istics: it is naturalistic and dualistic. Since the modern notion of gender is based on the biological determination of sexuality, it is a naturalistic category. It is dualistic in the sense that it creates two completely distinct gender identities. The modern notion of gender is thus able to function as a driving force supporting dualistic thinking. This explains why modernization necessarily entailed the destruction of traditional polyphonic gender and why the introduction of modern gender was seen as an index of successful modernization. This may also help to explain the fact that the “women’s question” was one of the most popular topics among Meiji intellectuals and the phi- losophers of the dubious project of “national morals (kokumin dōtoku) 国民道徳, a nationwide program of moral education based on the prob- lematic text of the 1890 Imperial Rescript on Education. No doubt the project of a national morality set the ideological background to military nationalism in prewar Japan. kitagawa sakiko | 145 A number of intellectuals of the Japanese enlightenment like Fukuzawa Yukichi 福澤諭吉 (1899) and Mori Arinori 森有礼 (1874) devoted con- siderable attention in their writings to the “women’s question.” On the surface, their texts leave a surprisingly liberal impression. They denounce existing patents of discrimination against women in Japanese society and emphasize the equality between men and women. Fukuzawa criticizes traditional polygamy by insisting: Men and women are alike in that both are born as human beings. And inasmuch as each has an indispensable rule to play in society, one can- not escape from being a man or a woman. Man is as much a human being as woman is.5 Fukuzawa saw the introduction of modern Western monogamy as one way to secure this equality. Other liberal authors joined Fukuzawa in calling on Japanese women to liberate themselves from the restrictions of the traditional family system with its underlying Confucian ideology. It is important to note that this liberal gender discourse focused on discrimination against women within the family, and reduced the whole of the women issues to the domain of the “household.” Characteristically enough, these writers did not pay any attention to the social and political problems of women, among them the absence of political equality.

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