2000 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary
RECEPTION OF FEMINISM IN JAPAN
| Project/Area Number |
09610046
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
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| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
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| Section | 一般 |
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| Research Field |
History of thought
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| Research Institution | NAGOYA KEIZAI UNIVERSITY |
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Principal Investigator |
MIZUTA Tamae NAGOYA KEIZEI UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF ECONOMICS PROFESSOR, 経済学部, 教授 (60079316)
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| Project Period (FY) |
1997 – 2000
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| Keywords | FEMINISM / "SEITO" / UTILITARIANISM / EVOLUTIONISM / GERMAN PHILOSOPHY |
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| Research Abstract |
Since Japan had opened its doors to the world in 1868, it has accepted those western thoughts instrumental to restructure its society into more or less modern one. As a developing country, its way of absorbing those western thoughts including feminism was similar to that we see in the third world. In the following study of the western influence on Japanese feminism from the Meiji Restoration of 1868 to the end of Taisho era in 1926, I focussed on the sex equality and the women's identity.
Tire idea of the sex equality was transplanted from the American Declaration of Independence and the British ideas of natural rights and utilitarianism, especially those of J.S.Mill, Spencer and M.G.Fawcett.
The idea of women's identity was inspired paradoxically enough by such anti-feminist German philosophers as Schopenhauer, Nietzche and Weininger Who put stress on the necessity of self-consciousness and the role of genius to get rid of the mediocrity prevailing in modern society. At the beginning of Taisho era, a group of women gathered in the journal "Seito" tried to apply these formula of anti-feminism to women. But sooner or later they left the idealist philosophy for motherhood, economic independence and suffrage under the influence of the corresponding western ideas.
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