Midorikawa Kata (1872-1962)
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senzenwomenMidorikawa Kata was born in 1872 (or maybe 1869?) in Tottori, where her father was a samurai retainer; her maiden name was Wada, and after her father led a failed rebellion she was adopted as a baby by the Hori family, of similar rank. At age fifteen, she began to study Chinese classics and etiquette at the local temple in order to prepare for marriage. The following year, she married Miki Setsujiro, son of a local banker. She was seventeen when her first son, Masao, was born, and twenty when his brother Tsutomu appeared.
In 1895, aged twenty-three, she divorced Setsujiro on account of his infidelity and went to Tokyo, taking Tsutomu with her. She was escorted en route by seventeen-year-old Midorikawa Kikuo, on his way to enter university. In Tokyo, she consigned Tsutomu to his father’s family and entered the nursing school affiliated with Tokyo Imperial University, where she was also baptized. She graduated in 1897; although her good grades led to a suggestion of studying in Germany, she worked as a visiting nurse for five years and then went to Hokkaido to marry Kikuo, who was working as a journalist in Otaru, writing pacifist and anti-authoritarian editorials protesting offenses against the Ainu as well as the Ashio Copper Mine problem; he spent the rest of his life on the authorities’ list of left-wing suspicious characters, followed by policemen.
Now with a son and three daughters, they returned to Tokyo in 1908, where Kata worked as a nurse while raising her children; her income was sometimes all the family had during the periods when Kikuo’s left-wing views put him out of work. In 1919, she learned about Mrs. Pankhurst and the women’s temperance movement in the UK from Kikuo while he was working there, and set up a Tokyo branch on her own. In 1925, she established a Women’s Suffrage League, arguing for women’s rights from the housewife’s perspective, and submitting petitions on women’s suffrage and women’s rights in general to the Imperial Diet. In 1927 she founded the Women’s Rights Protection Association, issuing the journal Joken [Women’s Rights].
Kikuo died in 1934. In 1945, when Kata was seventy-three, women’s suffrage became a reality. She died in 1962 at the age of ninety, still fighting the Japan-US Security Treaty of 1960.
Between Kikuo, her children from both marriages, and Kata herself, they had a remarkably wide circle of notable friends, colleagues, and relatives. Her oldest son Masao, better known as the poet Miki Rofu, was part of the “Akai Tori [Red Bird]” children’s literature movement and well acquainted with Yamada Kosaku (Tsuneko Gauntlett’s brother); her son Michio, a movie cameraman, taught Ozu Yasujiro his trade, while her daughter Yoshiko was married to the director Uchida Tomu and their son was Uchida Issaku (known for directing the Kamen Rider movies). Sumiko, the oldest daughter, worked in broadcasting for NHK along with her husband; Kunie, daughter number two, was an academic, and Kiyo, the youngest, became director of Japan’s first facility for multiply disabled children. Kikuo’s professional and political life brought him into contact at varying points with the poet Ishikawa Takuboku (husband of Setsuko), the author Kobayashi Takiji, the revolutionaries Kotoku Shusui (lover of Kanno Suga) and Sakai Toshihiko, and the politician Hara Kei (husband of Sadako and Asa). Kata herself became involved, through her women’s rights activism, with Hiratsuka Raicho, Ichikawa Fusae, Yosano Akiko, and Nishikawa Fumiko among others.
Sources
https://www.asahi.com/articles/photo/AS20210427003216.html?iref=pc_photo_gallery_next_arrow (Japanese) Click through the image to see selections from a picture book about Kata’s life (I couldn’t find more images)
In 1895, aged twenty-three, she divorced Setsujiro on account of his infidelity and went to Tokyo, taking Tsutomu with her. She was escorted en route by seventeen-year-old Midorikawa Kikuo, on his way to enter university. In Tokyo, she consigned Tsutomu to his father’s family and entered the nursing school affiliated with Tokyo Imperial University, where she was also baptized. She graduated in 1897; although her good grades led to a suggestion of studying in Germany, she worked as a visiting nurse for five years and then went to Hokkaido to marry Kikuo, who was working as a journalist in Otaru, writing pacifist and anti-authoritarian editorials protesting offenses against the Ainu as well as the Ashio Copper Mine problem; he spent the rest of his life on the authorities’ list of left-wing suspicious characters, followed by policemen.
Now with a son and three daughters, they returned to Tokyo in 1908, where Kata worked as a nurse while raising her children; her income was sometimes all the family had during the periods when Kikuo’s left-wing views put him out of work. In 1919, she learned about Mrs. Pankhurst and the women’s temperance movement in the UK from Kikuo while he was working there, and set up a Tokyo branch on her own. In 1925, she established a Women’s Suffrage League, arguing for women’s rights from the housewife’s perspective, and submitting petitions on women’s suffrage and women’s rights in general to the Imperial Diet. In 1927 she founded the Women’s Rights Protection Association, issuing the journal Joken [Women’s Rights].
Kikuo died in 1934. In 1945, when Kata was seventy-three, women’s suffrage became a reality. She died in 1962 at the age of ninety, still fighting the Japan-US Security Treaty of 1960.
Between Kikuo, her children from both marriages, and Kata herself, they had a remarkably wide circle of notable friends, colleagues, and relatives. Her oldest son Masao, better known as the poet Miki Rofu, was part of the “Akai Tori [Red Bird]” children’s literature movement and well acquainted with Yamada Kosaku (Tsuneko Gauntlett’s brother); her son Michio, a movie cameraman, taught Ozu Yasujiro his trade, while her daughter Yoshiko was married to the director Uchida Tomu and their son was Uchida Issaku (known for directing the Kamen Rider movies). Sumiko, the oldest daughter, worked in broadcasting for NHK along with her husband; Kunie, daughter number two, was an academic, and Kiyo, the youngest, became director of Japan’s first facility for multiply disabled children. Kikuo’s professional and political life brought him into contact at varying points with the poet Ishikawa Takuboku (husband of Setsuko), the author Kobayashi Takiji, the revolutionaries Kotoku Shusui (lover of Kanno Suga) and Sakai Toshihiko, and the politician Hara Kei (husband of Sadako and Asa). Kata herself became involved, through her women’s rights activism, with Hiratsuka Raicho, Ichikawa Fusae, Yosano Akiko, and Nishikawa Fumiko among others.
Sources
https://www.asahi.com/articles/photo/AS20210427003216.html?iref=pc_photo_gallery_next_arrow (Japanese) Click through the image to see selections from a picture book about Kata’s life (I couldn’t find more images)
