Seitō (magazine)

The name of the publication is a reference to the Blue Stockings Society of mid-18th century England, where women would gather for academic discussions about literature and philosophy to forgo social evenings spent playing cards and dancing, and would often invite intellectual men to join them. The original English Bluestocking Society is credited with starting first-wave feminism and its name has been adopted to represent various feminist movements all over the world. Universally, the term is associated with feminist theory, women's education, and intelligent debate.[4] Japanese references to the English Bluestocking movement was originally called Kontabito.[5] However, this word felt dated to Hiratsuka as tabi were worn less frequently than western socks. Unlike their English counterparts, members of The Bluestockings generally did not wear blue socks.

The Japanese word for Bluestocking, 青鞜, or Seitō, was created by Hiratsuka Raichō with the assistance of Ikuta Chōkō, by combining the Kanji "sei" for "blue" and the character "tō" for "stocking."[5][3]

The Meiji era's desire to "catch up with the west" led to a number of changes in law and household structure. The government implemented a family-state with the Emperor as the head of the "family" in order to foster nationalism. New reforms instituted legal codes that required a patriarchal head-of-house, ensuring that even the lowest male member of the household always had more legal power than any female member.[6] Marriage meant that wives lost authority over their property. Political participation was banned for women.[7] Industrialisation meant that more workers needed to be produced and new laws reflected that need. Adultery for men was excused but adultery for women was now a 2-year jail-able offence. Abortion was criminalised and divorce, while technically possible, was a source of great shame. The result was an era that was especially contentious towards women.[5]

Daughters of the affluent enjoyed an increase in girls schools, constructed to produce women that were "good wives, wise mothers." The academic content in these schools was of lower calibre than the male equivalent but it did produce literate middle-class women, creating a market for women's magazines.[6] Popular magazines such as Shinnjokai (New Women's World), Fujin-Club (Women's Club), and Shufuno-tomo (Friends for Housewives) predated Bluestocking and mainly discussed how women could become more ideal mothers, work harder as wives, or incorporate Christian values into their lives.[8]

Although it is suggested that the Bluestockings are responsible for the Japanese women's movement, there are groups and movements that predate them. The Meiji 6 Society was one such group, which criticised Japanese governmental and social policies that undervalued women as keeping Japan from advancing to the world stage. The Freedom and People's Rights Movement came after the Meiji 6 and supported women's suffrage. They even accepted women from different social classes into their ranks (of which future Bluestocking contributor Fukuda Hideko was a member of), whereas the Meiji 6 only accepted formally-educated upper-class men.[5] Additionally, women writers like Ichiyo Higuchi had been using their higher education to raise the consciousness of other women as early as the 1890s.[7]

Earlier in the same year that the first edition of Bluestocking was released, International Women's Day was celebrated globally for the first time, two incidents of love-suicides involving lesbians circulated in newspapers across Japan, and the biggest actress in Tokyo, Matsui Sumako, performed the role of Nora Helmer in A Doll's House.[9][10]

The writing contained in Bluestocking was complex and diverse ranging from pieces spanning many genres written by Japanese women to translations of pertinent Western texts. Through its 52 issues, it covered all forms of writing popular in Japanese literature at the time such as essays, plays, short stories, haiku, waka, I novel, as well as experimental forms of writing. It featured translations of Western writers such as Anton Chekhov, Guy de Maupassant, Edgar Allan Poe, Havelock Ellis, Lester Ward, Emma Goldman, Ellen Key, Sonya Kovalesky, Olive Schreiner, Henrik Ibsen, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Mary Wollstonecraft, Hermann Sudermann, George Bernard Shaw, Frank Wedekind, and more.

Subjects covered included the "New Woman" concept, rape, prostitution, arranged marriage, abortion, class struggle, incarceration, adultery, motherhood, childcare, sociological theory, anarchist theory, motivational calls-to-action, and more. Responses and debates between members on these subjects and the featured translations could be found in the issues as well.[6][5]

The writings of Bluestocking quickly caught the attention of the Japanese Home Ministry because of the magazine's explicit criticism of Japan's private capital system. The government censored the magazine for its upfront depiction of female sexuality, going as far as to ban and remove the magazine from the shelves. Prominent educator Ishigaki Iyako called the Bluestockings a blight upon society and urged her female students to abscond from their ideals.

Throughout its 5 year run, Seitō had over 110 members and contributors. As a submission-based magazine, writers were free to submit their work for review and publication. Supporting Members were recruited at the founding of the society as female authorities on literature and were the wives or sisters of eminent Japanese authors. Members (and Supporting Members) paid 30 sen (1 sen being 1/100th yen) a month to contribute to the magazine's upkeep, though they also received that month's issue. Many of the "Members" quit as of 1913 due to backlash, however, there were those who joined because of the backlash.[6]

The magazine was never translated into English during the time of its publication as international works were highly censored. The kokutai believed the controversial content of Bluestocking would bring shame to the Japanese male establishment if published abroad.[14]

While the publication was never revamped, different members continued to be activists for women's rights. For example, from 1919-1922, Hiratsuka Raicho, after recruiting educator Ichikawa Fusae and student Oku Mumeo, founded Shin Fujin Kyokai (New Women's Association), an organization which fought for extra divorce rights, equal political participation, and women's right to vote.[15][16] On top of this, after Bluestocking started the trend, major publishers like Chūō Kōron, Taiyō, and other women's magazines released issues about the inequalities women faced while using less radical tones, reflective of the general trend towards a more democratic society in the Taishō Period.[17]

After the end of the publication of Bluestocking, women's rights organizations fought for suffrage and against fascism, but they were soon muffled by growing nationalistic and militaristic values pre-World War II that called for a resurgence in the “good wife, wise mother” standard for women. While the 1947 Constitution gave women legal rights, women still faced a double standard in society that Second Wave Feminists have been combating since the 1960s, many taking inspiration from Bluestocking.[18][19]

• Hiratsuka Raichō — founding member, editor-in-chief from 1911-1914, and early Japanese Feminist.
• Itō Noe — editor-in-chief from 1915-1916 and famous Japanese feminist and anarchist.
• New Woman — called "atarashii onna," it is also an ideal among members/a source of derision from critics.
• Bluestocking society — the 18th century English namesake origin of the Japanese Bluestocking society and literary magazine.
• List of Japanese women writers — several members of Bluestocking are also listed here.
• Japanese Feminism — the full history of the Feminist movement in Japan to give context to how Bluestocking fits in.