Asian History Commons^™

Women’S Agency And The Historical Record: Reflections On Female Activists In Nineteenth-Century Japan, Marnie S. Anderson

History: Faculty Publications

This article examines the small body of Japanese-language historiography on women’s activism in late nineteenth-century Japan. The era saw a sharp rise in the number of female activists, and yet the activities of these women have usually been interpreted as the result of male initiative. Only women who left a clear record in their own hand—demonstrating what I call “literacy agency”—are seen as full agents. I suggest that such understandings are insufficient by presenting four cases of women’s activism, including local women’s groups, geisha activists, a petitioner, and several writers. It turns out that female activists who displayed “literary agency” …