Against Japanism

Setsu Shigematsu joins Kota to discuss the history of revolutionary feminism and women's liberation movement in Japan.

We first discuss the history of feminists in pre-WWII Japan such as Kanno Sugako & Kaneko Fumiko who critiqued the family system and its link with the emperor system, as well as the reality of Japanese imperialism today, its oppression of non-Japanese women and its relation with US imperialism.  We then discuss the women’s liberation movement of the 1970s known as Ūman Ribu. Unlike the previous feminist movements in Japan that referred to women as fujin as in “lady” or more neutrally as josei, the Ribu used the term onna which is less bourgeois than fujin and more erotic than josei. The term onna thus signified the movement’s opposition to the respectability politics of bourgeois feminism and its particular position on sexual liberation that centred women’s sexuality, contrary to how men in the late 60s New Left understood “free sex” as free access to women’s bodies.

The term also represented the movement’s militant stance against the family system that constrained women’s sexuality and reproductive freedom. Like the prewar radical feminists, the Ribu saw the connection between the hetero-patriarchal institution of family and Japanese imperialism, between the marriage system represented in the idealized figure of Japanese women as Good Wife, Wise Mother and the colonial prostitution such as the “comfort women” system during WWII.  In order to put their politics into practice, the Ribu established communes across Japan including in Hokkaido and Okinawa to live and raise children together. However, while they may have been successful in challenging patriarchy and hetero-normativity, their avowed anti-imperialist politics did not always align with their action that reproduced the colonial dynamic with the local women they were working with.

We discuss the Ribu’s perspective on violence and solidarity with women who kill their children. While the movement did not advocate for violence against children, it challenged the dominant narrative that placed the blame on the women instead of the patriarchal society that drove them to commit such crimes. For them, these events showed the necessity of reproductive justice and society where women want to raise children. They were also in solidarity with women involved in the United Red Army which is known for the Asama Sanso Incident and killing its own members in 1972. While the Ribu did not condone the URA's killings, they were sympathetic towards its women members such as Toyama Mieko who was punished for her feminine outlook and Nagata Hiroko who was demonized by the media for her leadership role in the killings disproportionately to her male comrades. The Ribu's critical support for these women drew the ire of the Japanese state and became the target of police surveillance and repression.

Finally, we situate the legacy of Fusako Shigenobu in the history of revolutionary feminism in Japan. Shigenobu is a former leader of the Japanese Red Army and political prisoner scheduled to be released from prison on May 28, 2022. To conclude this episode, we discuss how her internationalist commitment to the Palestinian people challenged both Japanese imperialism and the patriarchal family system it’s founded on, as well as what her experience tells us about the role of women in political violence and armed struggle.

Intro: Cielo by Huma-Huma

Outro: Leila's Ballad by Panta & Takumi Kikuchi

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