Through Americanized Japanese Woman’s Eyes: Tsuda Umeko and the Women’s Movement in Japan in the 1910s

The New York Times described Tsuda Umeko, as “Umeko Tsuda, ‘Americanized Japanese woman’ as she is known in Japan” (NewYork Times, July 7, 1913).i As this article suggested, Tsuda was born in Japan in 1864 as a daughter of a progressive agriculturist of former samurai class family. But at age six, she was sent to America to receive modern education in 1871. Education and life experiences in America nurtured progressive ideas within her. Tsuda had determined to play a role model for girls in Japan and wanted to educate those girls who were able to contribute society. However, upon returning to Japan in 1882, Tsuda found that her desire to promote social reform by women’s hands was unattainable. The Meiji government implemented gendered policies, which emphasized traditional women’s roles in family rather than in society. Japanese women in the privileged class who like Tsuda gainedaccess to western liberal ideologies, but who were alienated from society and from women in other classes as well, were not able to overcome the double standards embedded in gendered policies to transform knowledge into social movement in the 1910s in Japan.