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Kubushiro Ochimi

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Kubushiro Ochimi
久布白落実
A smiling Japanese woman, dark hair parted offcenter and dressed to the nape
Kubushiro Ochimi
Born16 December 1882
Yamaga, Kumamoto Prefecture, Japan
Died23 October 1972
Occupation(s)Suffragist, feminist
RelativesYajima Kajiko (great-aunt)

Kubushiro Ochimi (16 December 1882 – 23 October 1972;[1] in Japanese, 久布白落実, or くぶしろ おちみ in kana) was a Japanese religious leader, temperance activist, and feminist. She was president of the Japanese Women's Christian Temperance Union, and general director of the Women's Suffrage League in Japan.

Early life and education

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Okubo Ochimi was born in present-day Yamaga, Kumamoto Prefecture, the daughter of Shinjiro Okubo and Otoha; her father was a Christian pastor who established churches for Japanese Christians in Hawaii and California.[2] Her great-aunt was temperance activist Yajima Kajiko.[3] She graduated from a Presbyterian high school in Tokyo in 1903,[4] and visited the United States with her parents as a young woman. She graduated from Pacific Theological Seminary in 1909.[5][6]

On December 13, 1926, the 2nd anniversary of the Women's Suffrage League was held. Front row, from left: Fusae Ichikawa, Shigeri Kaneko, Etsuko Ohira. Middle row, from left: Kiiko Yagihashi, Ochimi Kubushiro, Mako Ogihara. Back row, from left: Yoshiko Tanaka, Shigeyo Takeuchi, Kyoko Okada.

Career

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She was in California for the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, and worked as an interpreter for relief efforts there. She returned to Japan with her husband in 1913, and was a pastor with him in Osaka, Takamatsu, and Tokyo. They founded the Tokyo Citizens Church together.[1] In 1916, she became active in temperance work,[7] and joined efforts to eliminate licensed prostitution in the red light districts of Tokyo.[8][9] In 1922, she was a delegate to the World Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) meeting in Philadelphia.[10]

In 1924, Kubushiro was the founding general director of the Woman's Suffrage League,[11] working with executive director Ichikawa Fusae.[12] She was a founding member of the National Committee for Promoting the Abolition of Prostitution, in 1926.[13] In 1930 she was one of the organizers of the first All-Japan Women's Conference (全国日本婦選大会). In 1935 she traveled in the United States to study sex education curricula.[14] Kubushiro attended international Christian mission meetings in Jerusalem in 1928, and in India in 1938.[1] From 1938 to 1960 she published a Christian women's magazine, Japan Through Women.[15] She was president or vice-president of the Japanese Women's Christian Temperance Union from the 1920s into the 1960s.[16][17][18]

After World War II, Kubushiro ran unsuccessfully for seats in the Japanese legislature, and chaired the Committee for the Promotion and Establishment of Legislation Banning Prostitution.[19] In 1954, she served on the government's Policy Committee on the Prostitution Problem.[19][20] She visited the United States in 1956, and China in 1957. In 1966 became an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ in Japan.[21] She became a member of the Order of the Sacred Treasure, Third Class, in 1971.[1] Also in 1971, she attended the Japanese government's ceremonies marking the 23rd anniversary of women's suffrage in Japan.[22]

Publications

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  • Japanese Women Speak: A Message from the Christian Women of Japan to the Christian Women of America (1934, in English, with Kawai Michi)[23]
  • "The Place of the Christian Church in Moral and Social Reform in Japan" (1939)[24]
  • The Life of Yajima Kajiko (矢島楫子伝) (1942)
  • The Road to the Abolition of Prostitution (廃娼ひとすじ) (1973, published posthumously)

Personal life

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In 1910, Ochimi married Naokatsu Kubushiro, a fellow Japanese Christian in California. Her husband died in 1920, and she died in 1972, at the age of 89.[1]

References

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  1. ^ a b c d e Melton, J. Gordon (2005). Encyclopedia of Protestantism. Infobase Publishing. ISBN 978-0-8160-6983-5.
  2. ^ "$85,000 Permit for Initial Church Unit". The Independent. 1964-01-24. p. 7. Retrieved 2024-09-23 – via Newspapers.com.
  3. ^ Ogawa, Manako (2004). "Rescue Work for Japanese Women: The Birth and Development of the Jiaikan Rescue Home and the Missionaries of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, Japan, 1886-1921". U.S.-Japan Women's Journal (26): 106. ISSN 2330-5037. JSTOR 42771913.
  4. ^ Pacific Theological Seminary (1925). General Catalogue, 1866-1925 (PDF). p. 62.
  5. ^ "Japanese Temperance Leader Visits Here; Mrs. Kubushiro Began Career in San Francisco". The New World Sun Daily. October 10, 1935. p. 1 – via California Digital Newspaper Collection.
  6. ^ "Japanese Maid to Get Diploma". Oakland Tribune. 1909-04-25. p. 25. Retrieved 2024-09-23 – via Newspapers.com.
  7. ^ Ogawa, Manako (2007). "The 'White Ribbon League of Nations' Meets Japan: The Trans-Pacific Activism of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, 1906–1930". Diplomatic History. 31 (1): 21–50. doi:10.1111/j.1467-7709.2007.00601.x. ISSN 0145-2096. JSTOR 24916019.
  8. ^ Ogawa, Manako (2004). ""Hull-House" in Downtown Tokyo: The Transplantation of a Settlement House from the United States into Japan and the North American Missionary Women, 1919-1945". Journal of World History. 15 (3): 359–387. ISSN 1045-6007. JSTOR 20079278.
  9. ^ Garon, Sheldon (1993). "The World's Oldest Debate? Prostitution and the State in Imperial Japan, 1900-1945". The American Historical Review. 98 (3): 727–729. doi:10.2307/2167547. ISSN 0002-8762. JSTOR 2167547.
  10. ^ "Some of the Delegates to the Eleventh Convention of the WCTU". Napa Valley Register. November 6, 1922. p. 9 – via California Digital Newspaper Collection.
  11. ^ Molony, Barbara (2000). "Women's Rights, Feminism, and Suffragism in Japan, 1870-1925". Pacific Historical Review. 69 (4): 655–657. doi:10.2307/3641228. ISSN 0030-8684. JSTOR 3641228.
  12. ^ Molony, Barbara (2011). "From "Mothers of Humanity" to "Assisting the Emperor": Gendered Belonging in the Wartime Rhetoric of Japanese Feminist Ichikawa Fusae". Pacific Historical Review. 80 (1): 11–12. doi:10.1525/phr.2011.80.1.1. ISSN 0030-8684. JSTOR 10.1525/phr.2011.80.1.1.
  13. ^ Kinnosuke, Adachi. "The New Women of Nippon" The Woman Citizen 10(November 1926): 14-17, 43.
  14. ^ "Sex Instruction Here is Studied". Evening star. 1935-07-06. p. 3. Retrieved 2024-09-22 – via Newspapers.com.
  15. ^ Yoneoka, Judy. "Content Development in Kubushiro Ochimi's Japan Through Women, 1938 to 1960" Kumamoto Gakuen University Kaigaijijo Kenkyu 43(1)(2015): 103-130.
  16. ^ Matsukawa, Yukiko, and Kaoru Tachi. "Women's Suffrage and Gender Politics in Japan" in Caroline Daley and Melanie Nolan, eds., Suffrage and Beyond: International Feminist Perspectives (NYU Press 1994): 176.
  17. ^ Robins-Mowry, Dorothy (2019-06-18). The Hidden Sun: Women Of Modern Japan. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-000-30215-8.
  18. ^ Reid, W. W. (1954-07-23). "News in the World of Religion". The Deming Headlight. p. 5. Retrieved 2024-09-23 – via Newspapers.com.
  19. ^ a b Fujime, Yuki (2006). "Japanese Feminism and Commercialized Sex: The Union of Militarism and Prohibitionism". Social Science Japan Journal. 9 (1): 41. doi:10.1093/ssjj/jyl009. ISSN 1369-1465. JSTOR 30209792.
  20. ^ Kovner, Sarah (2012-02-08). Occupying Power: Sex Workers and Servicemen in Postwar Japan. Stanford University Press. p. 109. ISBN 978-0-8047-8346-0.
  21. ^ "Japanese Woman, 83, Licensed a Minister". San Bernardino Sun. February 18, 1967. p. 27 – via California Digital Newspaper Collection.
  22. ^ "Japan women mark 23rd year of suffrage". The Peninsula Times Tribune. 1971-04-10. p. 21. Retrieved 2024-09-22 – via Newspapers.com.
  23. ^ Setterlund, Elmer L. (1936). "Review of Japanese Women Speak-A Message from The Christian Women of Japan to the Christian Women of America". American Journal of Sociology. 41 (4): 564. doi:10.1086/217253. ISSN 0002-9602. JSTOR 2769022.
  24. ^ Kubushiro, Ochimi (January 1939). "The Place of the Christian Church in Moral and Social Reform in Japan". International Review of Mission. 28 (1): 99–104. doi:10.1111/j.1758-6631.1939.tb04155.x. ISSN 0020-8582.
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