Details

Abstract / Summary

Born to a rich and influential samurai family in 1897, Shidzue (1897-2001) was married at age 17 to an aristocrat following an education at an elite school for girls. Her husband, Ishimoto Keikichi, brought her to Japan’s coal mining district, where she observed with horror the conditions of work for men, women, and children. This started her on her lifelong quest to improve the status and conditions of women. She next accompanied her husband to New York, where she met birth control advocate Margaret Sanger, whose cause she adopted. Ishimoto would go on to become Japan’s leading feminist birth control advocate in the pre-World War II period, hosting Sanger on her visit to Japan. Another key figure in her life was American historian Mary Beard, whom she met in Tokyo after the Tokyo Earthquake of 1923. When Ishimoto decided to write Facing Two Ways, it was Beard to whom she turned for writing and editorial help. Ishimoto’s first husband became increasingly nationalistic in his outlook, a position she found intolerable. They divorced in 1945. She married socialist Katō Kanju that year. In the postwar years, she served in the Japanese parliament and was awarded the UN Population Award for her work in birth control.

Field of Interest

Women and Social Movements

Author

Katō Ishimoto Shidzue, 1897-2001

Collection

Women and Social Movements, Modern Empires Since 1820

Content Type

Chapter

Duration

0 sec

Format

Text

Page Count

9

Publication Year

1935

Source Title

Facing Two Ways: The Story of My Life by Shidzué Ishimoto. (New York, NY, Farrar & Rinehart, 1935), pp. 158-164

Subject

Women and Social Movements, History, Women and Work, Mujer y Trabajo, Mulher e Trabalho, Japón, Japão, Japan, Work and Class Identity, Labor Standards, Japanese, 20th Century in World History (1914--2000)

Topic

Labor Standards

Keywords and Translated Subjects

Mujer y Trabajo, Mulher e Trabalho, Japón, Japão