Feminist Theory In The Period Of Civil Movment

The civil rights movement,a political,social and ideological movement with the goal of struggling against the Meiji government's autocratic politics and fighting for people's rights,was carried out during these years from 1874,when “White Paper On Suggestion Of The Establishment of People Elected Parliament” was proposed to the Meiji government,to 1890,when the Imperial Senate was established.Through this movement,western political ideas like constitutional politics,natural rights,freedom and equality were widely spread among the Japanese society,which not only inspired Japanese national consciousness of “civil rights”,but also had a significant impact on Japan's politics,society and ideas in the future.During the civil rights movement,civil rights activists strongly advocated citizens' political rights,but few of them paid much attention to the rights of women who were “citizens” as well.These activists' propositions seldom mentioned women's situation and rights.During this period,there were mainly two figures giving attention to the issue and actively expressing their views.One is Fukuzawa Yukiti.In the early Meiji period,fuze,as an enlightenment thinker who propagated Euramerican ideas of freedom and rights to the public,repeatedly emphasized improving women's status.During the movement,fuze opposed radical civil rights movements and advocated to progressively achieve constitutional politics through reconciliation with the government.At the same time,he also actively discussed various women's issues.Ueki Emori,a radical civil rights thinker,was another man who focused on women's issues and repeatedly stressed the necessity for women's obtaining rights.The academic circle has done accumulated years of research on the ideas of freedom and civil rights in the pre-meiji period and has made amounts of achievements.However,the current research on the position of feminism in the ideas of freedom and civil rights is far from sufficient.Based on this problem awareness and previous studies,this paper is intended to study the feminist theory represented by Fukuzawa Yukiti and Ueki Emori in the period of civil rights movement.This paper examines the similarities and differences of the two theories from the perspective of ideological history,and then discusses their limitations and historical significance under the background of that time,and finally explores the impact on the female status and women's liberation movement in modern Japan.