Pink Collar Workers: Hiratsuka Raichō

Hiratsuka Raichō (1886-1971) was a Japanese feminist and social reformer, who founded a literary magazine by and for women. After becoming a mother, she became an advocate for working women in Japan, fighting for suffrage and better working conditions. 

For Further Reading: 

• “In the Beginning, Woman Was the Sun: The Autobiography of a Japanese Feminist”
• Hiratsuka Raichō: The Japanese Feminist’s Life and Work

 

This month, we’re bringing back some of our favorite Womanica episodes you might have missed! We’ll be talking about Pink Collar Workers: women who revolutionized jobs that have traditionally been called "women's work." Through their lives, they created a more just and humane world for us today.

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Every weekday, listeners explore the trials, tragedies, and triumphs of groundbreaking women throughout history who have dramatically shaped the world around us. In each 5 minute episode, we’ll dive into the story behind one woman listeners may or may not know–but definitely should. These diverse women from across space and time are grouped into easily accessible and engaging monthly themes like Educators, Villains, Indigenous Storytellers, Activists, and many more. Womanica is hosted by WMN co-founder and award-winning journalist Jenny Kaplan. The bite-sized episodes pack painstakingly researched content into fun, entertaining, and addictive daily adventures.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hello from Wonder Media Network. I'm Jenny Kaplan and this
is Womanica. This August, we're bringing back some of our
favorite Womanica episodes you might have missed. All month, we'll
be talking about pink collar workers. These women revolutionized jobs
that have traditionally been called women's work. Through their lives,
they created a more just and humane world for us today.

(00:21):
With that, here's one of our favorite episodes. Hello from
Wonder Media Network. I'm Jenny Kaplan and this is Womanica.
This month, we're talking about workers, women who fought for
labor rights and shaped the way we do business today.
They advocated and innovated to make the office wherever it

(00:43):
is a more equitable place. Today, we're talking about a
Japanese feminist who used her literary prowess and collective action
to bring about social reform. Let's talk about Hirotzka Racho.
Hirotzka Racho was born Hirotzka Haru in eighteen eighty six
in Tokyo, the second daughter of a civil servant and

(01:06):
his wife. Haru was born a tomboy. She was competitive
and strong willed. Her mother spent hours trying to tame
Haru's hair, oiling and brushing it into submission. It was
an arrow where femininity and submission wereprized. Haru just didn't
fit in. In eighteen ninety nine, when she was fourteen

(01:29):
years old, Japan passed the Girl's High School Order. It
established high schools for girls across the country, which on
the surface sounds great, but the order also said that
the purpose of these schools was quite simple to grow
good wives and wise mothers. Haru hated high school. She

(01:50):
excelled academically, but she ditched class whenever she could, especially
when the class focused on traditional feminine virtues. At the
beginning of morals class, she would calmly stand up and
walk right out of the room and the school building entirely.
Her mother never asked any questions about why she was
coming home early. But college, that was different. It was

(02:14):
a place for Haru to explore her newfound interests in religion, ethics,
and philosophy. At the recently opened Japan Women's College, Harou
became obsessed with Zen, Buddhism, and European novels. Meanwhile, Japan
was in the midst of modernization. Women's education was on
the rise. Middle class women were entering the workforce, but

(02:35):
there were still lots of inequities. A woman couldn't enter
into a legal contract without her husband's permission. If he died,
she couldn't get access to his estate, and it was
a crime for a woman to commit adultery, while for
men there were no legal repercussions. At the time, Haru
was more concerned with cultivating her own inner world. She

(02:58):
graduated from college in nineteen oh six when she was
twenty years old, and continued living at home. She read
books got deeper into her end practice. In nineteen oh seven,
she joined a women's literary group, and a year later,
in nineteen oh eight, her world turned upside down. Haro

(03:18):
became involved with one of the group's lecturers, Maurita Sohe.
Marita was married, but he and Haro became romantically involved
and decided on a pact. They'd hike into the mountains
and take their own lives together. But things didn't go
exactly as planned. Police learned of their plot and they

(03:41):
were found alive. Newspapers reported all the salacious details. The
event sent shock waves through society. It didn't help that
Moritai wrote a best selling novel about it. Haru, meanwhile,
was left a social pariah. Essentially, overnight, her father was
pressure to quit his government job, and Haru began to

(04:03):
gain her own social consciousness. Haro helped to start a
literary magazine called Sato or Bluestockings, a reference to a
group of women intellectuals from eighteenth century Europe. Haru also
adopted a new pen name, Racho. It was the name
of a bird Haru often saw in the woods, but

(04:25):
the name's two characters translated literally means something a little
different thunderbird. In nineteen eleven, the first edition of Sato
opened with a now iconic line. In the beginning, woman
was the Sun. Haru now Racho called for women to

(04:47):
reclaim their self worth, creativity, and power and fulfill their
potential as humans. In the beginning, woman was the sun,
and she could be again. Sato became the first first
Japanese literary journal in Japan that was by women for women,
one that wasn't focused on advice for keeping house and
raising families. Seto ended up running for five years. Its

(05:12):
writers were called the New Women, and they explored issues
of gender, sexuality, birth control, sex work, taboo topics. By
nineteen fifteen, Racho had handed the magazine's reigns over to
one of her colleagues. Racho began living with her younger
artist lover and had two children with him out of wedlock.
As she struggled to balance motherhood and work, Racho became

(05:35):
increasingly concerned with social reform. She argued that mothers with
young children deserved government aid. Around that time, women were
allowed to join a special division of the country's first
labor union. Workers had started striking in steel mills and shipyards,
collective action pushing for higher wages that are working conditions.

(05:58):
In nineteen nineteen, visited a textile mill and was appalled
by what she saw. These mills were a major part
of Japan's economy, and they were largely staffed by young
rural farm girls, some as young as ten years old,
who'd work late into the night. Young women workers at
textile mills made up more than half of the Japanese

(06:19):
industrial labor force. Racho knew things needed to change. She
returned to the public eye, ready to once again become
a leader in the women's movement. Racho and two other
activists established the New Women's Association. Their overarching goal was
social reform and bettering the lives of working women. But

(06:40):
they knew that in order to do that, they'd need
to be able to vote. But before they could vote,
they'd need to be allowed to get involved with politics
at all. So the organization campaigned to make that possible.
They started a journal and published articles about suffrage, and
they organized petitions calling for a revision of Article five
in the Public Orda and Police Law, which banned women

(07:02):
from even attending political gatherings, let alone participating in them.
By nineteen twenty two, the article had been amended. Racho
spent the rest of her life fighting for women's rights.
In nineteen fifty three, she established the Japan Federation of
Women's Organizations and served as its first president. She was

(07:23):
the vice president of the Women's International Democratic Federation, and
in nineteen sixty two she formed the new Japan Women's Association. Heirotzka.
Racho passed away in nineteen seventy one. She worked until
the very end. Thanks for listening to this best of

(07:48):
episode of Womanica. For more information, find us on Facebook
and Instagram at Wamanica Podcast Special thanks to Liz Kaplan,
my favorite sister and co creator. Join us tomorrow for
another one of our favorite episodes honoring pink collar workers.
Talk to you, then