Feminism in Japan - Education

Education

A manual widely spread throughout Japan from the Edo era to Meiji period was Onna Daigaku, Great Learning for Women, which aimed to teach women to be good wives and wise mothers. Women were to maintain the strict family system as the basic unit of Japanese society by unconditionally obeying their husbands and their parents-in-law. Women were confined to their households and did not exist independently. They were subordinate to their father's or husband's family. A woman was divorced and sent back to her family not only for bad health or barrenness but disobedience, jealousy, and even talkativeness.

During the feudal era, women lucky enough to be educated were instructed by their fathers or brothers. Women of the higher class were discouraged from becoming educated more than women of the lower class. The men in the higher classes enforced social norms more strictly than men in lower classes. This made women of higher class more likely to be bound to the norms. Soon after the Meiji Revolution, in an effort to spread practical knowledge and practical arts needed to build society, children were required to attend school. In 1890, forty percent of eligible girls enrolled in school for the allotted four years. In 1910, over ninety-seven percent of eligible girls enrolled in school for the then-allotted six years. These schools were meant to teach feminine modesty.