Early Life
Kaneko was born to a former policeman and a laborer, and spent the first nine years of her life as an unregistered child. This status impeded Kaneko from receiving formal education and recognition in society. Still, Kaneko was able to attend classes thanks to the pleas of her mother.
After Kaneko's mother failed to sell her daughter to a brothel, Kaneko was sent to her paternal grandmother's in Korea when she turned nine. A wealthy woman, Kaneko's grandmother registered Fumiko Kaneko as her own daughter and promised her a proper education. Kaneko was an intelligent child interested in pursuing an education comparable—both in depth and breadth—to that of her male classmates. But Kaneko's grandmother disapproved of her granddaughter's attitude and promptly began abusing her. Kaneko's maternal family learned of this mistreatment and sent her back to Japan.
Read more about this topic: Fumiko Kaneko
Famous quotes related to early life:
“Many a woman shudders ... at the terrible eclipse of those intellectual powers which in early life seemed prophetic of usefulness and happiness, hence the army of martyrs among our married and unmarried women who, not having cultivated a taste for science, art or literature, form a corps of nervous patients who make fortunes for agreeable physicians ...”
—Sarah M. Grimke (1792–1873)