Bluestocking (magazine)

Bluestocking (Seitō)

The first issue of Seitō.
Editor	Raicho Hiratsuka; Noe Ito; Seitō-sha
Categories	Newsmagazine
First issue	September 1911
Final issue	February 1916
Country	Japan
Language	Japanese

Bluestocking (Seitō; 青鞜) was a Japanese feminist magazine founded in 1911 by Raicho Hiratsuka and produced by Hiratsuka and other members of the associated group, the Bluestocking Society (Seitō-sha；青鞜社). The group adopted the term Bluestocking from the British usage, which had come to refer to feminists over the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Hiratsuka opened the first issue with the words, “In the beginning, woman was the sun.” (「原始、女性は太陽であった」) – a reference to the Shinto myth of creation and a then-popular theory of cultural evolution according to which prehistoric societies were all matriarchal. Contributors included renowned poet and women’s rights proponent Akiko Yosano and author Nobuko Yoshiya among others.

Many members were referred to and referred to themselves as "New Women" (shin-fujin；新婦人). This term denoted women who wore fashionable Western dress, socialized with men in public, and chose their own romantic partners. Many used this term pejoratively, but the members of the Seitō-sha rejected these negative connotations and embraced an identity as leaders in the reform of gender relations.

Though originally focusing on women's literature, the magazine soon shifted focus towards women’s liberation, and the pages of Seitō are filled with essays and editorials. In many of these, members of the group air their differing opinions on issues of the day, such as the importance of a woman maintaining her virginity before marriage. Legalized prostitution, abortion, and women's suffrage were also the subject of animated discussion. Such writings caught the attention of the Ministry of Home Affairs because women were banned from writing on political topics under the Public Order and Police Law of 1900; this led to public condemnation for or the outright ban of four issues by the Ministry's censorship bureau.

An exhausted Hiratsuka turned over the reins to Noe Ito in 1915. Ito produced the journal with little assistance for almost another year. Its last issue was published in February 1916.

References

• Bardsley, Jan (2007). The Bluestockings of Japan: New Woman Essays and Fiction from Seitô, 1911–16. University of Michigan Press. ISBN 978-1-929280-45-2. 
• Lowy, Dina (2007). The Japanese "New Woman": Images of Gender and Modernity. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press. ISBN 0813540461. 
• Suzuki, Michiko (2009). Becoming Modern Women: Love and Female Identity in Prewar Japanese Literature and Culture. Stanford University Press. ISBN 978-0804761987.