2013/07/04 by Angela Coutts · 1 citation
Social Sciences · #Japanese History and Culture #Communism, Protests, Social Movements #Anarchism and Radical Politics
paper · doi:10.1080/09555803.2013.804106
openalex publication_date 2013/07/04 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
This article discusses five literary reviews published in Nyonin geijutsu (Women's arts) by four leading feminist activists, Ikuta Hanayo, Yagi Akiko, Nakamoto Takako and Hirabayashi Taiko. It explores the journal's struggle to gain a foothold in the expanding market for radical mass literature and highlights some of the key debates taking place in the journal about the role of the writer and the nature of literature during the unstable interwar years. It aims to offer an insight into what the women of Nyonin geijutsu were reading, what they thought about what they read and how they thought literature should be written in order to change the world for the better. It also explores how the original pan-feminist aims of the journal started to be undermined by an increasing affiliation with the ideology of the male left, causing the journal to lose its focus on the female market and its ability to continue as a commercial venture.