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Kubushiro Ochimi

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Kubushiro Ochimi (16 December 1882 – 23 October 1972;[1] in Japanese, 久布白落実, or くぶしろ おちみ in kana) was a Japanese religious leader, temperance activist, and feminist. She was president of the Japanese Women's Christian Temperance Union, and general director of the Women's Suffrage League in Japan.

Kubushiro Ochimi
久布白落実
A smiling Japanese woman, dark hair parted offcenter and dressed to the nape
Kubushiro Ochimi
Born16 December 1882
Yamaga, Kumamoto Prefecture, Japan
Died23 October 1972
Occupation(s)Suffragist, feminist
RelativesYajima Kajiko (great-aunt)

Early life and education

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Okubo Ochimi was born in present-day Yamaga, Kumamoto Prefecture, the daughter of Shinjiro Okubo and Otoha; her father was a Christian pastor who established churches for Japanese Christians in Hawaii and California.[2] Her great-aunt was temperance activist Yajima Kajiko.[3] She graduated from a Presbyterian high school in Tokyo in 1903,[4] and visited the United States with her parents as a young woman. She graduated from Pacific Theological Seminary in 1909.[5][6]

 
On December 13, 1926, the 2nd anniversary of the Women's Suffrage League was held. Front row, from left: Fusae Ichikawa, Shigeri Kaneko, Etsuko Ohira. Middle row, from left: Kiiko Yagihashi, Ochimi Kubushiro, Mako Ogihara. Back row, from left: Yoshiko Tanaka, Shigeyo Takeuchi, Kyoko Okada.

Career

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She was in California for the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, and worked as an interpreter for relief efforts there. She returned to Japan with her husband in 1913, and was a pastor with him in Osaka, Takamatsu, and Tokyo. They founded the Tokyo Citizens Church together.[1] In 1916, she became active in temperance work,[7] and joined efforts to eliminate licensed prostitution in the red light districts of Tokyo.[8][9] In 1922, she was a delegate to the World Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) meeting in Philadelphia.[10]

In 1924, Kubushiro was the founding general director of the Woman's Suffrage League,[11] working with executive director Ichikawa Fusae.[12] She was a founding member of the National Committee for Promoting the Abolition of Prostitution, in 1926.[13] In 1930 she was one of the organizers of the first All-Japan Women's Conference (全国日本婦選大会). In 1935 she traveled in the United States to study sex education curricula.[14] Kubushiro attended international Christian mission meetings in Jerusalem in 1928, and in India in 1938.[1] From 1938 to 1960 she published a Christian women's magazine, Japan Through Women.[15] She was president or vice-president of the Japanese Women's Christian Temperance Union from the 1920s into the 1960s.[16][17][18]

After World War II, Kubushiro ran unsuccessfully for seats in the Japanese legislature, and chaired the Committee for the Promotion and Establishment of Legislation Banning Prostitution.[19] In 1954, she served on the government's Policy Committee on the Prostitution Problem.[19][20] She visited the United States in 1956, and China in 1957. In 1966 became an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ in Japan.[21] She became a member of the Order of the Sacred Treasure, Third Class, in 1971.[1] Also in 1971, she attended the Japanese government's ceremonies marking the 23rd anniversary of women's suffrage in Japan.[22]

Publications

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  • Japanese Women Speak: A Message from the Christian Women of Japan to the Christian Women of America (1934, in English, with Kawai Michi)[23]
  • "The Place of the Christian Church in Moral and Social Reform in Japan" (1939)[24]
  • The Life of Yajima Kajiko (矢島楫子伝) (1942)
  • The Road to the Abolition of Prostitution (廃娼ひとすじ) (1973, published posthumously)

Personal life

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In 1910, Ochimi married Naokatsu Kubushiro, a fellow Japanese Christian in California. Her husband died in 1920, and she died in 1972, at the age of 89.[1]

References

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  1. ^ a b c d e Melton, J. Gordon (2005). Encyclopedia of Protestantism. Infobase Publishing. ISBN 978-0-8160-6983-5.
  2. ^ "$85,000 Permit for Initial Church Unit". The Independent. 1964-01-24. p. 7. Retrieved 2024-09-23 – via Newspapers.com.
  3. ^ Ogawa, Manako (2004). "Rescue Work for Japanese Women: The Birth and Development of the Jiaikan Rescue Home and the Missionaries of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, Japan, 1886-1921". U.S.-Japan Women's Journal (26): 106. ISSN 2330-5037. JSTOR 42771913.
  4. ^ Pacific Theological Seminary (1925). General Catalogue, 1866-1925 (PDF). p. 62.
  5. ^ "Japanese Temperance Leader Visits Here; Mrs. Kubushiro Began Career in San Francisco". The New World Sun Daily. October 10, 1935. p. 1 – via California Digital Newspaper Collection.
  6. ^ "Japanese Maid to Get Diploma". Oakland Tribune. 1909-04-25. p. 25. Retrieved 2024-09-23 – via Newspapers.com.
  7. ^ Ogawa, Manako (2007). "The 'White Ribbon League of Nations' Meets Japan: The Trans-Pacific Activism of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, 1906–1930". Diplomatic History. 31 (1): 21–50. doi:10.1111/j.1467-7709.2007.00601.x. ISSN 0145-2096. JSTOR 24916019.
  8. ^ Ogawa, Manako (2004). ""Hull-House" in Downtown Tokyo: The Transplantation of a Settlement House from the United States into Japan and the North American Missionary Women, 1919-1945". Journal of World History. 15 (3): 359–387. ISSN 1045-6007. JSTOR 20079278.
  9. ^ Garon, Sheldon (1993). "The World's Oldest Debate? Prostitution and the State in Imperial Japan, 1900-1945". The American Historical Review. 98 (3): 727–729. doi:10.2307/2167547. ISSN 0002-8762. JSTOR 2167547.
  10. ^ "Some of the Delegates to the Eleventh Convention of the WCTU". Napa Valley Register. November 6, 1922. p. 9 – via California Digital Newspaper Collection.
  11. ^ Molony, Barbara (2000). "Women's Rights, Feminism, and Suffragism in Japan, 1870-1925". Pacific Historical Review. 69 (4): 655–657. doi:10.2307/3641228. ISSN 0030-8684. JSTOR 3641228.
  12. ^ Molony, Barbara (2011). "From "Mothers of Humanity" to "Assisting the Emperor": Gendered Belonging in the Wartime Rhetoric of Japanese Feminist Ichikawa Fusae". Pacific Historical Review. 80 (1): 11–12. doi:10.1525/phr.2011.80.1.1. ISSN 0030-8684. JSTOR 10.1525/phr.2011.80.1.1.
  13. ^ Kinnosuke, Adachi. "The New Women of Nippon" The Woman Citizen 10(November 1926): 14-17, 43.
  14. ^ "Sex Instruction Here is Studied". Evening star. 1935-07-06. p. 3. Retrieved 2024-09-22 – via Newspapers.com.
  15. ^ Yoneoka, Judy. "Content Development in Kubushiro Ochimi's Japan Through Women, 1938 to 1960" Kumamoto Gakuen University Kaigaijijo Kenkyu 43(1)(2015): 103-130.
  16. ^ Matsukawa, Yukiko, and Kaoru Tachi. "Women's Suffrage and Gender Politics in Japan" in Caroline Daley and Melanie Nolan, eds., Suffrage and Beyond: International Feminist Perspectives (NYU Press 1994): 176.
  17. ^ Robins-Mowry, Dorothy (2019-06-18). The Hidden Sun: Women Of Modern Japan. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-000-30215-8.
  18. ^ Reid, W. W. (1954-07-23). "News in the World of Religion". The Deming Headlight. p. 5. Retrieved 2024-09-23 – via Newspapers.com.
  19. ^ a b Fujime, Yuki (2006). "Japanese Feminism and Commercialized Sex: The Union of Militarism and Prohibitionism". Social Science Japan Journal. 9 (1): 41. doi:10.1093/ssjj/jyl009. ISSN 1369-1465. JSTOR 30209792.
  20. ^ Kovner, Sarah (2012-02-08). Occupying Power: Sex Workers and Servicemen in Postwar Japan. Stanford University Press. p. 109. ISBN 978-0-8047-8346-0.
  21. ^ "Japanese Woman, 83, Licensed a Minister". San Bernardino Sun. February 18, 1967. p. 27 – via California Digital Newspaper Collection.
  22. ^ "Japan women mark 23rd year of suffrage". The Peninsula Times Tribune. 1971-04-10. p. 21. Retrieved 2024-09-22 – via Newspapers.com.
  23. ^ Setterlund, Elmer L. (1936). "Review of Japanese Women Speak-A Message from The Christian Women of Japan to the Christian Women of America". American Journal of Sociology. 41 (4): 564. doi:10.1086/217253. ISSN 0002-9602. JSTOR 2769022.
  24. ^ Kubushiro, Ochimi (January 1939). "The Place of the Christian Church in Moral and Social Reform in Japan". International Review of Mission. 28 (1): 99–104. doi:10.1111/j.1758-6631.1939.tb04155.x. ISSN 0020-8582.
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