Hiratsuka Raicho

Raichō Hiratsuka
Raichō Hiratsuka
Born	Haru Hiratsuka February 10 1886  Japan Tokyo
Died	May 24, 1971(1971-05-24) (aged 85)
Nationality	Japanese

Raichō Hiratsuka (平塚 らいちょう - usually spelled in historical kana usage 平塚 らいてう, Hiratsuka Raichō, February 10, 1886 – May 24, 1971) was a writer, journalist, political activist, anarchist and pioneering Japanese feminist.

Born Haru Hiratsuka (平塚 明 Hiratsuka Haru) in Tokyo in 1886, the second daughter of a high ranking civil servant, and educated at Japan Women's University (日本女子大学) in 1903, Hiratsuka came to be influenced by contemporary currents of European philosophy, as well as Zen Buddhism, of which she would become a devoted practitioner. Of particular influence to her was turn-of-the-century Swedish feminist writer Ellen Key, some of whose works she translated into Japanese, and the individualistic heroine of Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House (1879).

Upon graduation from university, Hiratsuka entered the Narumi Women's English School where, in 1911, she founded Japan's first all-women literary magazine, Seitō (青鞜, literally ). She began the first issue with the words, “In the beginning, woman was the sun” (「元始、女性は太陽であった」) – a reference to the Shinto goddess Amaterasu, and to the spiritual independence which women had lost. Adopting the pen name “Raichō” (“Thunderbird”), she began to call for a women’s spiritual revolution, and within its first few years the journal’s focus shifted from literature to women’s issues, including candid discussion of female sexuality, chastity and abortion. Contributors included renowned poet and women’s rights proponent Yosano Akiko, among others.