Female education

本文通过美国与日本在对女子教育方面的对比，强调了在家庭方面对女子的教育应予以重视。“即使在如今女孩去上大学，在美国和日本女孩接收的课程几乎与男孩不同，这让我感到惊讶；如果我们回顾历史，我们可以发现，女子教育在这两个国家，从18世纪到20世纪，经历了一个相当困难的过程”。

Women's Education: Emphasis on Domestic Arts for Women vs. Emphasis on Education Parity with Men

Even though in nowadays it’s nothing unusual for a girl to go to the college, receiving the courses almost the same as boys both in America and Japan, it is surprised that if we review the history, we can find that the women’s education in the two countries, from the eighteenth century to twentieth century, had been gone through a pretty hard time. In this paper, the development of women’s education in Meiji period in Japan will be analyzed and discussed thoroughly, with comparing to the American women’s education. The goals of this paper are to show the progress of the Japanese westernization in education and the history of the Japanese women’s education, which was filled with frustration and lots of people’s contribution. Therefore, the value of the education can be fully understood and appreciated. 

Above all, the beginning of Japanese westernization should be mentioned as this was the starting point of all the changes in Japan including the field of education. Since it’s no doubt that the reform in Japanese education, happening in Meiji period was influenced mostly by the United States, it’s unavoidable here to talk about the development of American female education. Then, it moves to the progress in Japanese education reform under the American influence and finally shifts the focus to the Japanese women's education and whether it was equal to the male education or not can be clarified. All in all, this paper is organized into four sections: the Meiji restoration, women’s education in America, women’s education in Japan and the conclusion.

The Meiji Restoration

Beginning from 1633, Japanese seclusion policy had been enacted for nearly two centuries until Commodore Perry with his four warships arrived and broke its “locked door” in 1853. At that time, Japan also faced some inner pressures. The impoverishment prevailed and income inequality shown up which triggered the resentment, tensions the conflicts between the regional daimyo and the central Shogunate government (Japanvisitor.com). All of these pushed Japan to desire the modernization and industrialization and this became the opening of the Meiji restoration. As for United States, who was longing to build up commercial relationship with Asia through Japan, it was a mutual benefit to give a hand to Japan so that the Japanese embassy was welcome in this young country. Through the Meiji restoration, Japan experienced a great change, especially in the field of education. In 1871, the Mombusho was created and in 1872, the Fundamental Code of Education was published, founding the system of elementary and middle schools and universities controlled by the government. Meanwhile, there were even four Japanese young ladies who were brought by an American woman to study western style (Armstrong.edu). From 1886 to 1889, Mori Arinori, a former Satsuma samurai who had been studied in America, introduced the public education with the spirit of liberality and pragmatism when he came back Japan and served as minister of education. 

Women’s education in America 

Even though it was the America that originally spread the idea of female education to Japan, for the American women themselves, to achieve their own right to get education was almost as arduous and tortuous, full of sacrifices and suffering as it was in Japan. Since Americans were moving from the Europe, lots of things were at first still based on the European traditions, including the education. According to the European traditional idea, it allowed no girls but those wealthy ones to have the opportunity to learn. In order to find an excellent husband, Women were expected to be good at household duties in those days and those who had highly education were thought to be weird (Nwhm.org). Though boys and girls might have the chance to be taught some basic curriculum by a local woman, they received different curriculum as well. The boys were well prepared for the further education by learning reading and writing while the girls learned those domestic arts like sewing and knitting. Girls were forbidden to attend town schools until the end of the 18th century. So thought the chance of obtaining an education was provide to the women, at first the education parity did not exist proved by the different curriculum they got. That’s not the worst, in the under-development South, schools could not even set up. Therefore, boys’ educations were relied on the private tutors hired by the parents and there were some cases that the girls can have the luck to have their own private governess. Once the girls can get some lessons, what they learnt were mainly music, cooking, needlework, nursing and social etiquette etc, for equipping them to be a suitable and decent pious wives and mothers in the future. In addition, the reading, writing and arithmetic were also included in the lessons and it seemed that the differences of education were cut down by these facts. However, the purposes for the girls to learn such things were only aiming at studying the bible and recording household expenses. In order words, they were mothers and wives things again. 

The Quaker and Moravian communities, at that time, advocated that both women and men should be cultivated and schools for both sexes were started to set up. Unfortunately, though they believed the gender equality in education, the ultimate goal for women’s education remained unchanged. That’s why the focus on the women education still was domestic skills and girls and boys were taught separately.

However, here came the turning point. After the Revolutionary War, getting the national independence, it was widely believed that cultivating talents for the newly independent nation with many things waiting to be completed, should depend partly on educating women and more educational opportunities that can realize this goal should be provided. That is to say, in order to build up a stronger country, women were treated as the nations who should and could do contributions to the US. It’s also believed to be reasonable enough for the women to participate the civic culture so that they can educate good citizens and leaders by passing the republican values in the future, which was call Republican motherhood (Nwhm.org). The allowance for the women to step into the civic culture justified the women’s education. With the establishments of women’s colleges, the curriculums that the girls studied were generally similar to that in the men’s colleges. Only after the Vassar College was established, can the women get the curriculum “which was comparable to that of the men’s colleges” (Nwhm.org).

Women’s education in Japan

In the Meiji restoration, enormous changes happened both in the political and social structure. At the same time, the education in Japan went through dramatic change, too. However, women, according to the traditional gender role, were expected to obey the wishes of their husbands and take care of the housework so that the road for them to get the equal chances on education was very difficult (Wikipedia). Although some of them can get educated, the focus was always on the domestic arts rather than comprehensive curriculum similar to what the men received.

In fact, the traditional idea about the unequal gender roles in Japan was affected greatly by the introduction of Confucian and Buddhism from China. To be more exactly, without the Confucian and Buddhism, in Japan’s history, male and female were fairly equal (Kincaid). Since the Confucian emphasizes that women should be loyal to their husband and family while the Buddhism treats women with evil nature  (Silva-Grondin), all of these led female into submissive and founded the idea that men were superior to women and naturally this became the origin of the inequality of education between the women and men. 

Before discussing the argument about the right of education between men and women, another fight between the conservatives who favored the Confucianism and nativism and the pragmatists who wanted to build independence and encourage practicality was intense. From the point of the pragmatists like Mori Arinori (1847–1889), they stood for the western idea of the gender equality. In their opinion, the women had exactly the same rights with men no matter in what field in the society. That is to say, they emphasized that the rights in women’s education and even the freedom in marriage should be achieved by passing some laws to some extent. On the contrary, under the Confucian influence, conservatives tended to take it for granted that a woman should stay at home and care for their families rather than receiving education with men (Taylor & Francis).
The development in women’s education in Meiji period was similar to the way in America. Actually, before the Meiji period the chance to learn how to read and write was only limited in those ladies in upper class. Even so, the purpose for those educations was to find a desirable and decent husband and be a better wife in the future. This view was not changed until the late Meiji period.

Even though developing the popular education was the main goal in Meiji period, the financial support was not enough since it was known that the government was facing the financial distress. Moreover, with the goal of building stronger military force, Japan paid lots of attention on the training of the army. Some army leaders even claimed that “It is the duty of the preparatory school to educate the people in such a way that they can be educated easily when they arrive at the main [army] school.” (Jansen). So it was undoubtedly that the women’s education can’t get enough attention since they were less likely to become the soldiers after received the education and some people thought that women’s education was a waste of money.

Right at the beginning of the Meiji period, schools for women were set up by government as well as individuals and missionary groups (Patessio). But what’s disappointing was the numbers of girls who attend was pretty small. Some of the girls even carried their little sisters or brothers with them since nobody in home can do this task and then not all of them can finish their courses with different problems in families like their mothers got sick and need their help at home. Some schools had to close since had too less students.
Despite the tough conditions, the higher education for women was developing rapidly. In 1899, it’s required by the government that each prefecture at least had one higher school for girl (Gordon). 

However, the set up of schools for girls didn’t mean that the equality between male and female was realized. Because of the traditional role of female, in schools, the girls were taught how to handle finances and manage a family in order to make them prepared for being a good wife, just like the women’s education in United States in the early time. One of the mothers said that: “Having an education but being unable to take care of practical matters, she concluded, was not good.” (Patessio). 

The higher education for women had some drawbacks, let alone the college education. Seven imperial universities, representing the climax of the educational system, were still exclusive to men. Especially the Tokyo Imperial University, aiming at providing the country with the talents in the field of polity and business, seemed to have no connections with women. When the question of women’s university education turned out, again, the idea that women were destined to get married jumped out. Some objectors said that it’s unnecessary for a woman to obtain an education since she had no chance to apply the knowledge in reality. Some scholars even argued that it’s acceptable for the women in the Western world to receive education, get a job and never get married because the number of women was bigger than that of men. That’s why, in Japan, women were no need to attend schools since they finally should get married under the condition that women are less than men in Japan (Patessio). Some may argue that what if the woman just wants to improve herself and go to the university purely out of interests? Then those dissenters would warn you that you, as a woman, had been too late to get married after graduation! And “late marriage” was said that it was not good for the marriage since the couple were difficult to adapt to each other. Beyond this, the anti-pressure and intellectual abilities of women were in doubt as well. According to some researches done in female higher school, quite a few students couldn’t endure the pressure and even fainted during the examinations. Even though the women finally survive from the education, it was believed that those educations would turn a woman into tomboy or be conceited. Those women with the talent of learning were criticized as “a physical malformation, or a loathsome disease” (Patessio).

However, some women with some particular reasons can’t get married so that it’s good for them to learn a kind of skill to support themselves instead of being a burden to the society. So the women’s employment should be included in these discussions. If the woman just had no intentions to get married, it’s good for them to have a job. But it was unacceptable for a wife or a mother to earn money outside. The old view that women at home while men in society implied that a woman should not work outside since it may cause the instability in the family if the wife can’t put all her energy in running the housework.

Given the reasons mentioned above, when the young ladies at last got the chance to obtain their university educations, the only choice for them was taking the individual courses rather than getting entire degrees. 

Yet here came the turning point. Just like the independence war happened in America, as time went by, in the construction of modernization, Japanese government and officials realized that in order to develop a strong country, promoting the female education was essential since the population was not enough. The change of mind was proved by the rising number of female school, teachers and students. 

Besides, even if some obstacles still existed, the power of supporting the equality in women education became more and more formidable. Above all, those female scholars and students who were influence by the western culture and got enough knowledge from the education had already known how to strive for their own right. They, with their own success, proved that girls were not born to be unsuitable for being educated but because they were neglected when they grow up. In other words, girls can be as successful as boys as long as they got the chance and were encouraged (Nwhm.org).

The greatest thoughts were put forth by Naruse Jinzo (1858-1919), a distinguished Japanese educator who was engaged in women’s education with the establishment of Niigata Jogakko and Nihon Joshi Dai-Gakko (later Japan Women's University). He presented the concept that women were not only the mothers and wives but the members of society as well as the national subjects. Aiming to cultivate responsible, independent woman who can play a positive role in the Japanese society, Naruse argued that it’s necessary for us to improve the character and ability of women providing them proper education so that they can accomplish their female true nature, adapt to the society’s progress and help to advance the japan. He said, “Without doubt when we know and can realize the genuine worth of women with the same spirituality as given to all things, it will greatly benefit the nation.” Naruse also emphasized that the aim of the education was not to discourage the women to get married but to create the independent wives and mothers with good values. (Taylor & Francis)

Moreover, considering to the fact that there were not only the women that can’t get married but also the wives who might lost their husband and supporting resources, the measures for them to take to be self-support should be discussed to avoid being the encumbrance in society. Beyond these, Japanese bachelors, with the social progress, were not in the hurry to get married and they can rent apartments, hiring a cleaner and eat outside in the restaurant with their scholarship. So a woman, on the other hand, had more free time to do what they were interested. Given those circumstances above, the dramatic changes were brought to the field of female employments and even the political field.
In the normal school, young boys and girls were trained to prepare for the careers as teachers. But often the girls got lower pay then the boys. In order to change this position, women had to push the women’s political movement to safeguard their right. They even “publicise their desire to further their education, to find paid employment or not to marry”. (Patessio)

The efforts of all the supporters of women’s education had paid off. Nihon Joshi Daigaku, that is the Japan Women's University, provided the chance for the girls to enroll in three departments in 1901 and education department was added in 1904. It’s from then on that the girls can have chance to study the different kinds of courses like physical education, childrearing, pedagogy, household management, ethics and psychology rather than focusing only on the domestic arts. And now, it might be appropriate to say that the women’s education parity with men was achieved.

Conclusion 

By examining and comparing the history of women’s education in Japan and America, it’s easy to find out that though there has been a great progress in this field, for women’s education, more attentions were put on the domestic art rather than the education parity with man because the differences in the women’s traditional social role as a housekeeper and wives and mother. But since society develops and the talents are in need in the progress of modernization and industrialization, the role of women become more and more important and they begin to be active in the society. All these things have changed gradually and now it can be said that women are equal with men in the field of education.

Works cited

Jansen, Marius B. The Making Of Modern Japan. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2000. Print.
Gordon, Andrew. A Modern History Of Japan. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Print.
Patessio, Mara. 'Women Getting A ‘University’ Education In Meiji Japan: Discourses, Realities, And Individual Lives'. Japan Forum 25.4 (2013): 556-581. Web. 15 May 2015.
Taylor & Francis,. 'Religious Education Leading To Higher Education For Women: Historical Insights On Modern Japan'. N.p., 2015. Web. 3 May 2015.
Nwhm.org,. 'NWHM Exhibit: The History Of Women And Education'. N.p., 2015. Web. 15 May 2015.
Armstrong.edu,. 'Japanese Westernization And The American Civil War – Armstrong Undergraduate Journal Of History'. N.p., 2015. Web. 15 May 2015.
Japanvisitor.com,. 'Early Westernization In Japan 1868-1900 | Japanvisitor Japan Travel Guide'. N.p., 2015. Web. 15 May 2015.
Wikipedia,. 'Women In Japan'. N.p., 2015. Web. 2 May 2015.
Silva-Grondin, Mallary A. 'Women In Ancient Japan: From Matriarchal Antiquity To Acquiescent Confinement'. Student Pulse 2.09 (2010): n. pag. Web. 3 May 2015.

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