"A wish! A wish!" cried a be-sandaled, be-kimonoed woman to His Imperial Majesty Emperor Hirohito as his automobile slowed up to enter the palace gates. Stalwart police seized her; the Emperor passed on.
Investigation showed the woman to be a member of a patriotic society, the Miyazaki, concerned with obtaining female suffrage. She had, she admitted, been much irked when government officials had prevented her from voting by proxy for her husband. She, therefore, had resolved to ask the Emperor "with reverence" to accord patriotic women the same political rights as enjoyed by men.
- from
Time Magazine: Monday, Nov. 7, 1927.
When a team of young Americans began writing a new constitution for Japan in early 1946, Beate Sirota was enlisted to help. Assigned to the subcommittee dedicated to writing the section of the constitution devoted to civil rights, she insisted upon the insertion into the constitution of a clause guaranteeing equality between men and women. The Constitution of Japan remains unrevised to this day.
Beate Sirota Gordon (born October 25, 1923) is a former Performing Arts Director of the Japan Society and of Asia Society, and was a member of the team that worked under Douglas MacArthur on the Constitution of Japan.
According to Wikipedia, she is the only child of internationally renowned pianist Leo Sirota, a Ukrainian Jew who had fled war-torn Russia and settled in Vienna, Austria. (Beate's) family later emigrated to Japan, where Leo Sirota taught at the Imperial Academy of Music (now Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music) in Tokyo.
Beate was raised in Japan while her father worked at the Imperial Academy of Music.
She attended the German School for six years, until the age of 12, when she transferred to the American School in Japan as a result of her parents deeming the German School "too Nazi"; she lived in Tokyo a total of ten years before she moved to Oakland, California, in 1939 to attend Mills College. During World War II, she was cut off from her parents who remained in Japan. During the war, she worked for the Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), for the Office of War Information, and for TIME magazine.
To get back and see her parents, Beate joined the U.S. government as someone who spoke Japanese and understood the culture, as soon as the war ended. Her parents had survived the war under detention in Karuizawa. Beate was the first civilian woman to arrive in post-war Japan, and worked for the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers (SCAP) as a translator.
Beate was assigned in 1946 at the age of 22 to work for the political affairs staff for General Douglas MacArthur. MacArthur was intent on turning Japan into a democracy and he told 25 of his staff, including Beate, to draft Japan’s new constitution. In fact, Beate was the only woman in this group. Assigned to the civil rights subcommittee, she was given the responsibility to write the articles related to women’s rights. Knowing Japan’s long patriarchal history, she "finally decided that I must give rights that were very detailed and explicit so that they could not be misinterpreted."
As one of only two women in the room, the other being economist Eleanor Hadley, Beate played an integral role in writing into the Japanese Constitution legal equality between men and women in Japan. In 1947, Beate was a target of Major General Charles A. Willoughby's yearlong investigation of Leftist Infiltration, in which he tried, but failed, to construct a case against Sirota charging her with advancing the Communist cause within the new government of Japan.
According to the Japanese American National Museum, among the landmark pieces Beate wrote was part of Article 14:
All of the people are equal under the law and there shall be no discrimination in political, economic or social relations because of race, creed, sex, social status or family origin.
At the time, and for five decades afterwards, few people knew who drafted Japan’s constitution, including Beate’s historic role involving women’s rights.
Beate did not speak publicly of her contributions for nearly 50 years. She began discussing her story only beginning in 1995 and has been asked to speak numerous times at colleges and universities and other venues throughout Japan as well as in the United States. Author of The Only Woman in the Room, Beate has been interviewed on NPR radio, "Nightline" with Ted Koppel and other media outlets.
Beate married Joseph Gordon, who she had meet in Japan during the Occupation, and moved to New York in 1947 to study ballet, modern dance, ethnic and folk dance, piano and drama. Mrs. Gordon spent her life working in support of the performing arts as well as the Japan Society of New York and the Asia Society. Since the story of her advocacy of women’s rights became public in Japan, Mrs. Gordon has become an iconic figure. A Beate Appreciation Society was formed and her story has been told in documentaries, stage productions and Japanese manga.
Beate currently resides in New York City and uses her married name, Beate Sirota Gordon. She has two children, Nicole and Geoffrey Gordon. She often makes appearances at schools, universities, and other institutions in the United States and Japan, giving lectures about her life.
TONIGHT:
You are invited to the lecture "How an American Woman Won Equal Rights for the Women of Japan" by Beate Sirota Gordon, author of The Only Woman in the Room.
This lecture is hosted by the Portland State University Center for Japanese Studies.
Date: Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Time: 6:00pm - 9:00pm
Location: SMSU Ballroom (Room 355)
More info: http://www.pdx.edu/...