Queer Places:
Atago Cemetery, 1333-1 Kutsunoya, Aoi-ku
Shizuoka-shi, Shizuoka, 420-0816 Japan
Itō
Noe (January 21, 1895 – September 16, 1923) was a
Japanese anarchist,
social critic, author and
feminist.
She translated Emma Goldman’s work into Japanese. She was the editor-in-chief
of the feminist magazine
Seitō. Her progressive ideology challenged the norms of the
Meiji and
Taishō periods in which she lived. She drew praise from critics by being
able to weave her personal and political ideas into her writings. While
gaining praise from some, she received criticism from others, namely the
Japanese government for challenging the constructs of the time. She became a
martyr of the ideology in which she believed during the
Amakasu Incident.
Itō was born on the island of
Kyushu near
Fukuoka,
Japan on January 21, 1895.[1]
She was born into an aristocratic family and convinced an uncle to pay for her
education at Ueno Girls High School in
Tokyo, from
which she graduated. It was at this school where she developed an affinity for
literature.[2]
She was particularly fond of the progressive ideas of the time from Western
and Japanese writers. It was during her second summer vacation, in 1910, at
Ueno Girls School when her family pressured her to marry Suematsu Fukutaro, a
man who had recently returned to
Kyushu from
the United States. Marrying Suematsu would be a stipulation that she had to
agree to in order to continue her education. Itō wanted her own complete
freedom, so she immediately started to plot a way to escape the relationship
and make her home in
Tokyo.[3]
She made a major move in her life to Tokyo, marrying an ex-teacher, Tsuji Jun,
she had met at Ueno Girls High School.[3]
After graduation, Itō's relationship with Tsuji became romantic and they had
two sons, Makoto (born on January 20, 1914) and Ryūji (born on August 10,
1915). They were officially married in 1915.[1]
Their relationship lasted about four years before she was captivated by
Sakae Ōsugi.
Sakae Ōsugi, who was already married, engaged in simultaneous
relationships with Itō and another feminist,
Ichiko Kamichika, taking the viewpoint that he loved all three women
equally and should not have to choose which one he loved the most.[4]
The three women he was involved with did not feel the same way, and each
wanted him only for herself, which caused considerable problems.[5]
Itō's passion for Ōsugi became evident in February 1916, when she went walking
with him in a
Tokyo park, holding his hand and kissed him in public; at the time,
kissing in public and couples holding hands in Japan were considered to be
deeply immoral acts that no decent person should ever engage in, and many
people in the park chided the couple for their behavior.[6]
Later that same day, when Ōsugi met Ichiko, he told her that he had kissed a
woman in public for the first time in his entire life, which, as the woman in
question was not Ichiko, caused a very heated scene.[7]
Itō, who was hoping to see Ōsugi again, had followed him to Ichiko's
apartment, was listening in, and chose to knock on the door to involve herself
in this conversation. This in turn caused an angry scene between the two women
over who loved Ōsugi the best, while Ōsugi insisted he loved both equally.[8]
Ōsugi continued to live with his wife while seeing both Ichiko and Itō until
November 1916, when in a moment of jealousy Ichiko followed Ōsugi and Itō to a
countryside inn; upon seeing that they had spent the night together, she
attacked Ōsugi with a knife as he emerged out of his room in the morning,
stabbing him several times in the throat.[9]
Ōsugi was hospitalized as a result of his wounds and his wife left him during
his stay in hospital.[10]
Itō and Ōsugi would have four children together, and would stay together for
the rest of their lives despite never actually being legally married. Her
relationship with him would remain political as well, as she worked with him
as a publishing partner as well.[3]
They would work together to further their ideas on
anarchism
through their writings and publishings. They would both become targets of the
state and critics through their unabashed loyalty to their cause.[5]
Beginning in 1916, Ito lived and worked with Ōsugi, and continued to rise
in the feminist group while showing growing leadership potential. As an
anarchist, Itō was highly critical of the existing political system in
Japan, which
led her to call for an anarchism to exist in "everyday practice", namely that
people should in various small ways seek routinely to undermine the
kokutai.[11]
Itō was especially critical of the way that most Japanese people automatically
deferred to the state and accepted the claim that the emperor was a god who
had to be obeyed unconditionally, leading her to complain that it was very
difficult to get most people to think critically.[12]
As someone who had challenged the
kokutai,
Itō was constantly harassed by the police to the point that she complained of
feeling that her home was a prison, as she could not go out without a
policeman stopping her.[13]
Itō joined the
Bluestocking Society, as producer of the feminist
arts-and-culture magazine
Seitō in 1915, contributing until 1916. In her last year as
Editor-in-Chief,[14]
she practiced an inclusive attitude towards content; she "opened the pages to
extended discussions of abortion, prostitution,
free love
and motherhood".[15]
Seitō founder, Hiratsku Raichō, would describe her as a writer with intense
and natural emotion.[3]
Her short story "Mayoi" in 1914 told the story of a
student who moves in with her ex-school teacher, only to find out he had been
intimate with her former classmate. This story directly parallels her own life
with Tsuji
Jun.[3]
"Tenki" another one of her stories published into Seitō, dealt with
more of her own issues, as the main protagonists is drawn to social activism
as her marriage proves to be an obstacle to that. Itō's writing was a way for
her to express her only personal beliefs, and she often used her own real life
events to draw upon in order to create her stories.[3]
Itō had Seitō became more concerned with social issues than it had
been before, and in 1914-16, she engaged in a debate on the pages of Seitō
with another feminist,
Yamakawa Kikue, about whether prostitution should be legalized or not.[20]
Ito argued for the legalization of prostitution for the same reasons that she
favored the legalization of abortion, namely that she believed that women's
bodies belonged only to them, and that the state had no business telling a
woman what she may or may not do with her body.[21]
Furthermore, Itō argued that the Japanese social system did not offer many
economic opportunities to women and that most Japanese prostitutes were
destitute women who turned to selling sex in order to survive, which led her
to the conclusion that these women should not be punished for merely seeking a
means to live.[22]
Itō wrote social criticism and novels, as well as translated socialist and
anarchist writings from English to Japanese, from the authors such as American
Emma
Goldman (The Tragedy of Woman's Emancipation, etc.).[23]
In February 1916, Seitō published its last edition due to a lack of
funds, as the government had prevented distributors from carrying the
magazine.[24]
In the chaos immediately following the
Great Kantō earthquake on September 16, 1923, according to writer and
activist
Harumi Setouchi, Itō, Ōsugi, and his 6-year-old nephew Munekazu (born in
Portland, Oregon) were arrested, strangled to death, and thrown into an
abandoned well by a squad of military police (known as the Kempeitai) led by
Lieutenant
Masahiko Amakasu.[25]
Once the bodies were retrieved from the well, both Ōsugi and Itō's bodies were
inspected and found to be covered with bruises indicating that they had been
severely beaten.[3]
According to literary scholar Patricia Morley, Itō and Ōsugi were strangled in
their cells.[26]
Noe Itō was 28 years old.[25]
The killing of such high-profile anarchists, together with a young child,
became known as the
Amakasu Incident and sparked shock and anger throughout Japan.[23]
Amakasu was arrested and sentenced to ten years in prison for the murders, but
he was released after serving only three years.
Itō and Ōsugi are both buried in the Kutsunoya cemetery in
Aoi-ku, Shizuoka.
Director
Kijū Yoshida made
Eros + Massacre in 1969, about Sakae Ōsugi; Itō features prominently
in the film.[27]
My published books:
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