Primitive Matriarchy and the Maternal Self in Takamure Itsue's Feminist Historiography of Japan

Le résumé fourni par la source

Takamure Itsue (1894–1964) is regarded as a pioneer in the study of Japanese women’s history at a time when women were excluded from the academic sphere. A poet and essayist, she actively participated in feminist debates and, for a time, embraced anarchist positions. In 1930, she founded the Proletarian Women’s Art Federation ( Musan Fujin Geijutsu Renmei ) and launched the Women’s Front ( Fujin Sensen ) newspaper, which lasted less than a year. Following this failure, she immersed herself in extensive research on the history of women in Japan. Inspired by a statement from the “manifesto” of Hiratsuka Raichō (1886–1971)—“In the beginning, woman was the sun”—she sought to highlight the role of women across all areas of Japanese history and culture, including myths such as the Sun Goddess Amaterasu. According to Takamure, Amaterasu symbolized ancient matriarchal power, which was later stolen by the clan that established the imperial line. Her decades-long research into matrilineal lineages in ancient Japan resulted in numerous publications. Her utopian vision, which reflects an essentialist bias, was built around her concept of boseiga , or the “maternal self”. She proposed that original forms of female and maternal love could serve as the foundation for a federation of egalitarian communities free from hierarchy or discrimination, to replace individualistic capitalist society. In contrast to the latter, which centers on the dynamics of individual will and excludes the weak, a society rooted in maternal culture would be inclusive, protective and based on mutual aid. While this vision resonates with current concerns about the need for inclusive societies, feminists in the 1970s and 1980s were shocked to discover her active support for the nationalist and militarist regime during the Asia-Pacific War (1937–1945). They sought to analyze the connection between this support and her conception of matriarchy. Journalist and historian Kanō Mikiyo (1940–2019) described her ideology based on boseiga as a form of “maternalist fascism”. How could the myth of matriarchy be used both to serve the cause of women’s emancipation and later to support fascistic militarism? Can it still serve as a guiding horizon for feminist utopia? These are the two central questions this study will address.

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