Buraku women, literacy as a path to empowerment

ABSTRACT

Based on the analysis of the life histories of buraku women in the latter half of the 20th century, this paper explores the empowering potential of literacy classes and other educational activities. The paper focuses on the case study of Yamamoto Eiko, a woman born in the pre-war period in a poor buraku family in Kyoto who dedicated her adult life to the literacy movement and education. To have a deeper understanding of how multiple, interconnected factors such as buraku discrimination, poverty and gender have impacted buraku women’s life experiences, the paper adopts an intersectional perspective to look at education as a specific field of discrimination. I argue that literacy can become a tool for empowerment both on a personal level, making women more independent and raising their self-esteem, and on a societal level because it allowed them to participate more actively in the liberation movement and advocate for women’s needs. Still, buraku women’s experiences reveal the deep-rooted patriarchal social structure inside buraku communities and the gender discrimination they encountered inside the liberation movement itself.

KEYWORDS:

• Burakumin
• women
• empowerment
• literacy
• education

Introduction

Burakumin, one of the largest minorities in Japan, are sometimes called an “invisible minority” because they are ethnically and culturally Japanese, and there is no physical feature that differentiates them from the rest of the population (Bondy 2015, 15). The term burakumin (literally “people of the hamlet”) refers to a group that historically have been marginalized based on occupation and were considered outcasts. In contemporary society, however, discrimination is mostly based on residence (living in a buraku district) and descendance (Bondy 2010, 101). Buraku women can be considered as double-invisible because, despite playing an active role both inside and outside buraku communities for years, their voices have often been left out from research on buraku issue while at the same time being largely ignored by feminist movements (Kambara 2022, 101). They are in a particularly vulnerable position as they find themselves at the crossroad of buraku discrimination and gender discrimination.

Since the post-war era, burakumin have been the subject of studies by various non-Japanese researchers that have approached buraku issues from different perspectives. There is research on the historical origins of buraku discrimination (Neary 2003, 275–6), on political movements and activism, and on specific areas of discrimination (education, marriage, or employment). Much attention by scholars such as Neary (1997, 2003), Reber (1999), Davis (2001), Degawa (2001) and McLauchlan (2003) has been given to how the material living conditions of buraku communities have improved since the creation of the Special Measure Law (hereafter SML). Furthermore, experts like Amos (2011) and Bondy (2015) have also explored the complex topic of identity and what it means to be of buraku origins in contemporary Japan. In this body of knowledge, however, there is a missing piece: what about buraku women? There are few studies on buraku women broadly (Kumamoto 2015, 2016a, 2016b; Miyazaki and Takashima 2004; Shiotani 2007a, 2007b), and specifically in English (Kanagae 2010), that analyse how buraku women experience discrimination in a different way compared to buraku men and how they contributed to the liberation movement.

This research applies a gender perspective to the analysis of one specific area of discrimination and marginalisation: education. Low educational levels and illiteracy in buraku communities in the past were major problems (Ishida 2005), and because of a combination of factors, such as poverty, patriarchal family structures, gender bias and buraku discrimination, buraku women have been especially affected by the problem. This paper aims to contribute to the literature on buraku issues focusing on the experience of buraku women born before the Second World War who, as adults, engaged in literacy classes and other educational activities in the second half of the 20th century. How did poverty, buraku discrimination and gender bias affect the educational opportunities of buraku women? Why did literacy play such an important role for buraku women’s empowerment and how did it influence their participation in buraku liberation activism?

To try and answer these questions I will look at the specific case of Yamamoto Eiko, a buraku woman who dedicated a great part of her adult life to education, starting by organising literacy classes for women living in her community in the 1970s. Yamamoto was born in Kyoto in 1931 in a poor buraku family, and despite attending elementary school she grew up basically illiterate. Being a woman born in a poor buraku family, her case offers a representative example of how the intersection of several factors like gender, class, and buraku origins influenced buraku women’s lives and in particular their experience with formal and informal education.

Since the establishment of the Suiheisha,¹ the liberation movement has given extreme importance to education because, as the slogan of dōwa² says, “buraku liberation begins and ends in education” (McLauchlan 2003, 39). In fact, the combination of poverty and low education causes a vicious circle: poor families do not have the means to send their children to school; once they become adults, these children are not able to find well-paid jobs because of their lack of education; and as a result, their sons and daughters are bound to follow the same path (Davis 2001, 116). Education can be a key component in breaking such a circle and offering better opportunities to achieve upward social mobility. For this reason, supporting buraku children’s educational advancement has been one of the core goals of both the liberation movement and government policies.

The literature on the literacy movement in buraku communities is quite extensive and it comprises many testimonies of buraku people who attended literacy classes as adults. From these studies, it is clear that not only many participants were women but the spread of the movement itself became one of the main projects tackled by the women’s department of the Buraku Liberation League (BLL) (Kaihō Shinbun 2017; Tokushima Shinbun 2019; Sugawara 2014, 2018). Through their stories they highlight the importance of literacy classes in their lives, in terms of autonomy, self-confidence, but also greater awareness of the discrimination they suffered and the role it played in shaping their lives (Mori 2022; Tokushima Shinbun 2019). Literacy classes started to spread in buraku communities in the 1960s, and after the implementation of the SML they started to be subsidised (Mori 2022). This article, through the story of Yamamoto Eiko, contributes to a better understanding of the role played by the literacy movement in empowering buraku women from older generations and the impact it had on their lives. The will of buraku women not only was the driving force behind the creation of literacy classes but also contributed to their evolution based on the women’s own needs.

In this article, I adopt intersectionality as an analytic tool to create a more complete framework to grasp the complexity of buraku women’s conditions, because many different factors played a part in shaping buraku women’s life experiences (Kambara 2022). According to Patricia Hill Collins (2016), intersectionality is how race, class, gender, etc., are interrelated in shaping people’s experiences and constructing social inequalities. Looking at how different factors work together and influence each other can help to better understand social inequalities and the organization of power (Hill and Bilge 2016). Therefore, other than buraku discrimination and gender issues, class must also be taken into consideration in this research to help understand why buraku women risked being in a more vulnerable position compared to both buraku men and non-buraku women. Class is here intended not as a mere question of money, but as hooks (2012) suggests, as a matter of behaviours, expectations, and a way of thinking. Concerning behaviours, for example, there are various testimonies of older burakumin who did not attend school because of the need to work to help the family or take care of younger siblings, or simply because going to school was not seen as something useful for children’s future compared to learning practical skills for work (Kaihō Kenkyūjo 1992; Tada 2000). In addition, parents’ own lack of education made it difficult for them to support their children in learning.

Another key concept in the analysis is empowerment in the context of literacy and adult education. Empowerment can have different meanings and be defined in various ways, and can occur on an individual, community, or societal level. In this paper, I adopt Boyadjeva and Ilieva-Trichkova’s definition of empowerment as “an expansion of both agency and capabilities which results in expanded/improved agency achievement and capabilities enabling people to gain control over their environment and improve their well-being” (2021, 92). I specifically look at how literacy and education represented a chance for empowerment, allowing adult buraku women to improve their living situation as they were able to find better working opportunities, become more independent in their daily life, gain self-confidence, and get more actively involved in the liberation movement.

Methodology

I adopted a qualitative approach in this research, and in particular, I used life histories as a method to investigate why and how buraku women have engaged in literacy activities in the second half of the 20th century. Life histories allow the researcher to explore an individual’s microhistory, i.e. their life experiences, within the wider context of macro-history and understand how an individual’s attitudes and behaviours are influenced by social, cultural and historical elements (Hagemaster 1992, 1122). Life histories show “the intimate intersection of institutional and individual experience” (Dhunpath 2000, 544), and this is why a life history approach is extremely important to historically, socially and culturally contextualise people’s life experiences.

In 2019 I conducted a semi-structured interview with Yamamoto Eiko, a buraku woman who had devoted her entire adult life to literacy and educational activities. The information gathered during the interview were integrated with Yamamoto’s own biography “Fu: Shikiji O Motome Buraku Sabetsu to Tatakaitsuzukeru” (A Step: Seeking Literacy and Fighting Buraku Discrimination), in which she gives a detailed account of her own experience of discrimination and her fight for empowerment. Yamamoto agreed to have our conversation recorded and to have her name included in my research.

It is important to acknowledge the regional diversities as well as differences in socioeconomic situations among burakumin, hence it is not possible to look at “buraku women” as a monolithic group. I recognise that while focusing on a single case study allows me conduct a more in-depth analysis, at the same time it limits the scope of the research because Yamamoto grew up in a very specific environment: she lived in an urban buraku community in western Japan; she grew up in a poor family of which her grandmother was the head; she married and had a child; she was an active part of the local BLL branch, etc. While not all buraku women born before the Second World War were illiterate or attended a literacy class as adults, autobiographical and biographical written documents of several buraku women (Kaihō Kenkyūjo 1992; Buraku Liberation Human Rights Research Institute 2001; Miyazaki and Takashima 2004; Morita 2012; Tada 2000) show that the life experience of Yamamoto offers a good example to explore the difficulties that buraku women faced and the role played by literacy classes in empowering them.

Literature on Buraku Women

The literature in Japanese specifically on buraku women, aside from local surveys’ results on living standards in buraku communities and a few recent academic studies, consist mostly of biographical works. Why were biographical accounts the only way buraku women were able to make their voice, heard and why are they not included in the general discourse on buraku issues? A fundamental factor to take into consideration is the impact of illiteracy and low educational level, which made it difficult for many buraku women from older generations to access academic writing. Biographical narrations are of great importance in this context because they show aspects of the buraku community and of buraku issues that are marginalized in the mainstream literature on the topic. Moreover, in biographical narrations, buraku women are open in telling not only the merits and achievements of the liberation movement but also the gender bias inside the movement itself (Kaihō Kenkyūjo 1992; Miyazaki and Takashima 2004; Shiotani 2007a). Sexist attitudes and gender bias inside the BLL is not a unique case. Gender discrimination was denounced for example by women in the New Left and student movements in the 1960s (Shimazaki 2020), and furthermore, it is not a phenomenon specific to Japan either, as shown by the case of the Civil Rights movement in the U.S (Houck and Dixon 2009).

As Kawaguchi Emi noticed, many people have already talked about buraku discrimination and buraku history, however, the story has always been told by men (Kaihō Kenkyūjo 1992, 48). Since the early 1990s, the growing awareness of the need to tell also buraku women’s side of the story has resulted in an increasing number of studies about buraku women and biographies. At present, one of the main contributions is a comprehensive study published in 2020 by Kumamoto Risa, who interviewed 90 buraku women from Fukuoka prefecture and analysed their experience through the lens of composite discrimination and subjectivity formation (Kambara 2022).

There are various collections of buraku women’s personal stories. Some are compilations of individual experiences (Kaihō Kenkyūjo 1992), while others contextualise the testimonies of buraku women in the wider historical and social context (Buraku Liberation Human Rights Research Institute 2001; Miyazaki and Takashima 2004; Tada 2000). Finally, there is a limited number of autobiographies like those by Yamamoto (2012) and Morita (1992, 2012), two women who have been involved in BLL activities in Kyoto and Kochi, respectively. Two main threads emerge from the literature. One thread is the importance of the role of women as mothers, educators and caretakers and how motherhood influenced buraku women’s involvement in the BLL. The other thread is the pressing issues of illiteracy and low education attainments due to poverty, buraku discrimination and gendered bias. The problem of illiteracy is reflected in the fact that several biographical accounts mentioned the existence of a literacy class or a study group in local BLL branches. Kawaguchi Emi, who was active in Nara Prefecture, made an important point: literacy is one of the core pillars of the liberation movement as it is a fundamental tool to think and learn about human rights (Kaihō Kenkyūjo 1992, 69).

When talking about burakumin, it is important to acknowledge that there is considerable diversity not only among but also inside communities. Kanagae (2010), who studied the schooling experience of buraku women from three age cohorts, noticed differences not only among generations but also in regions, especially between eastern and western Japan, as in the latter region buraku communities are usually larger (Kanagae 2010, 132). The case study of this paper, Yamamoto Eiko, surely represents a unique case in the sense that every person’s experience is different, and her life needs to be contextualised. Nonetheless, as a woman, having buraku origins and growing up in a poor family, her story can provide many insights on the struggle shared by many other buraku women who were in a similar situation. Although it is not possible to make general statements on all buraku women, by analysing various testimonies I aim to better understand how literacy classes and adult education activities became a source of empowerment for those buraku women who, because of buraku as well as gender discrimination and poverty, had not been able to get proper education at a young age. Literacy is empowerment; it allowed them to become more independent in their daily lives, to get more engaged in activism and to be free.

Education, literacy and burakumin in Japan

Contemporary Japan is known for its high literacy level, and according to the Global Gender Gap Ranking 2021, it has fully closed its gender gap in elementary school enrolment (World Economic Forum, n.d., 37). However, this has not always been the case, and even today, children from minority groups and low-income households are among the most vulnerable groups to school dropouts, absenteeism, and poor educational attainment.

Japan’s education system underwent important reforms since the beginning of the Meiji period (1868–1912) when the government created the first national school system. In 1886, three years of elementary school were made compulsory, and this was later extended to four years in 1900 and finally to six years in 1908. By 1910, 98% of all children of elementary school age were enrolled (Loomis 1962, 15–16).

Despite the reforms of the education system, the reality of many buraku children, especially children of poor families, was quite different. They were far less likely than their non-buraku peers to attend compulsory school, or at least to attend it on a regular basis, as dropout and absenteeism rates were remarkably high (Ishida 2005; Kanagae 2010). For example, in Tottori Prefecture in 1897, only 16.9% of children from buraku communities were enrolled in elementary schools, in comparison to 61.9% of the prefecture and 66.7% nationwide. In Mie Prefecture in 1912, only 37% of buraku boys and 15.4% of buraku girls attended elementary school (Yasukawa 1998, 572–573, as cited in Ishida 2005). According to Yasukawa, in 1934 the total average elementary school attendance rate in a community in Wakayama Prefecture was 95%, while the attendance rate of buraku children was still as low as 60.8% (1971, 183). For reference, Yamamoto was born in 1931, so she attended elementary school in the late 1930s; however, as her story makes clear, attendance per se is not enough to guarantee literacy and good education.

There were many factors at play that discouraged buraku children to enrol in or attend elementary school at the time, such as poverty, the low educational attainment of parents, lack of awareness of the importance of education and of role models at home as well as in the community (Yasukawa 1971, 181). Bullying and discriminatory practices that made the school environment hostile for buraku children, such as making them sit in the worst places in the classroom, calling them by derogatory terms and punishing them more harshly than others, as well as more violent attacks such as throwing rocks at them (Mori 2022), all had a negative impact on their school experience and hindered their education (Kanagae 2010; Yamamoto 2012; Yasukawa 1971). Yamamoto Eiko as well, in recalling her school days, described similar accidents and practices that made her hate going to school and deprived her of the opportunity to properly learn. Despite elementary school becoming compulsory, factors such as poverty and buraku discrimination hindered the enforcement of such reforms, effectively limiting buraku children’s access to an appropriate education in the pre-war period.

The data not only show the substantial gap in school attendance between buraku and non-buraku children, but they also shed light on the difference between genders as well. As Miyamae illustrates, especially in poorer areas where elementary school enrolment and attendance rates were already on average lower, the gap between buraku and non-buraku children was wider, and at the same time, the gap between buraku girls and boys was also more pronounced (2022, 18). These kinds of data show how the interplay of poverty, buraku discrimination and gender inequality negatively affected the education of young buraku girls from poor districts, like Yamamoto herself, and explains why the rate of illiteracy was particularly high among older generations of buraku women.

After the end of the Second World War, the American occupation forces reformed and democratised the Japanese education system, and since then compulsory education included six years of primary school and three years of lower secondary school (Kitamura 2019, 3). Moreover, Article 26 of the Constitution stipulated “the right to receive an equal education” as a fundamental right, and Article 3 of the Basic Act on Education prescribed the principle of equal educational opportunity. The new centralised education system offered all children no matter where they lived the possibility to access the same kind of education, with the same textbooks and with teachers with the same qualifications (Omomo 2019, 26). Textbooks for compulsory education were made free in the early 1960s thanks to a movement initiated by women in a small buraku community in Kochi Prefecture, which gradually spread across Japan and gained the support of many activist groups and teachers (see Murasaki and Yoshida 2017). This represented a great victory not only for buraku children but for all families from the lower classes.

Not only enrolment in elementary school, but also rates of high school and college enrolment were lower than the national average for buraku children (McCormack 2018). The situation changed when the SML took effect in 1969 and the government started to allocate money for scholarships and loans for high school and college to buraku children living in designed dōwa areas.³ New generations of buraku children not only could attend compulsory school more diligently in the post-war period, but they could also receive financial aid to progress to higher education (Kanagae 2010, 142; McLauchlan 2003, 42).

While the new measures after the Second World War benefited younger generations, what about older generations who did not have the same opportunities during their childhood? Did any issues emerge as an older generation of illiterate and uneducated parents found themselves having to support a new generation of more educated buraku youth? The problem became particularly pressing for buraku women, as in the post-war the ideal of kyōiku mama (“educational mother”) took root, and women were expected to oversee children’s education, supporting them in their schooling journey to ensure their success as members of society (Dickensheets 1996, 73). Women were expected to become full-time housewives and dedicate their lives to the care of the household and education of the children (Grimes-MacLellan 2002), however, such a model was far away from the experiences of many buraku women, who often could not afford to become housewives and had to work to contribute to the family finances, and thus did not have the time nor the necessary educational background to dedicate themselves to their children’s academic success.

The literacy movement started to develop in buraku communities in the late 1950s and 1960s (Sugawara and Mori 2012, 69). Some classes such as the one initiated by Yamamoto were started by buraku women themselves, but in other cases it was teachers who noticed that many mothers were not able to write and support their children, and decided to organise literacy classes for them (Mori 2022). Literacy classes became a widespread and important activity in buraku communities. There are many collections of essays written by women attending such classes, and from such documents it becomes clear how the interplay of gender and buraku discrimination affected these women’s schooling experiences. Many said that as girls they were in charge of looking after the younger children, and as burakumin they were mistreated by the other children as well as by the teachers (Mori 2022). The popularity of literacy classes highlights the issue of high illiteracy rates but also the will of these women to learn as they became aware of the importance of literacy and education. In the next section, through the life story and the testimony of Yamamoto Eiko, I will address these issues more in-depth to understand how illiteracy affected the lives of older burakumin, especially buraku women, and what kind of activities and initiatives they engaged in to tackle the issue.

Yamamoto Eiko and the literacy movement

Yamamoto Eiko was born in 1931 in Kyoto, where she lived her entire life. She grew up with her grandmother, uncles and aunts after her mother left her behind to remarry. The family survived on the meagre pay from her grandmother’s daily jobs, hence the household relied on a very unstable and low income (Yamamoto 2012, 36). She discovered her buraku origins only when she entered elementary school, and since the community where she lived used to be very conservative, the liberation movement arrived quite late. It was only in the early 1960s, when a fire destroyed many houses because the streets were too narrow for the firefighters to intervene, that the community joined the BLL, which at the time was fighting for better housing conditions in buraku districts (Yamamoto 2012, 42). Eventually, in 1962 the BLL opened a rimpokan (a community centre) in her buraku (2012, 53). Yamamoto got close to the liberation movement at a young age because she felt that people from the BLL were the first ones to offer her answers to the many questions and doubts she had since she was a child: why are people around me poor? Why do teachers treat us so badly at school? At first, people told her not to go because the people from the liberation movement had a reputation of being violent and scary, but she went to the community centre to listen to the BLL representatives anyway because she needed answers. Yamamoto, like other activists who shared their stories in interviews or written biographical accounts, described the encounter with the liberation movement as a turning point in her life. Thanks to them, for example, she found out that the reason why so many buraku people did not have a job and were poor was because of buraku discrimination and illiteracy, as she explained to me in our interview. Many burakumin were irregular workers, had low wages, were unemployed or received social security (McCormack 2018), because under-education and discriminatory practices in employment affected burakumin chances of finding better jobs.

Yamamoto was born before the Second World War, so she not only experienced life in the pre-war period when living conditions in the buraku were still utterly poor, but she also lived through the war when she started to work in a factory as a 12-year-old, and even had to face the hardships of the immediate after-war period. As previously explained, one of the greatest issues concerning buraku women in the pre-war and immediate post-war period was the generally low educational attainment. As a consequence of a patriarchal family system, poverty and buraku discrimination, women were in the weakest position, especially concerning education. Many women from older generations did not even complete elementary school, and the illiteracy rate was high (BLHRRI 1997; Miyamae 2022, 18–20). One of the reasons was that in the buraku, a patriarchal conception of gender roles remained strong for a long time, and many people would rather invest in their sons’ education rather than in their daughters’ (Shiotani 2007a, 105), and people believed that education would make girls less desirable as wives (Morita 1992). Another issue that made it difficult for young girls to attend school was that they were in charge of taking care of their younger siblings and the babies (Kanagae 2010, 134; Mori 2022). In our interview, Yamamoto did not focus much on the impact of gender roles inside the family, probably because she grew up in a female-dominated household led by her grandmother. However, as her grandmother and her aunts were all illiterate, women’s illiteracy was likely to be taken for granted and education was not seen as a priority, especially in such economically challenging times.

Instead, she stressed the negative effects of poverty and buraku discrimination on her education:

Burakumin were not able to properly attend school because they were poor and since at the time the textbooks were not free, most families could not afford them. I would borrow old books from the neighbours but they were in bad condition so the teachers would always get angry at me.

This testimony illustrates how occupational marginalisation of burakumin due to discriminatory practices often resulted in poverty (McCormack 2018). Although the situation gradually improved with the enactment of the SML in the late 1960s, when Yamamoto was attending elementary school in the pre-war period the situation was much worse both in terms of poverty as well as severity of discrimination.

Yamamoto also recounts that:

No matter how hard we would work and study, people would not hire buraku people, and so many people gave up on studying since there was no meaning. Many families would rather send their children to learn a job than send them to school because it represented a better chance to find a job and gain money.

Although Yamamoto completed six years of compulsory elementary school, because of poverty and buraku discrimination, growing up she was not able to read and write. In her bibliography, she explains that as a child, elementary school was the place she hated the most because of the bullying. For example, she recalls how in the pre-war and wartime period, not only the other children but also teachers would call her derogatory terms such as “eta”⁴ (Yamamoto 2012, 4). These are clear examples of the negative effects of poverty, gender and buraku discrimination on the educational attainment of buraku girls, and it is in line with the experiences of older generations of buraku women interviewed by Kanagae (2010). When she finished school, Yamamoto explained to me that she was happy that she did not have to go any more, but unfortunately, when she started to work in a small factory, she met even harsher buraku discrimination, and being illiterate added to the reasons she got bullied for in her workplace.

Despite her negative experience with formal education, in her adult life Yamamoto became deeply involved in the literacy movement. In our interview, she recalled how even though she wanted to learn how to read and write, there was nobody around her who could teach her because the rest of the family was also illiterate, so she tried to learn by herself using advertisements and newspapers. After the birth of her son, Yamamoto started to get involved in the BLL and became close with Asada Zennosuke, who was one of the leaders of the liberation movement since the founding of the Suiheisha in the pre-war period. Asada was the person who encouraged and supported her the most inside the BLL; he used to invite her to his house so that she could listen to him talking with various people, like university professors and other activists, and she always joined eagerly, even though their conversations were often too hard for her to understand. Asada also started to teach her how to read, and his influence played a crucial role when Yamamoto, a few years later, decided to start a literacy class (Yamamoto 2020, 7).

The turning point arrived when Yamamoto’s son reached schooling age. She started to feel the limits and problems due to her illiteracy, since she could not help him with homework or read the notes the teachers gave him to bring home (Yamamoto 2012, 65). Talking with other mothers, she realised that many women around her were facing the same problems and were struggling to support their children. Mothers at the time were the ones expected to support children’s education, but many buraku women in her community, who were mostly uneducated themselves and could only find irregular employment, which made it difficult to be physically present to help children with their studies, found it extremely difficult to do so. Therefore, in the early 1970s, Yamamoto decided to ask a teacher of buraku origins from the local school to teach them how to read and write once a week.

With the implementation of the SML and the creation of the dōwa education, an increasing number of teachers with buraku origins started to work in the local school, which made it easier for her to find someone willing to help (Yamamoto 2012, 67). Moreover, compared to the teachers she had when she was a child, they had a better understanding of the situation of the community. About the literacy class, she recalled that:

The students were all women from the community (…) the classes were very informal and for the first year, they were held in my house. Then we moved to the community centre and the class kept expanding and evolving. It was not only a place where we could learn how to write and read, but it was also an occasion to talk about our worries, our problems or simply our day.

She also stated that:

Men were less interested in learning how to write and read. They would tell me that there was no use in learning since nothing would have changed. But I did not listen to them because for me it was important, and it was also important for our children.

Women’s involvement in childrearing made them more aware of the importance of education, which explains why the literacy movement was mostly led by women. Yamamoto’s testimony shows how, in a climate characterized by a general lack of understanding of women’s worries and needs inside the community, buraku women had to actively take initiative to find new, creative ways to empower themselves.

Over time, Yamamoto’s literacy class evolved in line with the needs of the women themselves as they also started to hold preparatory courses to take certifications as helpers or cooks so that they could have a chance to find better jobs (Yamamoto 2020, 9). Hence, education for buraku women played a double role: on the one hand, it allowed them to better support their children’s education as mothers, and on the other hand, it gave them an opportunity to find better paid and more stable jobs to contribute to the family finances and attain economic empowerment, which also connects with feelings of self-worth. A better economic situation in the family also offered the possibility to have more resources to invest in their children’s education. In Yamamoto’s words:

The literacy movement was a place of empowerment for buraku women, there they found a community where they did not have to be ashamed of being illiterate, and most importantly it gave them a chance to build a better life, to improve their family living conditions and to break the vicious circle of poverty.

Yamamoto herself attained a licence as a cook, and she worked as a cook in local schools for many years. After retiring, she kept studying, attended evening courses, and completed both middle school and high school. Not satisfied yet, she also enrolled in university at the age of 69.

On multiple occasions in her biography but also during the interview, she talked about the importance of her family and friends’ support and collaboration. For example, during the first year of the literacy class, her husband would make sure to take care of their child and make the house available for the class. Despite her husband never personally joining BLL activities, he never opposed her going to various meetings and getting increasingly involved in the movement as he understood that it was important for her (Yamamoto 2012, 64). Their case can be considered as a bit of an exception; Yamamoto noted that most of the people in the BLL were men, as it was not seen as a positive thing for women to have a public life outside the house. Yamamoto’s own desire to learn, the stimulating environment to which she had been granted access thanks to her connection with Asada, and the cooperation of her husband, were all key factors that offered Yamamoto the opportunity to start her literacy classes and shaped her involvement in the liberation movement more generally.

Literacy meant more freedom and a sense of self-confidence for many buraku women because they were able to make their own decisions and did not have to depend as much on others. Literacy not only improved their everyday lives but also allowed them to play a more active role in the liberation movement (BLHRRI 1997). It was fundamental to giving them a chance to learn about women’s rights and gender equality and raise awareness about such topics inside the BLL and buraku communities. Not only in the story of Yamamoto but also in many of the biographical accounts of buraku women, literacy classes and study groups played a fundamental role in women’s empowerment. Yamamoto passionately talked about the impact of literacy on her everyday life. For example, before she was not able to do the simplest things like taking the bus or filling in forms at the city office. Finally, it allowed women to create a network among themselves in an environment in which they felt safe among equals.

Yamamoto, however, also opened up about the criticisms she encountered from many men inside the buraku community who could not understand why she was so passionate about education. Other buraku women as well experienced similar disapproving comments and exposed the gender bias inside the buraku community. Some women talked about internalized discrimination concerning the fact that women do not need to study and attend higher education (Kaihō Kenkyūjo 1992, 21) or vented about the lack of understanding of women’s rights inside the community and the movement, and how, in the face of some of the proposals made by women, male activists would sometimes oppose them, referring to these requests as “shameful”. There was an idea that women’s problems, especially regarding women’s health, maternity, and childcare, should be solved among women and should be kept private (1992, 163). These examples show how, especially in the post-war period when there was very low awareness about women’s rights in Japan in general, buraku women had to fight not only buraku discrimination from “outside” the community but also gender discrimination from inside. The creation of safe spaces such as literacy classes allowed women to cultivate meaningful connections and support each other.

The literacy movement has been one of the pillars of the liberation movement for many years, with many classes operating all over Japan and national meetings held annually (Yamamoto 2012, 196). However, recently the number of literacy classes dropped consistently, and the student population became increasingly diverse. In our interview, Yamamoto was genuinely concerned about the fact that there was no more active literacy class in Kyoto at the time of our meeting, as the last one closed in 2009, although some are still in operation in Osaka. The movement originally bloomed from the necessity to address the illiteracy problem that was affecting the lives of many older buraku people, but with the passing of time and the improvement of the educational level of new generations, it gradually expanded outside the buraku community and transformed, welcoming many foreigners and other people (Yamamoto and Yamamoto 2019, 75–76). As Yamamoto’s story shows, shared experiences, and struggles such as motherhood, illiteracy or discrimination, can become sources of empathy and solidarity, giving a fundamental push for the establishment of initiatives, like literacy classes, that can benefit society.

Women inside the BLL

Buraku women have been involved in the liberation movement since the beginning, including in the pre-war organisation, the Suiheisha. The BLL women’s division was created in 1956, ten years after ex-members of the pre-war movement formed the Buraku Liberation National Committee (which was renamed BLL in 1955). Yamamoto, who already had connections with the local BLL branch and who had found in Asada a mentor, got progressively more involved in BLL activities in her 40s after starting her literacy class. For a period, she was also the Vice President of the women’s division of the Kyoto branch of the BLL and a member of the executive committee of the national women’s division (Yamamoto 2012, 214).

Since the creation of the women’s division, they started to hold a national meeting once a year to allow women from different regions to share their experiences, discuss the various problems they are facing and find joint solutions (Kumamoto 2015, 22). Initially, the women’s division had been created because the BLL committee recognized the need and importance to give buraku women “guidance”, providing them with learning opportunities, and increasing their participation in the movement (Kumamoto 2015, 22). It can be said that the women’s division was instituted as a tool for the movement’s central headquarters to give women directives to follow and implement. However, women soon started to accuse the BLL of considering them only as a “means of use” to mobilize as they pleased, and they lamented the absence of women at the headquarters (Kaihō Kenkyūjo 1992, 157; Kumamoto 2015, 27).

Up until the 1970s, the main concern for buraku women was job security as the economic and material situations in buraku communities were still precarious. However, in the 1980s the focus shifted to maternity security and women’s labour rights (Kumamoto 2016a, 2016b). In the 1980s, the influence of domestic and international trends concerning women’s rights increased, helping also buraku women to recognize and demand their rights inside their communities. Particularly influential were, for example, the International Women’s Year in 1975, the ratification of the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (hereafter CEDAW) and the 1995 Beijing International Women’s Conference. In the women’s division of the BLL, buraku women studied the reports of such international conventions. This became a source of education and empowerment for them, as they were able to better voice their concerns and advocate for their rights inside the liberation movement (Kumamoto 2016a, 62). At the same time, national policies such as the Equal Employment Opportunity Law (EEOL) were enacted to improve women’s working situations and promote gender equality. Despite the women’s division becoming more independent and advocating for women’s rights, many buraku women activists have lamented the lack of women inside the headquarters of the BLL, which made the leadership gendered (Morita 2012, 113; Shiotani 2007a, 103). For example, in our interview, Yamamoto pointed out that “at a decisional level there are few women, but at the community level they play a very important role”. This tendency, in her words, can be found in Japanese society as a whole, and it is reflected in smaller realities such as the BLL. According to her:

Women are the real support of the movement, they work hard to give a contribution to the movement because they are more involved in child-raising, they are the ones who have to educate the children so they want to build a better future for them.

Literacy itself might not necessarily mean empowerment, but for many buraku women from the poorest strata of buraku communities, it represented a tool, a chance to take part in the process of social change. As seen in the case of Yamamoto and as found in previous research, motherhood is often identified as the driving force pushing women to participate in literacy classes and join the liberation movement (Sugawara 2018, 37). Such focus on women’s role as mothers and caretakers on the one side might be seen as a reproduction of “traditional” gender roles. However, from another perspective, motherhood became a motivation to improve their economic situation, empower themselves, support their children and create a better society for future generations. This way, buraku women made their personal experience a political matter. Furthermore, in Japan motherhood has been a mobilisation force behind several other women’s movements related to environmentalism, consumerism, and political contestation (Dawood 2024). Often excluded from high-ranking positions inside the BLL, they found alternative strategies to fight poverty, buraku discrimination and gender discrimination. Through literacy classes and other educational projects, women found a safe space, and through national meetings of the women’s division of the BLL or of the literacy movement, they created a network that crossed communities’ boundaries. Realizing that the problems they faced in their daily life were not personal issues, but shared experiences caused by a series of interconnected factors and structural problems, encouraged them to act.

Conclusion

Yamamoto Eiko’s story is an important example of the role played by literacy for buraku women’s empowerment. As Stromquist argues, “a full definition of empowerment must include cognitive, psychological, political, and economic components” (1995, 14). In her definition, the cognitive aspect of empowerment includes the understanding of one’s conditions and their causes. Yamamoto’s involvement with the BLL allowed her to understand that the roots of her negative experience at school and of the difficult living condition in the community were to be found in buraku discrimination and poverty. Moreover, motherhood worked as a powerful catalyst in her empowerment journey. When her son reached schooling age, she had to face the limitations of being illiterate, and the realization of how common the issue was among mothers in the community spurred her into action. Furthermore, literacy gave her access to more information and chances to gain awareness of the importance of gender equality and women’s rights.

The second component, the psychological one, entails the development of feelings that not only can women take action to improve their condition, but that they can also succeed in their efforts (1995, 14). Not only did Yamamoto convince the local teacher to help women from the community learn how to write and read, but the women over time shaped the activities of the literacy class according to their needs and desires, such as preparing to take exams for licences as cooks or helpers. Hence, the women in Yamamoto’s literacy class were active participants in defining the problems, identifying concrete solutions, and implementing them. In this specific case, the problem identified was their household’s low income and their inability to find better-paid jobs. As Yamamoto explained in our interview, after identifying the issue, they asked the teacher to help them, and went to talk with the local government office, which understood their needs and helped them to create classes with specialized instructors. This links to the two final components of empowerment, the economic and political ones. Through literacy classes and other educational initiatives, buraku women were able to find better employment that gave them some degree of financial autonomy and allowed them to contribute to their household’s finances. Finally, literacy proved to be a fundamental tool to actively engage in the buraku liberation movement. As Yamamoto explained in our interview, the mere fact of being able to read the pamphlet and other informative materials distributed by the BLL was crucial to having a better understanding of what was going on and taking part in various activities.

For adult buraku women who did not have a chance to get proper education as children because of poverty and discrimination, literacy classes and professional education offered them a chance for empowerment both on an individual and community level. The literacy movement was important to fight buraku discrimination because “you need words to participate actively in the liberation movement” (Yamamoto 2012, 213). Yamamoto’s experience with literacy classes, like Boyadjieva and Ilieva-Trichkova (2021) argue in their research on adult education and empowerment, allowed her and other buraku women to gain control over their environment and improve their own as well as societal well-being (2021, 93). Moreover, literacy was a key factor in learning about women’s rights and fighting gender discrimination. On an individual level, they were able to find better jobs and improve their well-being, and they become more independent in their daily life by gaining self-confidence. On a community and societal level, it allowed them to participate more actively in the liberation movement and advocate for women’s needs inside the BLL.

Not only the literacy movement, but also the creation of women’s spaces inside the buraku liberation movement was a source of empowerment for many buraku women. As Lazo (1995) argues, empowerment implies a change of perceptions not only about the self, but also about the environment (1995, 25). Yamamoto stressed the importance of having a safe space, like the women’s division or the literacy classes, where they did not have to be ashamed of not being able to read and where they would help each other. For example, in our interview she recalled that during the meeting at the women’s division, they would study what had been said at the BLL National Women Meeting and raise issues such as “why are there only a few women taking part in the movement’s activities?” only to realise that one of the main reasons is because of the traditional idea that a woman with a family should not go out. The story of Yamamoto Eiko and the numerous references to the literacy classes in buraku women’s bibliographical accounts (Kaihō Kenkyūjo 1992; Buraku Liberation Human Rights Research Institute 2001; Tada 2000; Miyazaki and Takashima 2004) show the importance that the literacy movement had for buraku women born in the pre-war period, especially those from poor families.

Literacy of course “can be an agent of empowerment, but it must be accompanied by a process that is participatory and a content that questions established gender relations” (Stromquist 1995, 17). The literacy movement that started in the post-war period in many buraku communities possessed these empowering features because it was not only a means for women to learn to read and write, but it was a place where women could create connections, discuss their problems and find solutions (Sugawara 2018). It was also crucial in helping them gain awareness of the fact that the issues they were facing were not simply personal, individual problems but they were structural and were shaped by many factors like buraku discrimination as well as gender discrimination. As the famous slogan of second-wave feminism says, literacy classes and women’s spaces allowed buraku women to understand that the personal was indeed political, and offered them tools to take action. Illiteracy is still a pressing issue in different parts of the world, and in many cases, women are more at risk of being illiterate. Thus, the experience of buraku women in the second half of the 20th century in Japan can be seen as an example of the empowering potential of literacy.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Chiara Fusari

Chiara Fusari is a Phd student and Teaching Assistant at the Department of Asian and Oriental Studies of the University of Zurich. Her current research focuses on activism against sexual violence in Japan.

Notes

¹ The Suihesha (National Leveler’s Association) was an organisation founded on March 3, 1922, that signaled the official beginning of the buraku liberation movement. The association was then disbanded during the Second World War (Davis 2000, 114).

² Dōwa education refers to all forms of educational activities, by both the government and the liberation movement, for solving problems caused by buraku discrimination. While the government saw dōwa education as educational policies to cope with existing discrimination against the burakumin, the liberation movement interprets it as educational strategies for democratizing the whole society to attain true equality of opportunity for buraku and other oppressed populations (Buraku Liberation and Human Rights Research Institute)

https://blhrri.org/old/blhrri_e/dowaeducation/de_0003.htm.

³ Only buraku districts that were officially recognised as dōwa areas by the government became targets of the SML and were eligible to receive money.

⁴ Eta can loosely be translated as “great filth”, referring to the kind of occupations traditionally undertaken by the Burakumin. It was the name of one of the outcast groups in the Edo period from which Burakumin are said to descend. It is used as a derogatory term likened to the hostile “N-word” in the U.S. (Gottlieb 1998).