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Guest Blog: International Women's Day

March 11 - Today's guest blogger is Naomi Walcott, who works at the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo as an Economic Officer. In honor of International Women's Day, she writes about Umeko Tsuda, who founded one of Japan's first women's colleges.

Jim


Pioneer of Women's Education

(Photo Courtesy of Bryn Mawr College)

In honor of International Women's Day on March 8, I'd like to highlight the accomplishments of Umeko Tsuda. Many Japanese know she founded one of Japan's first women's colleges. But did you know she was also the first Japanese woman to be an exchange student in the United States? A unique woman, Tsuda-san's contributions to the U.S.-Japan relationship, educational exchange, and advancing education for women made her a role model for the generations of females that followed.

In 1871, 6-year-old Umeko Tsuda was chosen as one of four Japanese girls to study abroad in the United States, as part of a larger Meiji government effort to open Japan to information and influences from overseas. Tsuda-san spent the next 11 years studying in the United States, first outside Washington, D.C. and later graduating from Bryn Mawr College in Philadelphia.

Upon her return to Japan, she reportedly was dismayed to discover the legal and social limitations Japanese women faced, even as their country was modernizing around them. In an 1891 speech, as she advocated the need for women to be fully incorporated into Japanese society, she said, "Japan can never really progress so long as her growth is all on one side, and while one half of her people are pushed forward, the other half are kept back. I have felt that not until the women were elevated and educated, could Japan really take a high stand."

Embassy officer Naomi Walcott joined a panel discussion at an International Women's Day event in Tokyo on March 4.

In order to help Japan develop free-thinking and independent women, in 1900 she founded Tsuda College, one of the pioneering educational institutions for women in Japan. The school emphasized a rigorous curriculum that placed special emphasis on the study of foreign languages, including English.

More than 100 years later, the contributions of Umeko Tsuda resonate as we recognize the importance of increasing opportunities for women in all societies, as well as the need to promote study abroad in order to stimulate growth and the exchange of ideas in a globalized world. I'm delighted to have the chance to remember this inspiring Japanese woman who paved the way for many other woman leaders in Japan.

Naomi Walcott


Sources:

- Shibahara, Takeo, "Through Americanized Japanese Women’s Eyes: Tsuda Umeko and the Women’s Movement in Japan in the 1910s." Journal of Asia Pacific Studies (2010) Vol 1, No 2, 225-234.

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