Paper short abstract:

I examine how Fukuzawa conceptualized and supported female networking. I interrogate Fukuzawa's vision of women's place in modern society from the perspective of network building, focusing on the practical efforts he himself made to encourage female-driven forms of socialization.

Paper long abstract:

In his An Encouragement of Learning, Meiji reformer Fukuzawa Yukichi famously wrote: "men and women are both human beings." An advocate for the equality of men and women, he argued that women no less than men needed to attain "personal independence" (isshin dokuritsu) and participate fully in society. They too would take the new path Fukuzawa believed had opened up with the end of the feudal regime and the advent of the Meiji era, a path where "personal independence" would lead to "household independence" and eventually to "national independence" (ikkoku dokuritsu). Women were to shape this new society just as much as men. Naturally, this meant that women had to socialize freely and to establish networks.

In this presentation I examine how Fukuzawa conceptualized such female networking and its effects. The Meiji Restoration transformed old networks, causing a shift in patterns of knowledge accumulation that led to a rearrangement of social roles and responsibilities and to the creation of new kinds of relationships. At the same time, it also created new forms of social status, marking the emergence of a new class orientation that was distinct from that of the feudal system. Against this background, I consider patterns of status and ranks among women. I interrogate Fukuzawa's vision of modern society and of women's place in it from the perspective of network building, focusing on the practical efforts he himself made to encourage female-driven forms of socialization.