Paper short abstract:

From looking at various media, I explore the perspectives of women and those who advocated for them to see how the perception of gendered roles was used as a tool to advocate the protection of nature and to further the Japanese environmental movement in the Meiji period and beyond.

Paper long abstract:

The Ashio Copper Mine Incident (Ashio kōdoku jiken 足尾鉱毒事件) is known as the first major pollution disaster in Japan that heightened the understanding about the implications of pollution and led to the first Japanese environmental movement from the 1890s. The topic was unpopular. When a Meiji magazine for women Jogaku zasshi 女學雑誌 (1885-1905) published several texts drawing attention to the issue in 1890, the magazine's editor Iwamoto Yoshiharu 巌本善治 (1863-1942) was reproved and the magazine temporarily suspended. The "Literature on pollution" 鑛毒文學, published in Jogaku zasshi no. 508 (March 2, 1900), was deemed as violating the press regulations (Shinbunshi jōrei 新聞紙条例) of 1875 that forbade unreasonable criticism of politics. The mine was supporting the war effort. Iwamoto's emphasis, however, was on women affected by the pollution becoming unable to produce milk for their babies. While the aftereffects remain, the stories from Meiji live on in the collective memory through a recent interpretation: an NHK drama Ashio kara kita onna 足尾から来た女 that ran in January of 2014, again, narrated the disaster from the perspective of women.

The emphasis of women's suffering in cases of pollution incidents is clear in various types of media. For instance, the female hibakusha, survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, have shared stories about having carried stigmas, unable to marry or have children due to both social pressure as well as physical reasons. Similarly, a movie Odayakana nichijō 穏やかな日常 (2012) depicts the Fukushima nuclear accident from a perspective of a young mother in her plight to protect her son.

In my paper, I explore the perspectives of women and those who advocated for them to see how gender, especially the fact that women are perceived as those who assure the healthy continuation of population by giving birth and raising children, was used as a tool to advocate the protection of nature in the Meiji period and beyond. I address the types of media used and the arguments made to illustrate how women's gendered roles were interpreted and applied to further the Japanese environmental movement.