Paper short abstract:

The aim of this paper is to explore female voices of Japanese disability rights movement, particularly focusing on Mitsui Kinuko’s I Am Not a Doll: Evidence of Resistance [Watashi wa ningyo ja nai: teikō no akashi] (2006).

Paper long abstract:

In 1972, Mitsui (Nitta) Kinuko (born in 1945), a disabled woman with cerebral palsy residing in Fuchu Rehabilitation Center, staged a sit-in demonstration in front of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building, protesting against the treatment she received at the care facility, as well as plans to transfer her to a different institution. In her protest statement, she wrote that she will continue to fight until exposing the true colors of Japan’s social welfare, and called on others to support her struggle.

Mitsui was one of the many women in Japanese disability rights movement who fought hard to assert their rights as persons with disabilities, and as women. However, most scholarship on the history of disability activism in Japan focuses on men, such as male members of the prominent disability rights group Aoi Shiba no Kai, thus excluding women's perspectives.

This presentation, focusing on Mitsui Kinuko’s autobiography I Am Not a Doll: Evidence of Resistance [Watashi wa ningyo ja nai: teikō no akashi] (2006), aims to investigate one of the female voices of Japanese disability rights activism.