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<Synopsis>
Beate Sirota Gordon is one of the drafters of the current Japanese constitution. At the time, she was 22 years old and had just graduated from college.
Born in Austria, Beate moved to Japan before the war when her father, Leo Sirota, a well-established musician (pianist), decided to teach in Japan. Famous musicians from overseas gathered at their house, and she lived a rich life. Then she went to the U.S. alone to study just before the World War II. She spent the war time at Mills College in California. Four months after the end of the war, on Christmas Eve in 1945, she returned to Japan and was reunited with her parents, who had evacuated to Nagano.
The photograph above is my father's book by Beate Gordon (which he gave me) with full of his notes and highlights. My father also had two notebooks with his notes.
At that time, Beate saw Tokyo as a burnt-out ruin, except the Imperial Palace. Since there were few people who could speak both Japanese and English then, and she had an acquaintance at GHQ (General Headquarters) of the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, she was hired as a staff member in the Civil Welfare Bureau. She was then appointed to the important role of writing a draft of the Constitution of Japan in two months, which would turn Japan a democratic nation.
While she was living in Japan until her high-school years, gender equality did not exist then. The new constitution was aimed at focusing on changing the nation’s long customs and laws that women were expected to put up with inequality. Day and night, she worked side by side with veteran legal colleagues.
So far so smooth, but veteran men read her drafts and mostly deleted them because her draft was too progressive, and the U.S. in 1945, too, there was no "perfect and essential gender equality". Beate was in tears of frustration, but it was convenient to be able to provide her parents, who were malnourished during her evacuation, with the money and goods she worked for at GHQ. Finally, in 1946, a new constitution was promulgated.
<Impressions/Discussions at the Book Club>
The book club held a New Year's party, and the discussion lasted for two and a half hours. Below is an excerpt of the comments.
“There were surprisingly few pages about drafting the constitution in the book, but her feelings for Japanese women were reflected in her subsequent activities in the Japan Society and other organizations. It is admirable that she lived positively even though she regretted for many years later that she could not convince her male colleagues her ideas on "equality" in her draft of the constitution. Apparently, there were some criticisms about a women (non-legal expert) been hired to draft the constitution, but I am afraid what would have happened if that did not happen.
”I didn't know that a young woman with high aspirations joined men and drafted the Japanese Constitution right after the war. Then I understood the meaning of the original title of the book; "Christmas 1945: An Autobiography of the Woman Who Wrote "Gender Equality" in the Constitution of Japan.
“The book was so interesting that I finished reading it in two days. I wondered how Beate lived a 'rich' life (not in a financial sense) before the WWII time in Japan. In addition, I realized that there were Russian Jews who survived with making great sacrifices to their lives while being tossed about by the time of the war."
The "gender equality" in the Constitution of Japan was to be focused, and I wondered how the GHQ's draft became the Constitution in the end in that regard. Separately, I went to a seminar titled "Constitution Cafe" sponsored by the group called Association to Protect Article 9 of the Constitution, and some material was given at the seminar regarding "gender equality." So, I read the book while comparing it with the material given at the seminar.
I haven't studied enough yet and I'm neither a constitutional revisionist nor a constitutionalist, but honestly when I saw this LDP’s (Liberal Democratic Party) proposal, I wondered why they changed everything so much. The U.S.'s (and other developed nations') constitutions have changed "gradually" through revisions over years.
I'm ashamed to say that I didn't know that the current Japanese Constitution was written from such a background until I read the book. I think that this book is a book that both constitutional revisionist and constitutionalist (conservatives) should read. A long time ago, I heard a phrase from a constitutional scholar who said, "The constitution is an ideal idea." If that is the purpose, I thought deeply about what kind of philosophy we would build from now on.
“I heard that there was an exhibition of Ms. Beate Sirota last year at the National Women's Education Center. Looking at this, I think you can get a sense of what it was like back then. https://www.nwec.jp/event/archivecenter/Beate_online.html