Traitorous translators: translation, performance, and democratic language in Meiji Japan

I look at how women’s roles in political life were transformed in the culture of Japan’s Meiji period. This transformation came about as new translation words, like “rights” and “citizen” were coming into use. Gender discourse became enmeshed with these concepts in the speechmaking of the famous Freedom and Popular Rights Movement activist Kishida Toshiko. Kishida reworked the Confucian ideas of womanly duty found in texts like Kaibara Ekken’s Greater Learning for Women to create a new vision of citizenship. However, Kishida did not actually provide a rhetorical argument in favor of women’s rights. In fact, her words recommend against full political rights for women. Nonetheless, her speeches caused the government considered her a traitor. I argue that what is important was not what she said when but how she performed “rights” and “citizenship.” I conclude that new, democratic, translation requires physical performance to make it socially impactful in its new context.