Chizuko Ueno

is a Japanese sociologist and Japan's "best-known feminist". Her work covers sociological issues including semiotics, capitalism, and feminism in Japan. Ueno is known for the quality, polarizing nature, and accessibility of her work. She was married to Daikichi Irokawa.

Early life and education Ueno was raised as a Christian, which she notes as being "very unusual" because only 1% of the Japanese population is Christian. Her father was a physician. In an interview with The Japan Times, she describes her father as "a complete sexist" who had extremely high expectations of her two brothers but only considered his daughter as a "pet girl", which allowed her the "freedom to do whatever I wanted to do". Ueno studied sociology at Kyoto University,

Academic career Chizuko Ueno has spent her entire career advocating gender equality in Japanese society by researching diverse issues of gender and contributing to the establishment of gender studies as an acknowledged field of research in Japan.

In 1982, Ueno authored The Study of the 'Sexy Girl''' (セクシィ・ギャルの大研究) and Reading the Housewife Debates (主婦論争を読む), texts that would be referred to as "The Flagbearers of 1980's Feminism".

From 1979 to 1989, she was a Lecturer and later Associate Professor at the Heian Women's College. She was an Associate Professor and Professor at Kyoto Seika University in the Department of Humanities from 1989 to 1994. She retired from this position in order to take the role of Chief Director of the Women's Action Network (WAN), an organization designed to connect and introduce feminists from different backgrounds. The Women's Action Network website hosts news, essays, popular media reviews, and promotes certain merchandise.

Scholarship and views Ueno's research field includes feminist theory, family sociology, and women's history. She is best known for her contribution to gender studies in Japan. As a public intellectual, she played a central role in creating the field of gender studies in Japanese academia. and a critic of monogamous marriage institutions.

Controversy in South Korea Ueno’s position on the criminal prosecution of Park Yu-ha drew criticism in South Korea. Park had been prosecuted over her book Comfort Women of the Japanese Empire: Colonial Rule and Battle over Memory, which discussed the memory and representation of Korean comfort women. Ueno opposed Park’s criminal punishment on freedom of expression and academic freedom grounds. At a 2016 debate at the University of Tokyo, Ueno’s comments about the Park case were challenged by Zainichi Korean scholar Yang Ching-ja, who said the complaint had been brought by former comfort women rather than by the South Korean judiciary alone.

Surge of popularity in China In 2023, Ueno's work gained sudden prominence in China after a video of her 2019 matriculation speech at the University of Tokyo went viral. Consequently, Chinese translations of Ueno's books gained popularity. As of April 2023, Ueno's books had reportedly sold more than a million copies in China, of which 200,000 copies were sold in January and February alone. Her book Ofuku shokan: Genkai kara hajimaru (Correspondences: Starting at the Edge) was selected as book of the year on Chinese book review platform Douban. In 2024, she was included on the Time magazine's annual list of 100 most influential people and cited as a "surprising superstar" in China.

Selected publications (first published in Japanese in 1994) (translated from Japanese by Jordan Sand)

上野先生、フェミニズムについてゼロから教えてください!'' (published in Japanese on January 12, 2020). .