Komako Kimura

, also seen as Komaku Kimura or Komago Kimura in American newspapers, was a Japanese suffragist, actress, dancer, theater manager, and magazine editor before World War II. Her work, both literary and theatrical, shaped the women's rights and women's suffrage movement in Japan.

Early life Komako Kimura was born in Tokyo on July 29, 1887 as the youngest of three sisters. She was educated in the arts from a young age, and started to learn Nihon buyō at three years old and kabuki at five. Her father, who was the chief clerk of a fire-fighting pump dealer, lost all of his money to an extortionate moneylender, forcing him to move to Taiwan to find work and leave the family behind when she was eight years old. Komako used her training in dance and theater to support her family by joining a touring theater in Kumamoto. In her early life, she went to a school founded by Junko Takezaki, where girls were not only encouraged to learn and become good, traditional Japanese wives and mothers, but also how to "be personalities." She was inspired by male thinkers like Goethe, Byron, Maeterlinck, Wilde, and Emerson, after studying them in school. She was also greatly influenced by the ideas of Ellen Key, a Swedish feminist.

She loved the stage because it was one of the only ways women could flourish in a male-dominated society, as “only the women of the stage have an opportunity to talk to men of affairs,” a designation not even granted to their wives. She was not seen as inferior onstage and after performances. She could speak to and associate to powerful men, who would in turn listen to and be influenced by her opinions. and Miyazaki Mitsuko, despite their apparently disparate personalities. Together, they created a lecture series and magazine, both entitled “The New True Women” (in Japanese, Shinshinfujin). The first speech that Komako gave occurred in 1913, and was entitled “Love and Self-Realization for Women”. In her first publication of the magazine, Komako described how she did not just want to change the law and give men and women equal rights on paper.

By the time she visited America in 1917, she had been working toward achieving suffrage in Japan for about five years, to no avail. There were issues about funding, government opposition, and a lack of Japanese precedent concerning the women’s rights movement that prevented Komako from making more progress.

She was in America to gain inspiration from American women, whom she admired due to the fact that they could use their clothing and makeup to express themselves as individuals. She criticized Japanese society for forcing conformity onto women by making them take an hour to do their hair and clothes, then be unable to move unencumbered throughout the day, due to the restrictive nature of traditional Japanese clothing. During her visit, she met with the first female member of Congress, Jeannette Rankin, as well as President Woodrow Wilson. Also, she famously marched in the October 27, 1917 suffrage march in New York.

Controversy and Trial “The New True Woman” magazine lasted until January 1918, before it was suppressed by the Japanese government. The magazine was well known for its radical topics for the time, as it criticized marriage and was the first Japanese publication to frankly talk about the use of birth control. She went on to hold a variety of jobs, from being the first telephone operator in Kumamoto to being a teacher while she was supported by her friend Kimura Bansaku, who became wealthy by making soy sauce.

The family moved to Tokyo in May 1909, where they were legally married and had another child by the fall of 1911. Komako took acting classes there, but stopped when her one-year-old daughter died in 1912.

Legacy Komako Kimura's writing, speeches, and performances were integral to the Japanese suffrage movement, which culminated in the 1945 change of election law that allowed Japanese women to vote.

Additionally, her wishes for women to be equal to men being tempered by the gender roles of her era are still discussed in feminist texts and ideas to this day.

An image of Komako Kimura, plus an explanation of her significance, appeared on one of the women's history post cards produced by the Helene Victoria Press set up by Nancy Poore and Jocelyn Cohen in 1973.