Toshiko Kishida

, afterwards , was one of the first Japanese feminists. She wrote under the name .

Early life and education Kishida Toshiko was born in Kyoto Prefecture, Japan, in 1863. Kishida grew up in a merchant class family. Her father was Kishida Mohei, a secondhand clothing dealer, and her mother his wife Taka. In an early biography by Sōma Kokkō, it is noted that business travels kept her father from home, strengthening the bond between mother and daughter, and thus instilling Kishida's passion to improve women's status and promote their financial and social independence from their husbands.

Kishida grew up during the Meiji-Taishō period, which lasted from 1868 through 1926. During this period Japanese leaders opened themselves up to new ideas and reformers called for "new rights and freedoms". The women of this reformist movement are now known as "Japan’s first wave feminists". She worked at the imperial court as a tutor serving the Empress; however, she felt that the imperial court was "far from the real world" and was a "symbol of the concubine system which was an outrage to women". Kishida's arrest in Ōtsu, in part ended her career focus as a public speaker, however she continued to work for the Freedom and People's Rights Movements. The "Daughters in Boxes" speech criticized the family system in Japan and the problems it raised for young Japanese girls. It acknowledged that the system was a cultural fixture, and that many parents did not understand the harm it could cause for daughters by restricting them. Kishida recognized that upper and middle class Japanese parents did not mean to restrict their daughters' freedom. Rather, they were blinded by a need to teach certain values in order to fit into Japanese culture and society.

In her speech, Kishida introduced the three "boxes" present in Japanese families. These boxes are not actual boxes but mental and emotional limitations. The boxes represented how Japanese daughters were locked into certain requirements. The first box is one in which parents hid their daughters physically. The girls were not allowed to leave their rooms, and any elements belonging to the outside world were blocked out. The second box concerned the obedience of Japanese daughters. In this box, "parents refuse to recognize their responsibility to their daughter, and teach her naught". The final box presented by Kishida was the education of daughters, in which they were taught ancient knowledge. Unlike the other boxes Kishida described, her box without walls would allow Japanese daughters to be educated and become active members of society. The speech also suggested that the boxes created for Japanese daughters should not be created in haste. She explained that if a box was hastily constructed, the daughters would resent being placed in it and run away from such restrictions. "Daughters in Boxes" analyzed and critiqued Japanese society and its treatment of Japanese girls. The absence of women's rights in Japan sparked the feminist and reformist movement of which Kishida Toshiko was a major part. Kishida's speech challenged the cultural norms of Japanese society in general. The speech also cemented the place of women and women's movement in Japan's history.

Later In 1884 Kishida married Nakajima Nobuyuki, who worked as a political activist in the Liberal Party. On a business related trip to Italy with her husband, she contracted tuberculosis, after which Nobuyuki resigned from his post and the couple returned to Japan. The couple withdrew from active public life, but continued to remain involved in politics. Nobuyuki also contracted tuberculosis, and in their final years they lived in the town of Ōiso. Nobuyuki died in 1899, while Kishida survived until May 1901. An existing body of diaries covers periods of her life as well as published works of fiction, essays, and poetry in journals. Kishida, who later went by her writing pseudonym Shōen, took part in the public world of political activism, writing, and social commentary. She is distinguished as a popular female figure in literature and activism, pushing against male privileges in education, literary and press circles. Her writing further reveals her lived experiences as a woman in a changing sociopolitical Meiji society.

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