Beate Sirota Gordon, author of the women¡Çs rights clause of the 1947 Constitution of Japan, will speak following the screening of the documentary film The Gift of Beate on 9 March 2010.
In 1946 Beate Sirota Gordon was the only woman in the room when twenty-five members of the Allied Occupation forces convened to author Japan¡Çs Postwar Constitution. The atmosphere was tense. Gen. Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers in Japan, had ordered the adhoc constitutional convention to create the framework for Japan¡Çs postwar democracy in just six days.
The 22-year-old Sirota Gordon took her charge very seriously, and she collected dozens of examples of national constitutions from the few libraries around Tokyo that had not burned during the war. Very quickly she realized that democracy in Japan would not survive without a platform that guaranteed women equal rights in law, and she set herself the task of writing the articles that still stand as the constitutional basis for women¡Çs rights in Japan today.
The documentary film, The Gift of Beate, explores the long-term ramifications of the establishment of women¡Çs legal equality by examining the ways in which Japanese women have struggled to improve their social status during the sixty-five years since. |
