Was the Women's Liberation Movement: Hostile to or Fertile Ground for Lesbian Feminism in Japan?

The uman ribu (women's liberation) movement coalesced in Japan around 1970 to challenge, among other things, the rigidly patriarchal family system upon which postwar Japanese capitalism depended. One notable aspect of ribu was its attention not just to women's social independence but also their sexual autonomy. In ribu discourse and commercial publications written or translated by individuals linked to ribu, women's sexual and reproductive health, and avenues for women's sexual pleasure—including sex outside the institution of marriage and masturbation—were treated as vital to ribu philosophy. Within ribu during its peak in the first half of the 1970s and within the feminism and women's studies that followed soon thereafter, one possible avenue for sexual and romantic fulfillment was conspicuously overlooked or downplayed, however: sexual pleasure with or desire for another woman. Some women felt unable to express their attraction to other women; others were ostracized for so doing. In translations of feminist writing, sections on lesbians were often omitted or abridged for their ostensible lack of immediate relevance. Yet it was in this context that Japanese lesbian feminism developed—a movement which itself challenged capitalism and the family system, albeit from a very different perspective. Drawing on commercially published books, translations, and magazines, as well as newsletters, booklets, and other ephemera from the 1970s and 1980s, and recent interviews, this paper situates the emergence and development of lesbian feminism in Japan within the context of ribu and other feminist activism, as well as transnational flows of (lesbian) feminist discourse.