Social Activism Profiles: Beate Sirota Gordon
Beate Sirota Gordon is an activist, art director and a member of the team who wrote the Japanese Constitution along with Douglas MacArthur after WWII.
Gordon was born in Austria in 1923 to Leo Sirota, a pianist who had fled war torn Russia and settled in Vienna.
Later the family emigrated to Japan where Leo taught music and Beate attended a German school for a while, and later attended an American school in Japan after her father deemed the German school "too Nazi".
In 1939 she left for Oakland California to attend Mills College because the war in Japan was escalating and her father thought it would be best for her to be in America.
Once she reached America she was cutoff from her parents who had remained behind in Japan.
During the was she worked for different government offices, like the Federal Communications Commission, the Office of War Information as well as working for Time Magazine.
In 1940 she was one of only 65 Caucasians able to read, write and translate Japanese.
When the war was over she went to Japan in search of her parents who had survived under internment.
She was one of the first Caucasians to arrive in post war Japan and she was immediately pressed into service by the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers (SCAP) as a translator.
She was in the room as two powerful leaders and their respective entourages went back and forth over the new Japanese Constitution.
Hirohito would still be the leader, as mostly a figurehead, but the rules were going to be written by the Americans.
When it came to section on womens' rights the Japanese were harshly against it, they had never had such a thing in their past, but the Americans were running this show and so womens' rights were going in.
They turned to Sirota who was the only woman in the room at the time and told her "You're a woman, you write this part.
" She was uniquely qualified to write these articles as she had grown up in Japan and witnessed first hand how wives were punished for infidelity but not husbands.
Women had no suffrage nor did they have property/inheritance rights, and were regarded as incompetent how much they were educated.
Women were the first to be victimized by poverty or family causes.
Sirota set out to change the culture, the articles on women read: Article 14 All of the people are equal under the law and there shall be no discrimination in political, economic or social relations because of race, creed, sex, social status or family origin.
Article 24 Marriage shall be based only on the mutual consent of the both sexes and it shall be maintained through mutual cooperation with equal rights of husband and wife as a basis.
With regard to choice of spouse, property rights, inheritance, choice of domicile, divorce and other matters pertaining to marriage and the family, laws shall be enacted from the standpoint of individual dignity and the essential equalities of the sexes.
(The latter half is omitted.
) Her involvement in the writing of these articles was classified for many years and when it was declassified she became a hero to Japanese women.
Gordon has often invited to speak to groups of Japanese women on Constitution Day (May 3rd).
At one such meeting, she said, "Because I was young, welfare of the elderly never occurred to me.
"
Gordon was born in Austria in 1923 to Leo Sirota, a pianist who had fled war torn Russia and settled in Vienna.
Later the family emigrated to Japan where Leo taught music and Beate attended a German school for a while, and later attended an American school in Japan after her father deemed the German school "too Nazi".
In 1939 she left for Oakland California to attend Mills College because the war in Japan was escalating and her father thought it would be best for her to be in America.
Once she reached America she was cutoff from her parents who had remained behind in Japan.
During the was she worked for different government offices, like the Federal Communications Commission, the Office of War Information as well as working for Time Magazine.
In 1940 she was one of only 65 Caucasians able to read, write and translate Japanese.
When the war was over she went to Japan in search of her parents who had survived under internment.
She was one of the first Caucasians to arrive in post war Japan and she was immediately pressed into service by the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers (SCAP) as a translator.
She was in the room as two powerful leaders and their respective entourages went back and forth over the new Japanese Constitution.
Hirohito would still be the leader, as mostly a figurehead, but the rules were going to be written by the Americans.
When it came to section on womens' rights the Japanese were harshly against it, they had never had such a thing in their past, but the Americans were running this show and so womens' rights were going in.
They turned to Sirota who was the only woman in the room at the time and told her "You're a woman, you write this part.
" She was uniquely qualified to write these articles as she had grown up in Japan and witnessed first hand how wives were punished for infidelity but not husbands.
Women had no suffrage nor did they have property/inheritance rights, and were regarded as incompetent how much they were educated.
Women were the first to be victimized by poverty or family causes.
Sirota set out to change the culture, the articles on women read: Article 14 All of the people are equal under the law and there shall be no discrimination in political, economic or social relations because of race, creed, sex, social status or family origin.
Article 24 Marriage shall be based only on the mutual consent of the both sexes and it shall be maintained through mutual cooperation with equal rights of husband and wife as a basis.
With regard to choice of spouse, property rights, inheritance, choice of domicile, divorce and other matters pertaining to marriage and the family, laws shall be enacted from the standpoint of individual dignity and the essential equalities of the sexes.
(The latter half is omitted.
) Her involvement in the writing of these articles was classified for many years and when it was declassified she became a hero to Japanese women.
Gordon has often invited to speak to groups of Japanese women on Constitution Day (May 3rd).
At one such meeting, she said, "Because I was young, welfare of the elderly never occurred to me.
"
Source...