Born: 18 January 1894, Japan
Died: 7 June 1964
Country most active: Japan
Also known as: 高群 逸枝
The following bio was written by Emma Rosen, author of On This Day She Made History: 366 Days With Women Who Shaped the World and This Day In Human Ingenuity & Discovery: 366 Days of Scientific Milestones with Women in the Spotlight, and has been republished with permission.
Takamure Itsue (高群 逸枝), a Japanese poet, activist-writer, feminist, anarchist, ethnologist, and historian, was born into a modest family in rural Kumamoto Prefecture in 1894. Her father, a schoolteacher, provided her with an education that included classical Chinese, which was uncommon for Japanese women at the time.
Before relocating to Tokyo in 1920, Takamure briefly worked for a newspaper in Kumamoto City and embarked on the Shikoku pilgrimage in 1918. Her articles about her pilgrimage experience, especially as an unmarried woman, garnered attention and made her a notable figure in Japan at that time.
In 1926, Takamure became friends with the pioneering Japanese feminist Hiratsuka Raichō and elucidated her views in “Ren’ai sōsei.” She contributed numerous articles to various journals and magazines and engaged in debates with other prominent Japanese feminists.
Takamure’s deep commitment to anarchism led her to join the anarchist-feminist group Proletarian Women Artists’ League (Musan Fujin Geijitsu Renmei) in 1930 and establish the anarchist feminist journal “Fujin Sensen” (The Woman’s Front), which was shut down in June 1931 due to increasing fascist repression by the government.
In response to these events and her own personal affairs, Takamure and Hashimoto withdrew to suburban Tokyo in July 1931. From there, she began her influential career as a pioneering historian in the field of Japanese women’s history, focusing on topics such as ancient marriage institutions and women’s roles in ancient Japanese society.
During World War II, despite her anarcha-feminist beliefs, Takamure wrote articles in support of Japanese imperialism in Asia while also criticizing the sexual violence committed by the Imperial Japanese Army. She continued her research on women’s history and matrilineage in ancient Japan and women’s rights to own and inherit property.
Takamure passed away in 1964.