Chifuren (also National League of Regional Women's Organizations or National Federation of Regional Women's Organizations, ''Zen Nihon chiiki fujin dantai renraku kyōgikai'') is one of the largest women's organizations operating in
Japan. Chifuren is an umbrella organization of women's groups and the local women's groups or ''fujinakai''. Chifuren works on a regional scope on a variety of social and political issues facing women in Japan.
History
Shigeri Yamataka
(also Kaneko Shigeri and later Yamataka Shigeri, sometimes incorrectly referred to as Shigeri Takayama) was a Japanese feminist and founder of the League for the Defense of Women's Rights. In 1952 she also took part in Chifuren, when it was form ...
became involved in Chifuren in 1952, when Chifuren was formed. Yamataka had previously been involved with women's groups or ''fujinakai'' which helped make up part of Chifuren. The activist tradition of Chifuren was based on the idea of ''ryōsai kenbo'', meaning "good wife, wise mother." Millions of women joined the group, united under the ideas of improving women's lives, reforming both home and society and creating social welfare.
Chifuren opposed revisions to the
postwar Constitution and Civil Code of 1948 that would put women, their real property and their families under legal control of a family
patriarch
The highest-ranking bishops in Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy, the Catholic Church (above major archbishop and primate), the Hussite Church, Church of the East, and some Independent Catholic Churches are termed patriarchs (and in certai ...
. In 1955, Chifuren and the Housewives Association founded the New Life Campaign Association, which was seen by Yamataka as a "movement by and for women."
During the 1960s, Chifuren, along with the
YWCA
The Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA) is a nonprofit organization with a focus on empowerment, leadership, and rights of women, young women, and girls in more than 100 countries.
The World office is currently based in Geneva, Swi ...
,
Japanese League of Women Voters, the Women's Bar Association of Japan and the Christian Women's Temperance Union all "independently declared their opposition to nuclear armaments." Chifuren fought for environmental changes and fought against pollution in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
References
Citations
Sources
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External links
Web site(in Japanese)
{{Authority control
1952 establishments in Japan
Women's organizations based in Japan
Women's rights organizations