In her autobiography, The Plains are Ablaze, written with an assistant late in her life, age 90 in 1988, but drawing from many previous interviews and reminiscences, Oku recalled the Occupation years and the conditions for founding the League of Housewives. She began by alluding openly to the black market and to sexual fraternization, two subjects which had for the most part been kept out of public discussion by Occupation censors as threats to peace and tranquility. She says:
Japan lost the war on August 15, 1945. We were placed under the Occupation of the Allies, mainly America, and Occupation soldiers walked around as if they owned the place. At that time, young women called pan pan [streetwalkers] strutted around the city, their arms entwined with large American solders to whom they looked up admiringly. Skinny children who had made the railroad stations their roost went around begging. The unemployed filled the city, especially child laborers and factory women who had been mobilized during the war and were thrown out of their factories and workplaces. In addition to the destruction of many factories in the air raids, even those which had escaped the bombing shrank dramatically in size and had to reorganize their work force. Soldiers and civilians too were repatriated and sought work.
Thus, without thinking, I wondered when I would go out into the world again. Thinking that I did not want to say anything about the Occupation, I worked as a farmer...I worked hard in the dirt, harvesting with a hoe and working as if obsessed...People were driven to the wall. Basic goods and foodstuffs were rationed but were in short supply, and black market dealings flourished.
In these conditions, there was a revival in early postwar Japan of cooperative associations. Oku kept her hand in this movement too, even after she helped to found the Housewives' League, and in 1951 she became one of its high officers. Otherwise, she was soon drawn into national politics. In the section of her autobiography entitled, "Mrs. Oku goes to the Diet," she rejoiced that women had gained the suffrage in December 1945, twenty-five years after she and others had founded the New Women's Association and began to agitate for women's suffrage. In the first postwar election, April 1946, however, Oku refused the urging of friends to run for office and remained with the Women’s Bureau of the Cooperative Association Movement. She sensed at the time, she says, that "I must not sit in the seat of power in the Diet, and so I had no remorse about refusing to consider candidacy." However, after the promulgation of the new Constitution and recognition of the equality of men and women, she changed he mind and decided to run for the new Upper House in April 1947. But first, she had to figure out how to finance her run.
I, of course, did not have enough money. So saying, "Let's get going," I, with my daughter beside me and a young women who before the war was a child in a women's settlement home, started out on the streets of Tokyo in the districts of Kyobashi and Ginza, calling out my history and my beliefs among the big trucks of other candidates. I couldn't help but be fascinated, thinking to myself, such big truck must cost a lot. And if you don’t have a loud speaker, only those nearby can hear you. So, somehow, I procured at least loud speaker. My son made use of the fact that the character for my surname, "Oku," meant wife, and he created election slogans for me: "Mrs. Oku (that is, Mrs. Kitchen or Mrs. Inside the House) to the Diet," and "Let's Combine the Kitchen and Politics." At the time, I was already divorced; so as a single person, I created a new family register [koseki], the Oku family. Attaching slogans to a baby buggy, we went around calling out on a megaphone.
Oku ran from a national district for the People's Cooperative Party. Women friends from her schooldays in Tokyo and from the cooperative movement in Kyoto and Osaka and others all over the country turned out to help and encourage her candidacy. Each time she ran for the Upper House, 1947, 1953, and 1959, her vote count was higher. "Always, it was a clean election movement. Always, my Diet life was with these women. They had faith in me as their spokeswoman." Oku first "stepped onto the red carpet (that is, entered national political life) on May 20, 1947.
I was vividly reminded of the time earlier when, indignant at the fact that women, who had no right to vote, were not even permitted to hold a political gathering or listen to a political speech, I went around with [Hiratsuka] Raicho and others repeatedly and bowed to the Diet members and was truly profoundly moved. At that time, I did not, in my wildest dreams ever imagine, that I, a woman, would ever become a Diet member.
So, I was in the important Diet, but all it did was to cause me disappointment. As female members stepped onto the stage for the first time, the jeering of male members was horrible. I was constantly angry, and spoke of my bitter feelings to the House chairman. I was made to realize that in the minds of male members there was hardly any change at all from before the war. However, because of this, I determined that women would have to do even more to pay attention to Diet activities.
Oku had entered politics at the time when the Yoshida Cabinet gave way to the Katayama Tetsu cabinet, 1947-1948. Since Prime Minister Katayama was a prewar friend, as was the Minister of Commerce and Industry, she became briefly associated with the group in power. The "honeymoon" did not last long as first the Ashida Hitoshi Cabinet followed by the Yoshida Shigeru Cabinet came back into power in 1948. Conservatives moreover remained in power without interruption to the end of the Occupation and beyond. "To me, this was terribly bitter and most unsatisfactory." Oku switched her party allegiance to the Green Wind Association, an Upper House party, in an effort to be more independent with a "middle spectrum of colors" and to perform as she wished.
After becoming a member of the Diet, I always continued to speak out as a representative of consumers. Even during the Ashida Cabinet, I spoke out in the Diet on behalf of children who could not go on strike themselves or demonstrate, asking "Give us more milk." Every time there was an opportunity to make a declaration, I pressed the government hard, saying "pay more heed to the opinion of women, raise the quality of rationed goods and increase their quantity." At that time, thread, matches, and hand towels were all of poor quality. And mothers of the world were truly angry saying, even though black market goods are more expensive than regular goods, aren't they of much better in quality? Aren't the priorities wrong?
Even when serving on committees, I thought it would be better to be close to everyday life. But farmers, fisherman, and factory people already had their representatives—male representatives. So there was no room for me to enter. There was no route for reflection upon the desires of consumers. While suppressing my anger and frustration, I began thinking very seriously about these things.
And when I made demands, "Listen to the needs of women, respect them," I ran into a space where no one heard the voice of women as consumers. Although labor unions already existed for workers, there was absolutely no organization for women as consumers. Voices of resentment, saying to the government, "We cannot by any means survive," filled the harbor. It was our right as citizens to approach the government and to fight politically, taking up one by one such pleas in a concrete manner. There was need for a strong woman’s organization to approach me as their spokeswoman and have me fight in the Diet and speak out in order to safeguard the interests of consumers. This is what I began to think about.
Oku turns in her autobiography to the immediate circumstances of the birth of Shufu Rengokai, a movement which caught on, she says, "like a bonfire." The catalyst was wide-spread dissatisfaction among housewives over the inferior quality of rationed matches.
At that time [1948], I received an offer from the headquarters of the Economic Stabilization Board: "Don’t you have any good wisdom on educating women about economic matters?" I, who felt keenly the necessity of raising up women, decided in my gut, OK, I’ll earnestly come to grips with this problem. I immediately consulted women’s groups and Daily Life Cooperative women and devised several plans.
First, we decided to listen to the Osaka Women's Association about their experience in staging a meat boycott movement and cutting black market prices. This was on August 28, 1948. The place was the Miraku Coffee Shop in the Shinjuku district. There were about 30 participating groups. We decided unanimously on the following position paper and submitted it to the Price Board head: "As a follow up to the meat boycott movement in Osaka, we want two things. Explain to us the rise in official prices. And from now on, include housewives on committees when deciding on price levels." In response, we immediately received the Price Agency chief's reply, something like this, "Since official prices are at their height, consumers will not have to pay at more than this in the future. And from now on, we will, to the best of our ability, listen to the opinion of women on price decisions." As an initial response, it was probably tolerable.
Next, we had a crusade against poor rationed matches. You could buy black market matches at the high price of 5 yen for one small box, and that was very expensive. Otherwise, matches at that time were counted out and rationed at several per day but were very inferior. It meant a life in which, after rising early in the morning, you first had to light a piece of paper in order to burn firewood and prepare the meal. To get one light, you had to waste 5 or 6 matches before succeeding in making a flame. The slogan, "First let's crusade against bad matches," was an urgent, honest cry of the housewives of the time.
Before holding a mass meeting, I gathered bad matches which wouldn't strike and went to the Daily Goods Section of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry. I informed them that since we were going to hold a get-rid-of-bad matches mass meeting, we would call out the names of the manufacturers of those matches and ask for a firm promise to cease making them any more. Try to cooperate with us, I said, and exchange inferior matches all over the country for good ones. The officials were very helpful, saying, "Even though we give the makers sufficient raw materials, we are troubled by the flow of first-class goods into the black market."
The day before the mass meeting, we went around making announcements by distributing handbills from a truck: "We will hold a meeting to which we will bring our matches which won’t strike. Bring those matches, and let's exchange them for good products. Let's think of many more things to safeguard our lives."
Brandishing matches, says Oku, women answered the call in a mass rally of fourteen women's groups on September 3. They represented all kinds of organizations, such as the New Japan Women’s Cooperative, the Women's Democracy Group, and the YWCA, but there were also ordinary women who had seen the leaflet and came, overflowing the hall. Outside were two trucks filled with superior matches to make exchanges for poor ones. Manufacturers from 12 companies also came, escorted by an official from the Ministry of Commerce and Industry. When cross-examined by the women, they apologized. Newspapers and magazines, according to Oku, rushed to cover the meeting. Leaflets fluttered in the wind, carrying the demand, "Let's banish bad matches through the solidarity of women." After the officials and manufacturers left, the women reseated themselves and spoke of their grievances and bitter feelings about everyday life. They discussed pans and drew up resolution papers. In essence, they declared: "We refuse food rations which even birds don't eat." And asked: "Distribute big potatoes as rations," not tiny ones which are hard as stones.
Momentum built up over the next twenty days as women spread leaflets on street corners and rode in trucks all day long, calling out, "Kitchen housewives, let's all, every one of us, stand together." Voices of protest and questions about rationed vegetables, clothing, fish, and miso "were lively, like an every widening fire in a desolate field." At some mass meetings, housewives tested the weights of vegetables or meat to see if they were as advertised or shared information about the quality or the prices of goods sold at various stories. It was time, thought Oku, to harness their power.
The movement of women who joined the mass meetings was remarkable. From this group and that group, one after another, an association was born. There was a need to join these many groups together, and a need for a headquarters for the voices constantly calling. So on September 15, 1948, we had a meeting of the women who had created the movement of housewives’ associations. After a vote, we decided on our official name, Shufu Rengokai [League of Housewives], and I was recommended as the first president. I decided to take on the responsibility. It was an alliance of housewives which had come into being out of necessity; it was a movement which was pushing ahead spontaneously.
Oku, with difficulty, found an office space for the movement. The League, born in Tokyo, quickly spread all over Japan. More and more, it attracted housewives who had had no previous connections with women's movements. Members, Oku recalled, made red posters with big letters: "We've had enough of black market life." And "Are you satisfied with daily rations? Are the quantity, price and quality acceptable?" By December 5, 1948, the League also had a newsletter, Shufuren tayori, which carried Oku's greetings and the words and music of their new song. Oku's grand plan, she explained, was "to link the government with the kitchen" and "to cause women to broaden their knowledge of public affairs and spread information to stop the black market."
The League soon took up a new battle against an increase in bathhouse prices, even investigating the amount of dirt in the water of bath houses. It opposed inflation in electric rates, rice products, and railway fares. When shops lived up to League standards—in weight, sanitation, quality, and service, members designated them as "housewives' stores" and gave them ratings of good to excellent. In 1951, the big rice ladle (shamojii) was chosen as their symbol. Explained Oku: "It was the thing which housewives grasped in their hands day and night. It was a perfect symbol. The housewives' desire was to prepare plentiful meals, meshi, with the rice ladle. It also had the meaning of meshitoru, to summon. And to boil something in a big caldron, stir things up, but not yet burned. This too was the trick of our group action."
By the end of the Occupation in April 1952, Shufuren had become much more than a pressure group. It had opened summer classes for women, investigated the school lunch program, and set up a testing office for daily products. To Oku, consumers were sovereign and the source of Japan's economic prosperity. Much of this approach and philosophy she stated in a pamphlet published in 1952, Daidoroku to Seiji (Kitchen and Politics) and continued to argue in the columns of the League's Newsletter, Tayori. She is unclear about receiving official support from the Price Agency.
Oku's crusade as a member of the Diet, as head of the League, and as an officer in the cooperative movement continued for many years. It was a protest with socialist overtones against exploitation of the consumer by monopolistic capitalism. Though often militant, she also made peace with conservatives who still cherished the "good wife/wise mother" ideology. Housewives, in her world, deserved to occupy public space and determine public policy on household issues. However, their present and potential role in peace and security issues, in business and management, or in international affairs was glossed over. Was Oku in ways not yet fully disclosed perhaps a partner of the government in social management and advancement of middle-class morality? In 1953, a year after the Occupation had ended (and while the Korean War was unresolved), she argued: "In place of consumption, strive for a life filled with imagination and resourcefulness. Unless the clever housewife maintains her household, this country will not rise."
Legacy. In post Occupation Japan, Shufuren increasingly became a consumer movement in an expanding economy. Instead of always having to be resourceful in a dire economy, housewives could look forward to acquiring the three treasures of the 1950s decade: electric rice cooker, washing machine, and vacuum cleaner. In September 1955, Oku became an officer of the New Life Campaign Association, a conservative umbrella organization with wide-spread influence over several decades. It had an agenda which corresponded nicely with Shufren's goals, such as improvements in food, clothing, and shelter and rationalization of the household economy. Is this, as critics argue, evidence that Oku was coopted by the state in waging thrift campaigns? Whatever the full story, she remained devoted to the improvement of women’s status and authority within the family and the right of housewives to engage in public crusades. She also joined other political women in the mid 1950s in a successful campaign to end legalized prostitution in Japan. The early part of her story with Shufuren ends in 1957 when she addressed the first annual National Consumer Rally. Subsequently, in vastly improved postwar economic circumstances, Oku, as a member of the Upper House, was emboldened in 1962 to ask Prime Minister Ikeda Hayato, author of the income doubling plan, to set up a Livelihood Ministry. Although her advice was not taken, a Livelihood Bureau was set up in the Economic Planning Office in 1965. By then, too, Zen Chifuren (National Federation of Regional Women's Organizations), a competitive organization headed by a rival and founded in July 1952, had attracted even more local and regional members than Shufuren. Housewives and working women (who were sometimes one and the same) had a powerful common cause even if part of different factions and groups in affluent Japan. Though considerably scaled down, Shufuren remains in existence today (2007).
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Reference
Oku, Mumeo. Nobi Akaakato: Oku Mumeo jiden (The Plains are Ablaze: Atuobiography of Oku Mumeo). Tokyo: Domesu Shuppan, 1988.