Beate Sirota Gordon: Japanese women's constitutional rights

[gkanai]

Jim Brooke does a very nice profile of Beate Sirota Gordon, the woman, who at age 22, was the sole female in MacArthur's post-war cabinet. Gordon was responsible for most of the articles of the Japanese government which give women equal rights under the law and the right to vote.

"Marriage shall be based only on the mutual consent of both sexes and it shall be maintained through mutual cooperation with the equal rights of husband and wife as a basis," she said, reading the scarf, which was printed in the six languages she speaks - English, Japanese, Russian, German, French and Spanish. "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 equality of the sexes."

Fighting to Protect Her Gift to Japanese Women [nytimes.com]