Jewish feminist Beate Sirota Gordon changed women’s rights in Japan forever
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This story originally appeared on Kveller.
“The famous are rarely significant and the significant are rarely famous,” says Jeff Gottesfeld, author of “No Steps Behind,” a children’s book about real-life Jewish feminist Beate Sirota Gordon. Gordon, who was born in 1923 in Vienna to Russian-Jewish parents, was only 22 years old when she helped write women’s rights into the modern constitution of Japan.
Gottesfeld calls Gordon “the most significant feminist of the 20th century you may have never have heard of. ”
Drawing upon her values along with her knowledge of Japanese language and culture as well as her inherent chutzpah in 1946 Gordon found herself the only woman “in the room where it happened” in this case, where American officials, led by Gen. Douglas Macarthur, rewrote Japan’s constitution as part of post-WWII democratic reforms.