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SMNTY Classics: Samurai Women · Stuff Mom Never Told You

0:05
Speaker 1: Hey, this is Samantha. Welcome to Stuff Mom Never Told You,
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Speaker 1: a production of iHeartRadio, and y'all, I am taking over
0:20
Speaker 1: choosing classics today. And since we've already been kind of
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Speaker 1: talking about samurai warriors and whether women were involved during
0:28
Speaker 1: that time, I thought it would be a good time
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Speaker 1: to revisit this classic that Kristin and Caroline did title
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Speaker 1: Samurai Warriors.
0:35
Speaker 2: So enjoy Welcome to Stuff Mom Never Told You from
0:42
Speaker 2: howstufforks dot com.
0:49
Speaker 3: Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Caroline and I'm Kristin, and.
0:53
Speaker 4: Today's episode is inspired by social media basically. Yeah, yeah,
1:00
Speaker 4: we were talking about the warrior women of Japan, women
1:03
Speaker 4: who were in Japan's samurai class, and I have seen
1:09
Speaker 4: a lot of things being posted both on Tumblr and
1:12
Speaker 4: on Pinterest, these beautiful images of Japanese warrior women and
1:18
Speaker 4: even women dressed as samurai warriors in photographs.
1:23
Speaker 5: Yeah, there's one photo in particular that a lot of
1:26
Speaker 5: our listeners have probably seen, because, like you said, Caroline,
1:29
Speaker 5: it's everywhere on Tumblr, pin dress, It's been shared on
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Speaker 5: Twitter at nauseum, and the reception is usually, this is
1:36
Speaker 5: so cool, here's a female samurai look.
1:39
Speaker 3: Women were warriors too, so neat, and.
1:42
Speaker 5: It depicts a Japanese woman wearing armor and she's holding
1:48
Speaker 5: a helmet, and she does look like she's ready for battle,
1:52
Speaker 5: including her very impressive hairstyle with what looks like little
1:57
Speaker 5: flowers tucked in it, because you know what, even though
1:59
Speaker 5: you're going to battle, done, man, you have to look
2:02
Speaker 5: a mess. But as Tracy and Holly are our pals
2:08
Speaker 5: at our Sister podcast, Stuffy Miss and History Class have
2:11
Speaker 5: also noted, this is not a female samurai unfortunately, you know,
2:17
Speaker 5: and it's it's kind of disappointing to have to reign
2:20
Speaker 5: on what is such a fun parade.
2:23
Speaker 4: Yeah, but no, that the photo that a lot.
2:26
Speaker 5: Of people have probably seen is a kabuki performer. Yeah,
2:31
Speaker 5: she's an actress.
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Speaker 4: She's she's dressed up incredibly for whatever play she's about
2:37
Speaker 4: to act in. But she is not, in fact a samurai,
2:42
Speaker 4: nor is she an ona bugaisha or an ona musha,
2:45
Speaker 4: which are the names for women warriors in Japanese culture.
2:50
Speaker 4: The onna bugaisha is also known as the female samurai.
2:54
Speaker 4: But as we'll talk about, samurai is a gendered term,
2:57
Speaker 4: and it is gendered male.
2:58
Speaker 3: It does not apply to ladies.
3:00
Speaker 5: So in that case, So Caroline, does that mean that
3:04
Speaker 5: calling this episode samurai women is misleading?
3:08
Speaker 4: Misleading but so deliciously click baby, Okay, look at us
3:13
Speaker 4: being so transparent with our audience right now. Well that's
3:17
Speaker 4: the thing. So when I did see not the photograph
3:22
Speaker 4: of the woman in her armor, but I did see
3:25
Speaker 4: beautiful Japanese paintings of lady warriors, I was like, oh
3:29
Speaker 4: my god, this is an amazing piece of history that
3:32
Speaker 4: I've somehow missed out on. And yes, I definitely have
3:36
Speaker 4: missed out on the history of women of the samurai
3:40
Speaker 4: class in Japan. But as I started to dig around
3:43
Speaker 4: and I even reblogged some stuff on Tumblr, was just like,
3:46
Speaker 4: should Sminty do this? This is definitely a topic that
3:49
Speaker 4: we should cover. I realized upon further digging that oh, well,
3:54
Speaker 4: it's not that there were like armies of women going
3:58
Speaker 4: into battle. It's just more that there were a lot
4:01
Speaker 4: of women of the samurai class who did train with weapons,
4:05
Speaker 4: but it was more about defending the homestead, defending the castle,
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Speaker 4: helping their husbands defend the lord of the manor basically.
4:15
Speaker 5: It was reminiscent to me as a far more intense
4:18
Speaker 5: version of me taking self defense class as my pe
4:24
Speaker 5: in college. It's like learning those kinds of tactics to
4:28
Speaker 5: protect myself rather than dash out onto the streets and sucker.
4:34
Speaker 4: Punch a lot of dudes. I mean, I hope you're
4:38
Speaker 4: not sucker punching anyone in general. But yeah, so I
4:43
Speaker 4: wanted to know, like, who were these women? How many
4:45
Speaker 4: of them were there? Were? They literally just housewives who
4:50
Speaker 4: had like a knife in the drawer to protect themselves,
4:52
Speaker 4: they had knives in their aprons.
4:54
Speaker 3: Yeah, so what's going on and what's the true story?
4:57
Speaker 4: And I was really interested to find out that the
5:00
Speaker 4: truth is somewhere between those things. A lot of people
5:03
Speaker 4: are like, yeah, Japanese women warriors, they're all over.
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Speaker 3: The place killing dudes.
5:08
Speaker 4: And then there's this other side of the internet that's like, no,
5:11
Speaker 4: they didn't. They weren't active at all. They were just housewives.
5:13
Speaker 4: And so where are we going to be in the internet?
5:15
Speaker 4: Are we in the middle saying? You know what?
5:18
Speaker 3: There were some.
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Speaker 5: Housewives with daggers and not a lot of them.
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Speaker 4: Yeah, there were some, and there were some who did
5:26
Speaker 4: some neck chopping, as we'll talk about.
5:29
Speaker 3: But yeah, I wanted to.
5:30
Speaker 4: Kind of get to the bottom of who these women
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Speaker 4: really were, and a part of understanding who they were
5:36
Speaker 4: and where they came from is understanding how women were
5:40
Speaker 4: viewed and treated in Japanese society.
5:42
Speaker 5: Yeah, so we're gonna have to give you, wait for it,
5:46
Speaker 5: some history. Uh oh, but this we need to lay
5:50
Speaker 5: this foundation for how the warrior class developed and also
5:57
Speaker 5: how religion played a role and also developed being governments,
6:01
Speaker 5: because I mean, this is we're looking.
6:03
Speaker 4: At a lot of a lot of time here, Yeah,
6:06
Speaker 4: and so we're going to do our best to condense it,
6:08
Speaker 4: but still try to give you perspective on how women's
6:11
Speaker 4: roles developed through ancient, medieval, and then early modern Japanese society.
6:16
Speaker 4: So get ready, put your samurai helmet on, and let's
6:21
Speaker 4: go for a little red well I ride.
6:22
Speaker 5: Caroline starts in the good old days aka ancient history. Now,
6:27
Speaker 5: the very first documented evidence of attitudes toward women are
6:32
Speaker 5: in these eighth century records called Kojiki and Nahungi, and
6:36
Speaker 5: it illustrates that women actually enjoyed fairly high status, and
6:41
Speaker 5: this was partially thanks to Shintoism, whose birth was related
6:47
Speaker 5: to the story of a Sun goddess named Amaturasu who
6:52
Speaker 5: exemplified perfection, intelligence, beauty, fertility, and purity.
6:57
Speaker 4: Just like Caroline, stuff mom never told you that's right,
7:01
Speaker 4: And just like stuff Mom never told you. Her feminine
7:04
Speaker 4: qualities culturally were really embraced and admired.
7:08
Speaker 3: Especially on Facebook. Especially on Facebook.
7:11
Speaker 4: Yeah, nobody was telling her to stop using up speak
7:17
Speaker 4: or vocal fry. You mean vocal fry, Yeah, oh my god.
7:22
Speaker 4: But yeah, it's just interesting to see how religion, the
7:27
Speaker 4: influence and development of religion, also affects the development of
7:32
Speaker 4: the way that women are viewed and treated. So in
7:36
Speaker 4: the wake of the development of Shintoism, we get this
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Speaker 4: pro lady mythology that fosters pretty generally pro lady views
7:45
Speaker 4: in a relatively matriarchal culture. Chinese records from the time,
7:50
Speaker 4: because those Chinese had their nose in everything, being the
7:53
Speaker 4: smarty pants world power that they were, and their records
7:56
Speaker 4: show that not only were women like cool fine with women,
8:00
Speaker 4: but they were actually encouraged to rule and it was
8:03
Speaker 4: thought that they would be peacekeepers, that they were chased
8:07
Speaker 4: and not given to jealousy, which is definitely different from
8:10
Speaker 4: how I don't know a lot of people the stereotypes
8:13
Speaker 4: of women just being jealous and gossipers. But back then
8:16
Speaker 4: people were like, yeah, women, great, they're going to keep
8:19
Speaker 4: the peace and rule within even hand. And these Chinese
8:23
Speaker 4: records also discussed the beloved rulers Pimmico aka Himiko.
8:29
Speaker 3: She's the first known ruler.
8:30
Speaker 4: Of Japan, who was thought to be a descendant of
8:33
Speaker 4: that Sun goddess and her daughter Eo. But so we
8:37
Speaker 4: talked about how religion affected government and affected society, and
8:43
Speaker 4: women were considered as the go between for deities and
8:48
Speaker 4: humanity in this religion, and men were thought to be
8:51
Speaker 4: able to take those messages and put them into action.
8:54
Speaker 4: And this is coming from a. Kana Haruko's paper in
8:56
Speaker 4: the Japan Christian Review from nineteen ninety three. She writes
9:00
Speaker 4: that you've got men and women working together. Men and
9:04
Speaker 4: women both could be rulers, and at the time the
9:07
Speaker 4: rulers were also priests, so power ended up being pretty
9:11
Speaker 4: evenly distributed relatively until the dawn of the imperial system,
9:16
Speaker 4: which consolidated power away from women. And Kristen, all of
9:19
Speaker 4: this conversation about religion and women being empowered through religion
9:23
Speaker 4: reminded me of our conversation with Karakuti the Egyptologists talking
9:27
Speaker 4: about hot Schepsit and how she used her background in
9:32
Speaker 4: religion to sort of gain power and become queen.
9:34
Speaker 5: Well, and you just mentioned that with the dawn of imperialism,
9:38
Speaker 5: power was consolidated away from women. But there's also this
9:42
Speaker 5: instance of Empress Jingu in the third or fourth century
9:48
Speaker 5: heading up an army. Possibly this might also be a myth,
9:52
Speaker 5: but weapons and armor were found in fourth century female
9:56
Speaker 5: rulers tombs, so it's not clear whether it's because they
10:00
Speaker 5: actually fought or whether the weapons were symbolics. So even
10:04
Speaker 5: though maybe their their power actual power was slipping away,
10:08
Speaker 5: they would still get in on the warfare action from
10:12
Speaker 5: time to time.
10:13
Speaker 4: But then we see a shift in the sixth century
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Speaker 4: away from Shintoism as Buddhism is introduced, and it really
10:18
Speaker 4: affected attitudes toward women. We get these anti feminine views
10:22
Speaker 4: imported from China. Suddenly women go from being intelligent and
10:27
Speaker 4: symbolizing purity and fertility and they can rule and we
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Speaker 4: love them their peacekeepers, to being seductresses with an evil nature.
10:36
Speaker 4: And so this ends up fostering a chauvinistic society and
10:40
Speaker 4: kind of shuttles women off to a subordinate place.
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Speaker 3: So basically, under this structure, only men.
10:46
Speaker 4: Can attain enlightenment, and if you're a woman, you can
10:49
Speaker 4: attain enlightenment if you're reincarnated as a man, so good
10:53
Speaker 4: for you.
10:54
Speaker 5: And women's worth lay in political alliances created through father
10:58
Speaker 5: arranged marriages switched tones a lot like old style Western
11:03
Speaker 5: marriages as well. And when we move forward to the
11:06
Speaker 5: Haynd period from seven ninety four to eleven eighty five AD,
11:11
Speaker 5: things don't get much better.
11:13
Speaker 4: Women's activities are.
11:14
Speaker 5: Super restricted, they have less access to education, there's a
11:18
Speaker 5: belief that they shouldn't be seen by men, which is
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Speaker 5: interesting that during this period this is happening because there
11:25
Speaker 5: was an explosion and aristocratic women's writing.
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Speaker 4: But maybe it's just because they didn't have much.
11:31
Speaker 5: Else to do while they were locked away, which explains
11:34
Speaker 5: why I have so many diaries from my homeschool years.
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Speaker 3: A dear diary.
11:41
Speaker 4: Today is century century three of us being locked away
11:46
Speaker 4: from society. We used to be impresses. Maybe tomorrow will
11:51
Speaker 4: be a better day xoxo.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, and it did. Tomorrow was a better day relatively.
11:56
Speaker 3: When we enter the feudal period of feudalism, is the
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Speaker 3: better day? Is that what you're saying about to say, yeah, Well,
12:03
Speaker 3: I mean for ladies.
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Speaker 5: Oh man, talk about it real hard glass half fall.
12:08
Speaker 3: It puts it in stark relief.
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Speaker 4: Yeah. So from eleven eighty five to sixteen oh three,
12:12
Speaker 4: that's the feudal period in Japan, and this is when
12:15
Speaker 4: we see the rise of the samurai warrior class, and
12:19
Speaker 4: samurai means those who serve, so they're basically like nights
12:22
Speaker 4: if you want to think of an equivalent in Western culture,
12:26
Speaker 4: Nights without the whole chivalry aspect.
12:28
Speaker 3: There was no like, hey, we need.
12:29
Speaker 4: To treat our ladies with respect, and like put our
12:33
Speaker 4: capes down in puddles and save damsels and things like that.
12:37
Speaker 4: They didn't give a hoot for courtly love. There was
12:39
Speaker 4: no damsel in distress, worries or anything like that. So
12:44
Speaker 4: it's interesting now that as we get feudalism, we also
12:47
Speaker 4: get less restrictive Buddhist sex emerging, and that's sects groups
12:53
Speaker 4: of Buddhists, not Buddhist sex as in sexy times, although
12:58
Speaker 4: who knows, maybe you never know.
13:00
Speaker 5: During this glass Apfal feudal period, things were really loosen enough.
13:06
Speaker 4: Well, women's freedom did expand they were allowed rights to
13:09
Speaker 4: inheritance and to will property to their children. They were
13:13
Speaker 4: relatively more active in society. They managed their household staffs,
13:17
Speaker 4: they oversaw household finances, and some of them trained in
13:21
Speaker 4: the Samurai way of life, and this entails both training
13:25
Speaker 4: with weapons, training in martial arts and fighting, but also
13:29
Speaker 4: just training in that way of life that involved duty
13:32
Speaker 4: and loyalty.
13:43
Speaker 5: And the dnahs that were performed not too long ago
13:46
Speaker 5: on recently excavated bodies dating back to a battle in
13:51
Speaker 5: fifteen eighty found that thirty five of those dead bodies
13:57
Speaker 5: were women. And had these been siege situations, it's possible
14:02
Speaker 5: the women's remains were there because they'd kill them killed
14:05
Speaker 5: themselves to protect their honor, and that because that happened.
14:08
Speaker 4: A lot the whole I mean, I don't know that
14:10
Speaker 4: you would.
14:10
Speaker 5: Classify that specifically as harcurry, but there was a whole
14:13
Speaker 5: like honorable suicide thing going on. But instead it seems
14:17
Speaker 5: more likely in this situation that they were actually fighting.
14:20
Speaker 5: So there's evidence, you know that they are at least
14:23
Speaker 5: thirty five of them out there, Yeah.
14:26
Speaker 4: There are at least thirty five. And this is just
14:30
Speaker 4: part of the interesting thing about lost history. I mean,
14:34
Speaker 4: we just.
14:35
Speaker 3: Don't know how many warrior women there.
14:39
Speaker 4: Were, how they were really viewed. It's entirely possible that
14:43
Speaker 4: they were more common than we understand them to be,
14:47
Speaker 4: but that they were just not written about in the
14:50
Speaker 4: history books. And so anyway, this expanded role for women, it.
14:55
Speaker 3: Just did not stay this way forever.
14:58
Speaker 4: Husband and wife relationships be gan to resemble that whole
15:01
Speaker 4: feudal lord subject relationship, which just means total and utter
15:08
Speaker 4: submission to the husband as the lord. And so when
15:12
Speaker 4: we move into the Tokugawa era from sixteen o three
15:15
Speaker 4: to eighteen sixty seven, marriage and pleasing the husband is
15:18
Speaker 4: really the only role that women were fit for. Nobody
15:22
Speaker 4: had a great opinion of ladies at this time. Samurai
15:25
Speaker 4: husbands were no longer out there fighting. They were more
15:28
Speaker 4: like bureaucrats. Women, however, were still expected during this time
15:33
Speaker 4: to raise the kids with a proper samurai education, because there.
15:38
Speaker 3: Wasn't much else they could do.
15:40
Speaker 4: What was a proper samurai education. This would still be
15:43
Speaker 4: in terms of loyalty, serving the home, serving the family,
15:47
Speaker 4: serving the lord, learning to fight and use weapons properly.
15:52
Speaker 5: When I hear serving the Lord, Caroline, it does just
15:54
Speaker 5: take me right back to evangelical church.
15:58
Speaker 4: Yeah, this definitely means like the Lord and master in
16:00
Speaker 4: terms of your feudal lord.
16:03
Speaker 3: Not so much Jesus.
16:05
Speaker 4: I don't know if Japan was down with Jesus.
16:07
Speaker 3: Yet at the time.
16:09
Speaker 4: I don't think Jesus had gotten.
16:10
Speaker 3: To Japan yet.
16:12
Speaker 5: But what does all of this really say about women
16:16
Speaker 5: warriors and samurai? With all of this up and down
16:21
Speaker 5: and women being hidden away for these different periods, was
16:24
Speaker 5: there really an opportunity for them to even be warriors?
16:28
Speaker 5: Because some sources out there say women of a samurai
16:31
Speaker 5: achieved prominence, but others claimed they were just fulfilling their
16:35
Speaker 5: duties as housewives, which we noted earlier.
16:38
Speaker 4: There's kind of that.
16:39
Speaker 3: Spectrum of like, yeah, they were totally there and other.
16:41
Speaker 4: People being like, no, they were just at home.
16:44
Speaker 5: So what gives though, Caroline, Let's pull some more meat
16:48
Speaker 5: from this timeline that we just trotted through. So before
16:53
Speaker 5: we get into some of these fighting women and talk
16:56
Speaker 5: about what they fought with, which is pretty neat some
16:59
Speaker 5: dis claimers. Like we said at the top of the podcast,
17:03
Speaker 5: these are not those pinterest friendly images from the late
17:06
Speaker 5: nineteenth century depicting women probably kabookie performers, dressed as samurai,
17:13
Speaker 5: and like you said, Caroline, even calling them samurai women
17:17
Speaker 5: is a little bit misleading because of how samurai is
17:19
Speaker 5: a gendered term.
17:20
Speaker 3: So can you talk a little bit about that.
17:23
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, so the women warriors of this period are
17:26
Speaker 4: referred to as onnabu geisha or so called female samurai
17:29
Speaker 4: like you said, but that more literally means women practicing
17:34
Speaker 4: the art of war. You've got the term geisha in there,
17:37
Speaker 4: like geishas who are performing artists, and then you've got
17:41
Speaker 4: the term onamusha, which more literally means women warriors. So
17:45
Speaker 4: they definitely would not have been referred to as samurais
17:47
Speaker 4: back then, and they technically shouldn't be referred to as
17:50
Speaker 4: samurais now. But the terms exist, and so did these women.
17:54
Speaker 3: But it is.
17:55
Speaker 5: True that they existed within the context of their individual
18:01
Speaker 5: households because typically women in the warrior class could be
18:05
Speaker 5: characterized by their role as castle slash homestead defenders.
18:10
Speaker 4: So when the king or the lord not to be
18:13
Speaker 4: confused with Jesus.
18:14
Speaker 5: Christ was away, protection of the home fell to the wife.
18:19
Speaker 5: Her front was the home while her husband was on
18:22
Speaker 5: the battlefield, and there was deep, deep loyalty to the clan.
18:27
Speaker 5: This is part of that samurai education that we mentioned
18:30
Speaker 5: a few minutes ago. And what did they use to
18:34
Speaker 5: defend their homestead. Not just any old sword, not a
18:42
Speaker 5: sling shot, not nunchucks, but rather something called a naginata.
18:47
Speaker 4: Yeah. It's basically a sort of spear sword hybrid, so
18:52
Speaker 4: it looks like a long pole.
18:53
Speaker 3: With a curved blade at the end.
18:56
Speaker 5: And it was really cute because they're all pink for
18:58
Speaker 5: the girls, Caroline.
19:00
Speaker 4: You know, that's how you know that it was. Yeah,
19:03
Speaker 4: that's how you know it's for women.
19:04
Speaker 3: They're real light.
19:05
Speaker 4: Yeah, And girls would learn to use it from a
19:07
Speaker 4: relatively young age, and when they reached adulthood, they were
19:10
Speaker 4: also given kaiken or small knives for both self defense
19:16
Speaker 4: and also suicide if their virtue was threatened. So basically,
19:20
Speaker 4: you had to be prepared to die to protect your
19:23
Speaker 4: own honor as well as your family's honor. And a
19:27
Speaker 4: little bit of context to that is that a short
19:29
Speaker 4: life was really not viewed as a tragedy. It was admirable,
19:33
Speaker 4: especially if you died in the name of protecting your
19:37
Speaker 4: family or your honor. But also when rumors of raping
19:41
Speaker 4: and pillaging preceded an invading army, it was not uncommon
19:46
Speaker 4: for women of that village or clan to participate in
19:50
Speaker 4: a mass suicide, and we saw a couple interesting examples
19:54
Speaker 4: of basically ancient suicide notes left by women who were
19:59
Speaker 4: in this very situation that illustrate I don't want to
20:02
Speaker 4: insinuate that suicide is interesting, but I think they illustrate
20:06
Speaker 4: how women's role in this samurai class, and that the
20:10
Speaker 4: way they fulfilled the way they were supposed to fulfill
20:13
Speaker 4: their duty as part of the samurai class. So one
20:17
Speaker 4: from the nineteenth century says, each time I die and
20:21
Speaker 4: am reborn in the world, I wish to return as
20:23
Speaker 4: a stalwart warrior. And another woman wrote, I have heard
20:27
Speaker 4: that this is the way of the warrior, and so
20:29
Speaker 4: I set out on the journey to the land of
20:32
Speaker 4: the dead. So I think that says a lot about Yeah,
20:35
Speaker 4: their front, as you said, might not be on the battlefield,
20:39
Speaker 4: but they certainly felt that they had a duty to
20:42
Speaker 4: perform during times of.
20:44
Speaker 5: War, and that nagnata was a tool to guard one's
20:49
Speaker 5: personal sanctity unless it was actually used for battle, because
20:53
Speaker 5: this did happen from time to time. Martial arts historian
20:57
Speaker 5: Ellis Amber cites a sixteenth century chronicle of a warrior
21:01
Speaker 5: wife who led more than eighty soldiers against the enemy
21:05
Speaker 5: after finding women and children in her husband's castle had
21:08
Speaker 5: committed mass suicide.
21:10
Speaker 4: Yeah, so obviously there were some women who were like,
21:12
Speaker 4: uh no, not all the women in my clan get
21:14
Speaker 4: to kill themselves and just have that go by as
21:17
Speaker 4: a normal thing. And then author Stephen Turnbull describes the
21:21
Speaker 4: nineteenth century wife of a magistrate who, fearing the Imperial
21:25
Speaker 4: army would slaughter her family, ended up cutting off her
21:29
Speaker 4: hair preemptively killing her mother in law and daughter, and
21:33
Speaker 4: then charging out into the fighting with her naganata in hand.
21:37
Speaker 3: Intense, very intense.
21:40
Speaker 4: So we really get this image of the naganata wielding
21:44
Speaker 4: warrior woman emerging during the Warring States period, which is
21:48
Speaker 4: it falls under that feudal period in the mid fifteenth
21:52
Speaker 4: to the early seventeenth centuries, and we start to get
21:55
Speaker 4: these accounts of warlord's wives wearing armor and leading women
21:59
Speaker 4: into fights with those naganata.
22:02
Speaker 5: But historical accounts of women in action deal more often
22:06
Speaker 5: with samurai class women defending the home rather than specifically
22:11
Speaker 5: going out onto the battlefield. So basically the deal was
22:15
Speaker 5: that if you were a samurai dude, which is kind
22:17
Speaker 5: of redundant to even say, you'd be part of the
22:20
Speaker 5: warrior class and you had to accept that your whole
22:23
Speaker 5: family was obliged to serve the Lord and master. Would
22:28
Speaker 5: that also be like the Showgun with the you know,
22:30
Speaker 5: because the showgun is a general, so they would all
22:32
Speaker 5: essentially be loyal to the Showgun. And it wasn't uncommon
22:36
Speaker 5: for the womenfolk to have to perform the menfolks duties
22:40
Speaker 5: if they were away, which might include everything from just
22:44
Speaker 5: working on house repairs to defending the castle or home,
22:49
Speaker 5: to you know, taking care of heads once they've been
22:54
Speaker 5: chopped off of bodies, because there is a very ceremonial
22:58
Speaker 5: presentation of decapitated heads that would happen after the fighting
23:04
Speaker 5: had chilled out for a minute.
23:06
Speaker 4: Yeah, women's role during war if they were holed up
23:09
Speaker 4: in the castle, it was really interesting. So they'd be
23:11
Speaker 4: doing everything from casing bullets, to caring for the wounded,
23:15
Speaker 4: to throwing wet blankets on cannon balls before they could explode.
23:19
Speaker 4: Can you imagine I would not sign up for that job.
23:22
Speaker 4: I'll be like, I'll be over here casing the bullets
23:25
Speaker 4: because there's no blood involved in that and no.
23:27
Speaker 3: Potential dismemberment from cannonballs.
23:30
Speaker 4: But yeah, like Christin said, they would also prepare enemy
23:33
Speaker 4: heads for head viewing ceremonies. And I read this and
23:36
Speaker 4: was like, what this sounds awful? What is a head
23:41
Speaker 4: viewing ceremony? And it's literally that it's like cleaning up
23:44
Speaker 4: the head, washing it, blackening the teeth, and presenting it
23:49
Speaker 4: to the victor or the victorious family or clan to
23:53
Speaker 4: be like, hey, hey, look at what we did. Very
23:56
Speaker 4: game of thronesy back then, very well. So in the
23:59
Speaker 4: midst seventeenth century, though after the Warring States period, we
24:03
Speaker 4: hit a little bit of a more peaceful time. Women
24:06
Speaker 4: are still being trained to use the naganata because by
24:09
Speaker 4: this point it's pretty much a ladies tool and it's
24:12
Speaker 4: only associated with them. But instead of all of this
24:16
Speaker 4: protecting the castle from the enemy thing, they basically became,
24:20
Speaker 4: as one source said, kind of like a neighborhood watch
24:23
Speaker 4: type of things. So even though their rights were more
24:25
Speaker 4: restricted they were expected to stay in the home, they
24:27
Speaker 4: would still if a stranger entered the area, grab the
24:32
Speaker 4: old naganata and run outside to protect their hood from strangers.
24:36
Speaker 5: It's like housewives today who buy tasers, you know, they're
24:41
Speaker 5: actually like taser shows instead of tupperware parties.
24:44
Speaker 4: Really, there are taser parties.
24:46
Speaker 5: Yes, I know this firsthand from someone who has been
24:50
Speaker 5: to one and purchased one.
24:52
Speaker 3: I would there are pink washed tasers.
24:56
Speaker 4: I had no idea.
24:57
Speaker 5: Yeah, naganada, Wait cool, I'm just saying no, I'm not
25:02
Speaker 5: advocating four Day's person the home. But let's talk though
25:07
Speaker 5: about some of the specific women, because one thing that
25:13
Speaker 5: definitely emerged as we were researching this topic was that
25:18
Speaker 5: A the numbers are low, and B there are just
25:22
Speaker 5: a handful of actual individual women with names that you
25:29
Speaker 5: hear about who are repeated over and over again in
25:32
Speaker 5: any kind of female samurai roundup or history that you
25:36
Speaker 5: might read. And again, I keep catching myself saying female
25:38
Speaker 5: samurai because I feel like I'm just shorthand.
25:41
Speaker 3: Okay, okay, sure, I forgive you.
25:44
Speaker 4: Some of our listeners might write in, but hey, we
25:46
Speaker 4: get it. We understand at least.
25:47
Speaker 5: Yeah, may I acknowledge the imprecision of my language.
26:01
Speaker 4: Well, So, in addition to the countless women that we've
26:04
Speaker 4: been talking about who defended their homes and avenge the
26:07
Speaker 4: deaths of family and lords, we wanted to name a
26:11
Speaker 4: few that stand out.
26:12
Speaker 3: In the history books.
26:13
Speaker 4: But the first two that we're going to talk about
26:16
Speaker 4: should be taken with a slight grain of salt because
26:20
Speaker 4: mainly they may not have really existed. Oh no, Yeah,
26:25
Speaker 4: So Tomo Gozen is one of the most famous, most
26:28
Speaker 4: often cited examples of a woman warrior. But she might
26:33
Speaker 4: have been a legend. It's not sure why. If she
26:36
Speaker 4: was a legend, she was created. It's possible that she
26:39
Speaker 4: was created to shame a certain male warrior, to make
26:44
Speaker 4: him seem like he needed a woman to help him.
26:47
Speaker 4: But regardless, it is a great story, and so let's
26:51
Speaker 4: take it as that and talk about the legendary Tuma Gozen.
26:55
Speaker 4: First of all, Gozen is not her last name. It's
26:56
Speaker 4: not like how I'm Caroline Irvin. Gozen is a title,
26:59
Speaker 4: and it's basically young lady, and it was sometimes applied
27:02
Speaker 4: to women warriors specifically, so you could be goes In Caroline. Yeah,
27:06
Speaker 4: young lady Caroline. Well, it just reminds me of Gozer
27:09
Speaker 4: from Ghostbusters. Then and then I just go on a
27:13
Speaker 4: tangent in my brain, and then he goes in on
27:15
Speaker 4: a tangent. Well, so, during the Genpei War from eleven
27:21
Speaker 4: eighty to eighty five, Toma supposedly fought alongside male Samurai warriors.
27:27
Speaker 4: And there's an account, a historical account that's possibly made up,
27:30
Speaker 4: that says many times she had taken the field armed
27:34
Speaker 4: at all points and won matchless renown and encounters with
27:37
Speaker 4: the bravest captains. And so in this last fight, when
27:40
Speaker 4: all the others had been slain or fled, among the
27:43
Speaker 4: last seven, there road Tomo. And she's the only woman.
27:48
Speaker 3: Warrior to be described in any detail in any war account.
27:52
Speaker 3: And so it's this, it's this detail and this focus.
27:57
Speaker 4: On her and her accomplishments and her badass that makes
28:01
Speaker 4: people go, well, are.
28:03
Speaker 3: We sure that she actually existed?
28:05
Speaker 4: And even if she didn't, it's a great myth and
28:08
Speaker 4: it's a great story. The same way that you might
28:10
Speaker 4: be inspired by the story of like Athena and think
28:12
Speaker 4: Athena is a great character in history, I think Tomo
28:15
Speaker 4: is too.
28:16
Speaker 3: She's described as.
28:17
Speaker 4: Beautiful, fearless, and a masters swordsman and archer who led
28:21
Speaker 4: men into battle. And legend has it that she escaped
28:24
Speaker 4: her enemies during a battle and gave up fighting to
28:27
Speaker 4: marry or become a concubine, whichever, and when her husband died,
28:33
Speaker 4: she ended up becoming a nun, and.
28:36
Speaker 5: She's depicted a lot in art, right, A lot of
28:38
Speaker 5: times those female warrior paintings or even embroidery that you
28:44
Speaker 5: might see could be depicting Tomo goes In, or they
28:49
Speaker 5: could be depicting Hongaku goes In also, who apparently rode
28:53
Speaker 5: into battle when her clan rebelled against the shogunate or
28:56
Speaker 5: the military leadership in eleven eighty nine. She ended up
29:00
Speaker 5: getting wounded and captured, and an enemy soldier who wanted
29:04
Speaker 5: her as a bride kept her from committing sepaku.
29:07
Speaker 3: However, other accounts do say she remained in the castle the.
29:10
Speaker 4: Whole time until being felled by an arrow, and sepuku
29:13
Speaker 4: would have been an honorable suicide, correct a Mundo?
29:17
Speaker 5: Well, and then we have a third and is she
29:21
Speaker 5: more verified historically verified and Twitter verified?
29:24
Speaker 2: Yeah?
29:26
Speaker 3: Our next, our next three are Twitter verified.
29:29
Speaker 5: So in fifteen seventy seven, Oweno Serahimi led a group
29:33
Speaker 5: of more than thirty women in a charge against besieging troops,
29:38
Speaker 5: and when the samurai wouldn't engage and kill the women,
29:42
Speaker 5: the frustrated women warriors returned to the castle, and you
29:46
Speaker 5: guessed it committed mass suicide well just imagine.
29:50
Speaker 3: Okay, So here are these women who are like, we're
29:52
Speaker 3: going to do our duty.
29:53
Speaker 4: We're going to do our honor. We're going to be
29:54
Speaker 4: honorable women warriors, we are going to go to war
29:58
Speaker 4: with these men. And they go outside, and the guys
30:00
Speaker 4: were like, whoa, whoa. We might we might not understand
30:03
Speaker 4: the concept of chivalry or practice it, but we're not
30:06
Speaker 4: going to kill ladies. And the women are like, so.
30:10
Speaker 3: Seriously, but I've got my armor, am i Naganada.
30:14
Speaker 5: Like, well, I wonder if they were like, we're not
30:16
Speaker 5: going to kill you, because we could just capture you
30:18
Speaker 5: and make you are concubines.
30:20
Speaker 4: True story probably accurate, and another figure who's often cited
30:25
Speaker 4: is Nakano Takiko, who fought during the Botionan Civil War
30:29
Speaker 4: from eighteen sixty eight to sixty nine.
30:31
Speaker 3: During the Battle of Azu.
30:33
Speaker 4: She led other women warriors known as the Women's Army,
30:36
Speaker 4: and of course they weren't recognized as an official part
30:40
Speaker 4: of the army, but they went up against the Imperial Army,
30:43
Speaker 4: who were horrified to see that they were facing women,
30:47
Speaker 4: and so again similarly, they decided to stop fighting and
30:50
Speaker 4: take the women alive, and of course women were like,
30:53
Speaker 4: oh wait, so you guys you're not like fighting right now?
30:56
Speaker 3: Oh well, we're just going to kill a.
30:58
Speaker 4: Whole bunch of you.
30:58
Speaker 5: Then and when she was shot in the chest, she
31:02
Speaker 5: asked her sister to behead her so the enemy wouldn't again.
31:07
Speaker 5: It's all about honor and death. It's like no, no, no,
31:09
Speaker 5: no one else is going to kill me. Yeah, I
31:12
Speaker 5: will go down the way. It's like, you can't fire me.
31:14
Speaker 5: I quit.
31:16
Speaker 3: Yeah, And so her sister did it.
31:18
Speaker 4: Which I also can't imagine. Her sister beheaded her and
31:22
Speaker 4: then buried her head. And now there's like a there's
31:25
Speaker 4: a memorial statue that you can go visit.
31:27
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, wasn't that the one where schoolgirls will.
31:31
Speaker 5: Often go and visit this monument to her because she's
31:35
Speaker 5: such a heroine.
31:36
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's pretty neat.
31:38
Speaker 5: Any Japanese listeners, if you've been there and have a photo,
31:41
Speaker 5: please send it to us.
31:42
Speaker 3: Yeah, or just any more details. We want to hear
31:45
Speaker 3: details about all of this stuff.
31:47
Speaker 4: And another woman we want to tell you about is
31:49
Speaker 4: Yamamoto Yaeiko, who in eighteen sixty eight, during that same
31:53
Speaker 4: Battle of Azu, replaced her gunnery instructor father who'd been
31:57
Speaker 4: killed during the fighting, and using her repeating rifle, she
32:01
Speaker 4: fought alongside the men. And she's a really fascinating character,
32:05
Speaker 4: Like we could have done an entire episode just on
32:07
Speaker 4: her alone. But she went on to teach at the
32:10
Speaker 4: Kyoto Women's School, where she met and married This guy
32:14
Speaker 4: sounds pretty awesome. He's a pro women's rights former samurai
32:18
Speaker 4: who had spent a lot of time in the US,
32:21
Speaker 4: and together as a pair, they founded the Doshisha University
32:26
Speaker 4: in Kyoto. So after her husband died, she ends up
32:29
Speaker 4: joining the Japanese Red Cross, leading a team of forty
32:33
Speaker 4: nurses during the war between China and Japan, and becomes
32:37
Speaker 4: one of the first women in Japan to be decorated
32:40
Speaker 4: for her service to the country. Wow.
32:43
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, she's an incredible figure, as are all
32:46
Speaker 3: of these women, even Tomo Goozen, who's potentially a mythological character.
32:52
Speaker 4: Well. I love the story too of Yamamoto though, because.
32:56
Speaker 5: She just keeps going and going and going, and it
32:59
Speaker 5: at least is honored And I mean, I guess, I mean,
33:03
Speaker 5: there's the monument to Nakano, but Yaomosho, you know, was
33:08
Speaker 5: able to go and lead those those nurses during the
33:11
Speaker 5: Sino Jezzy.
33:12
Speaker 3: Yeah, she really didn't stop.
33:13
Speaker 4: She continued on with the attitude of having duty, of
33:18
Speaker 4: having honor, wanting to serve others, serve her country, and
33:23
Speaker 4: leading other women as she did it. And so while
33:27
Speaker 4: there's not a ton of unfortunately, while there's not a
33:31
Speaker 4: ton of hard evidence out there about warrior women in Japan,
33:37
Speaker 4: and even though a bunch of sources do contradict each other,
33:41
Speaker 4: I think it is interesting just to look at how
33:44
Speaker 4: culture shaped not only views of women, but what they
33:47
Speaker 4: were even allowed to do, and that even if a
33:50
Speaker 4: woman could not be a samurai because a samurai is
33:54
Speaker 4: a is a dude soldier, she could still pursue that
33:58
Speaker 4: duty and honor in her own way as part of
34:01
Speaker 4: the samurai.
34:02
Speaker 5: Class well, and their biography is just exemplify that cultural
34:08
Speaker 5: loyalty that was so instilled.
34:10
Speaker 4: Through so many generations too.
34:13
Speaker 5: Well.
34:13
Speaker 4: So I'm definitely interested in hearing from listeners. I know
34:16
Speaker 4: we have a bunch of history buffs, and specifically some
34:19
Speaker 4: Japanese history buffs out there. I know we had a
34:22
Speaker 4: lot of comments on the Tumblr post about the Onu Bugisha,
34:27
Speaker 4: and so I mean, if you have any stories, have
34:29
Speaker 4: you done any research. Have you in fact trained in
34:33
Speaker 4: any martial arts? Do you own a Naga Nata and
34:36
Speaker 4: use it?
34:37
Speaker 5: Mom Stuff at house stuffworks dot Com is our email address.
34:40
Speaker 5: You can also tweet us at mom Stuff podcast, our
34:43
Speaker 5: messages on Facebook, and we've got a couple of messages.
34:46
Speaker 4: To share with you right now.
34:53
Speaker 3: Well, I have a couple of letters here about our
34:56
Speaker 3: waste training episode.
34:57
Speaker 4: This is from Megan. She says mentioned at one point
35:00
Speaker 4: that Jessica Alba started wearing a waist trainer after having
35:03
Speaker 4: a baby helped her uterus go back to its previous size.
35:07
Speaker 4: While I agree that waiste trainers are dangerous and it's
35:09
Speaker 4: unlikely that her waiste trainer really had this effect because
35:12
Speaker 4: it doesn't really go down far enough to fully support
35:15
Speaker 4: the uterus, there is a history of using belly banding
35:18
Speaker 4: of some sort to support the uterus postpartum and assisting
35:21
Speaker 4: it in returning to its pre baby shape, to support
35:24
Speaker 4: the back during pregnancy, and to assist patients with uterine
35:26
Speaker 4: prolapse support the muscles of the uterus. As a midwife
35:30
Speaker 4: and training, this is something that's of great interest to me,
35:33
Speaker 4: and so Megan recommends looking up information about the use
35:37
Speaker 4: of fajas in Guatemala, which she says is a traditional
35:40
Speaker 4: Mayan belly banding device for pregnant women.
35:43
Speaker 3: She says these.
35:44
Speaker 4: Should definitely be used with caution, as if they are
35:46
Speaker 4: tied too tightly there can be side effects, but they
35:49
Speaker 4: have been anecdotally found helpful by women who use them
35:51
Speaker 4: in South America.
35:53
Speaker 3: Just another thought on the subject.
35:54
Speaker 4: So thanks, Megan.
35:56
Speaker 5: I've got a letter here from Susan also about our
35:59
Speaker 5: waite training at them. And let me just tell you
36:01
Speaker 5: how many letters we've gotten.
36:03
Speaker 4: About this episode.
36:04
Speaker 3: I love it, so, she writes.
36:07
Speaker 5: Several years ago, I was getting fitted for bridesmaids dresses
36:12
Speaker 5: and at the time I was the heaviest i'd been,
36:14
Speaker 5: so I was already a little apprehensive of getting fitted
36:17
Speaker 5: when I went in. The first thing the sales that
36:20
Speaker 5: he said to me was, well, I can tell from
36:22
Speaker 5: your bust you're going to need a much bigger size.
36:25
Speaker 4: Lovely.
36:27
Speaker 5: Anyway, as I was trying the sample size on and
36:29
Speaker 5: she measured me, she suggested that I think about losing
36:32
Speaker 5: weight before the wedding. She kindly reminded me that there
36:36
Speaker 5: was plenty of time before the wedding to lose a
36:37
Speaker 5: few pounds.
36:38
Speaker 3: And maybe I should think about wearing a corset.
36:41
Speaker 5: She went on and on about how it will make
36:43
Speaker 5: me look so much slimmer and leaner and give me
36:46
Speaker 5: a much better all around look. Feeling completely exposed, offended,
36:50
Speaker 5: and embarrassed, I just kept saying things like, uh, yeah, great.
36:53
Speaker 4: Thanks.
36:54
Speaker 5: After she was done explaining all the benefits of a
36:56
Speaker 5: corset on the day of the event, she suggested I
36:58
Speaker 5: start wearing one now well to.
37:00
Speaker 3: Get used to it and to help me lose weight.
37:03
Speaker 4: Again.
37:03
Speaker 5: I said, oh, great, thanks, to which she followed up with, well,
37:06
Speaker 5: if you can't breathe, you can't eat. I was horrified.
37:11
Speaker 5: I quickly dressed, paid for my overpriced address, and ran
37:14
Speaker 5: out of there as fast as I could. I promised
37:16
Speaker 5: I would never subject my bridesmaids to that kind of
37:19
Speaker 5: behavior or service if I ever got married. I laugh
37:22
Speaker 5: about it today because it's just so ridiculous that anyone
37:26
Speaker 5: would say that in twenty twelve when this happened, But
37:29
Speaker 5: it was incredibly embarrassing and terribly offensive. Thanks so much
37:33
Speaker 5: for putting out such a great podcast with such great topics.
37:36
Speaker 5: I recommend it to so many people I know, women
37:39
Speaker 5: and men, so thank you so much. Susan and oh
37:44
Speaker 5: boy to that saleswoman. If you're listening, please never do
37:48
Speaker 5: that to a human body again, so we will now
37:52
Speaker 5: want to hear your stories. Mom.
37:53
Speaker 4: Stuff at houseof works dot com is our email.
37:55
Speaker 5: Address and for links to all of our social media
37:57
Speaker 5: as well as all of our blogs, videos, and podcast
38:00
Speaker 5: pass with this one, including our sources. So you can
38:02
Speaker 5: learn more firsthand about the warrior women of Japan. Head
38:07
Speaker 5: on over to stuff Mom Never told.
38:09
Speaker 4: You dot com. But more on this and thousands of
38:16
Speaker 4: other topics does it, How stuffworks dot com