Tokyo female students listen to Mrs. Gordon

Women college students in Tokyo had an opportunity to learn how Mrs. Beate Sirota Gordon, as a staff member on the group that drafted the Japanese Constitution, made efforts to include women's equality clauses in the Constitution.

Gordon spoke about her experience at an assembly held on May 9 by the Tokyo Women Students' Seminar in Tokyo University's Komaba Campus, with about 230 attending.

Gordon, at age five, came to Tokyo and lived there until she was 15. Since then she has lived in the U.S. In December 1945, she revisited Japan as a GHQ staff member to take part in the work on the Constitution.

Gordon told the audience that she was successful in urging the then Japanese government to establish the principle of women's equality, overcoming fierce opposition from other drafters who were all men.

The Constitution represents Japanese women's wish which had long been suppressed, Gordon said.

Pointing out that the Constitution will inspire all oppressed women in the world, Gordon emphasized how important it is to make the Constitution known widely. (end)