Fusae Ichikawa

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Fusae Ichikawa (市川房枝, Ichikawa Fusae^?, 1893 - 1981) was a Japanese feminist, politician and women's suffrage leader.

Born in Aichi Prefecture in 1893, Ichikawa attended the Aichi Women's Teacher Academy with the intention of becoming a primary school teacher. Upon her relocation to Tokyo in the 1910s, however, she became exposed to the women's movement. Returning to Aichi in 1917, she became a reporter with the Nagoya Shimbun, and in 1920 co-founded the New Women's Association (新婦人協会, Shin-fujin kyokai) together with pioneering Japanese feminist Hiratsuka Raicho. Two years later, Ichikawa traveled to the United States with a view to making contact with American women's suffrage leader Alice Paul. Returning to Japan in 1924 to work for the Tokyo branch office of the International Labour Organization, she founded Japan's first women's suffrage organization, the Women's Suffrage League of Japan (日本婦人有権者同盟, Nippon fujin yuken domei), which in 1930 held the country's first ever national convention on the enfranchisement of women in Japan.

The postwar occupation period saw Ichikawa play an important role in ensuring that women's suffrage was enshrined in Japan's postwar constitution, arguing that the political empowerment of women might have prevented Japan's entry into such a destructive war. The ensuing years saw her establish herself as a pioneering female politician. First elected to the House of Councillors in 1953 from the Tokyo district, she would serve as an independent Diet member until her death in 1981 at the age of 87. A tireless champion of women's issues, she would organize and participate in women's conferences in Japan and internationally, and in 1980 emerged as the leading voice in urging the Japanese government to ratify the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. The same year saw her re-elected to the House of Councillors with the highest number of votes from the national constituency.