Keiko Ochiai

Keiko Ochiai (1945 (age 74–75)) is a Japanese author, bookstore owner, radio personality, and feminist.

She was born in Tokyo out-of-wedlock to parents who encouraged her to develop hobbies considered "unusual" for a girl, including carpentry.[1] While at Meiji University, she joined the English Speaking Society and became its first female officer.[1] She graduated in 1967.[2]

Ochiai was a radio celebrity in the 1970s and often DJ-ed under the name "Lemon-chan."[3][1] She gained popularity through her novel advice show, in which listeners could call in and describe their problems in order to receive her advice in real time.[2] She has also written about jazz.[4]

She published a widely acclaimed series of essays about women in Japanese cities titled A Spoonful of Happiness (Suppun Ippai no Shiawase) based on her newspaper columns.[1][2] In 1982, she wrote The Rape (Za reipu), about the lawsuit of the rape of an independent young career woman (kyariaūman) by her ex-boyfriend.[5][2] In the novel, Ochiai establishes that women have the right to decide with whom they decide to be intimate—a radical idea at the time in Japan.[2] She also introduces the phrase "penis fascination" to describe male obsession with sexual dominance.[2]

In 1994, she published The Second Rape, still untranslated into English.[6] A 2017 article stated that she had published over 130 books and essays.[7]

In 1976, she founded a children's bookstore named "Crayonhouse" (or "Crayon House") in Tokyo.[3] According to the store's website, the store looks at culture through the point of view of children and of women, with a special focus on vegetarianism and organic products.[8] She has stated that it was founded based on "my belief that a society that is kind to children, that thinks about the happiness of future generations, is a society where anyone can live happily."[7]

Since the 1970s, Ochiai has been outspoken about men who grope women on crowded subways (a topic known as "chikan" or "pervert"), stating that the way to stop the problem is to raise awareness.[9]

Inspired by the Fukushima Daichii nuclear disaster, Ochiai has held monthly workshops on the problems of nuclear power called "Morning Study of Silent Spring," a nod to her blog "Journal of Silent Spring," which is also a reference to Rachel Carson's environmentalist classic Silent Spring.[3] These workshops started in May 2011 and are held at Crayonhouse.[3] She remains an advocate of alternative power sources.[10]

Ochiai has never been married and is proud of her single status, seeing it as a key way of keeping her independence.[2] She is also outspoken about the discrimination she faced as a child born out-of-wedlock.[7]

Further Resources

• Ochiai's blog, "Journal of Silent Spring" (in Japanese only)
• Aun-Drey Reynaldo Brown, "Sex and Silence: Ochiai Keiko's The Rape in a historical context," MA Thesis, University of Kansas, 2012.

References

1. Prusmack, Florence (1998). "Keiko Ochiai". www.distinguishedwomen.com. Retrieved 2019-11-21.
2. McKinstry, John A.; McKinstry (1991). Jinsei Annai, "life's Guide": Glimpses of Japan Through a Popular Advice Column. M.E. Sharpe. pp. 54–55. ISBN 978-0-87332-762-6. Keiko Ochiai (1945-), author.
3. Iizuka, Satoshi (2015-03-10). "Leader of anti-atomic seminars unsilenced four years on". The Japan Times Online. ISSN 0447-5763. Retrieved 2019-11-21.
4. Atkins, E. Taylor (November 2003). Jazz Planet. Jackson, MI: Univ. Press of Mississippi. pp. 192. ISBN 978-1-57806-609-4. Keiko Ochiai (1945-), author.
5. Dollase, Hiromi Tsuchiya (2019-05-01). Age of Shojo: The Emergence, Evolution, and Power of Japanese Girls' Magazine Fiction. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. pp. 164 (note 26). ISBN 978-1-4384-7392-5.
6. 落合恵子 (1994). セカンドレイプ / "The second rape" / by Ochiai Keiko. 東京: 講談社. ISBN 978-4-06-206840-6. OCLC 32258408.
7. Haruka Masumizu (February 6, 2017). "Keiko Ochiai: One woman's 40 years of cracking Japan's cement ceiling". Japan Today. Retrieved 2019-11-21.
8. "クレヨンハウス 絵本・木のおもちゃ・オーガニック". www.crayonhouse.co.jp. Retrieved 2019-11-21.
9. Buckley, Sandra (1997). Broken silence : voices of Japanese feminism. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. p. 233. ISBN 0-585-05441-X. OCLC 1053006008.
10. "Anti-Nuclear Campaign in Japan Moves Forward, Acknowledges Struggles". Voice of America. February 7, 2012. Retrieved 2019-11-21.