Fukuda Hideko

The group had planned to provide guns, bombs, and manpower to support reformist movements in Korea before the police intercepted them.

After being freed, Fukuda continued to pursue social and gender reforms in Japan, playing an active role in the Freedom and People's Rights Movement which pushed for democratic changes to the government.

Throughout her life, Fukuda was involved in Japanese reform movements as they transitioned from aiming on increasing citizen's political rights to the more socialist-focused waves which attempted to exact nationwide social and economic revisions.

Like some other prominent women in the reform movement, Fukuda's family found her resistant to conforming to "proper" feminine behavior.

[5] However, the school was shut down in 1884 on order of the government, which was worried about the spreading popularity of the People's Rights Movement and the growing political ambitions of women.

[7] Fukuda helped raise funds for the Korean Revolutionary Movement, but she was frustrated by the lack of discipline and habit of many of the male members to go visit brothels, which delayed the group's acquisition of supplies.

However, the police had already been investigating the large number of robberies in the Osaka area caused by the group, and before the party could travel to Seoul, on November 23, 1885, the roughly 130 members were arrested and charged with the illegal possession of weapons and encouraging riots.

Although Fukuda wrote that she regretted her involvement in the incident, her trial was widely publicized and served to bring her national attention.

In 1903 he and a group of collaborators called the Heiminsha started the Heimin Shimbun, a newspaper dedicated to spreading the socialist message.

[5] Half my Life was the first autobiography written by a woman in Japan, and included references to the works of Benjamin Franklin, Joan of Arc, and Russian nihilists, among others.

She disagreed with Japan's imperialist policies and the excesses of the upper class, but also found issue with the Liberal Party's "insincerity" and disreputable behavior, which had led her to break off with the group responsible for the Osaka incident.

[11] Aside from extended discussion of socialist figures such as Karl Marx and Peter Kropotkin, Sekai Fujin also published translations of foreign fiction, such as Maxim Gorky's Chelkash (as Wandering (放浪, Hourou) ) and Guy de Maupassant's Le Diable (as Devil (魔, Ma) ).

The law, Article Five of the Police Security Regulations, specifically forbade women from joining political parties or taking a public role in policy or debates.

The Heimin Shimbun was shut down, labor revolts were violently repressed, the socialist party was banned, and Sakai Toshihiko was imprisoned.

[3] Fukuda saw the difficulties faced by women as intrinsically tied to the exploitative capitalist system in place, and yearned for a return to an agrarian-modeled society.

"[3] Fukuda's article pushed for an encompassing discussion of equality as a societal issue over the more personal approach taken by other leading feminists of the day.

[5] While her role in helping trail blaze the feminist movement in Japan was not fully acknowledged until after her death, a group of activists celebrated her achievements 100 years after her birth by erecting a memorial in her honor in Okayama.