Abstract
This article considers Rural Women's Associations organized by the Financial Cooperative Union, which played a significant role during the Rural Promotion Campaign, and discusses how it planned to be a means of enlightenment for rural households. As a means to encourage the village mainstay's “autonomic” activities, Women Enlightenment Superintendents took their place in the Rural Promotion Campaign as part of the war regime. Their roles offer a glimpse into rural women's daily lives. Based on the Rural Promotion Campaign which started in 1933, authorities aimed for the penetration of the policy into every household “kitchen,” where rural women were considered in a new rehabilitation role.
To guide rural women, the government cultivated mainstays (chu-sin jimbutsu), connecting central government with rural areas, where people were expected to support the policy, and a top-down influence was exerted on each village. This influence was also spread to remote rural regions by the Financial Cooperative Union, which organized the Rural Women's Association and supported enlightenment activities, such as the dissemination of magazines. However, due to a lack of formal education, the rural literacy rate was very low, thus limiting the mobilization of life improvement promotion via magazines.
The Rural Promotion Campaign assumed an essential role in politics-purposive education and the cultivation of mainstays, as well as the continual enlightenment of rural women through “autonomic” rehabilitation by the multilayered observation of Women Enlightenment superintendents.
