WomenĄŻs Consciousness on Calligraphy in Contemporary Japan ; Exitence and Influence of Calligraphy in WomenĄŻs Education
There are a lot of women learning calligraphy in Japan. This comes from womenĄŻs education.
In the Heian period (8~10c), Japanese kana syllabary for women was developed, which was based on Chinese ideographs. In those days, the education for aristocratic women began with the learning of this kana syllabary. WomenĄŻs skilful calligraphy was a prerequisite condition for a proposal of marriage and a successful married life.
This tradition was followed by post generations. Learning calligraphy became an essential aspect of an accomplished woman, and then in the modern age, when private schools for children became popular, parents made girls learn calligraphy.
Today, even in the age of computers, parents still make their children attend private calligraphy schools. Though both boys and girls attend, girls tend to learn longer than boys. The reason is that women are sub-consciously obsessed by the fact that they are naturally expected to write beautifully. Another reason is that Chinese characters are ideographs and by nature beautiful in form, and at the same time kana was designed so that women could write easily.
Present-day women are not as preoccupied with the traditional idea of calligraphy as an important subject for womenĄŻs education. However, it can be said that many Japanese women are fond of calligraphy and writing beautifully, and find in calligraphy a deep appreciation of the essence of Chinese calligraphy.
The multitude of women who love calligraphy is an important element for the further development of calligraphy culture. It is important to have an awareness of the reason why women learned calligraphy, and we have to look at this phenomenon objectively.