Last Updated on March 8, 2024 by Kittredge Cherry

Audrey Lockwood Feminist Forum 1984

“Feminist Forum: Feminism in Japan and the World” was an influential international monthly magazine covering women in politics, culture, religion and language. It was produced in Tokyo from 1979-86 and became a rare source of news on lesbians in Japan.  Audrey Lockwood served as one of its editors, and it featured writing by her spouse, Kittredge Cherry, who later founded Q Spirit.

Q Spirit is sharing the history of “Feminist Forum,” including covers and other content, for International Women’s Day (March 8) and Women’s History Month (March). They were digitized and posted  online here by Q Spirit as a service to readers.

[Update in 2024:  This year Q Spirit especially honors the memory of “Feminist Forum” contributor Mayo Issobe, who passed away on Jan. 25, 2024.]

Decades before the Internet connected people over the World Wide Web, “Feminist Forum” was part of an international grassroots network of lesbian and feminist activists.  The magazine was exchanged with dozens of lesbian and feminist newsletters worldwide.

“Feminist Forum,” January 1984, had a cover story on Genshu Hanayagi challenging the patriarchal structure of traditional Japanese performing arts.

“Doing ‘Feminist Forum’ is one of my proudest achievements,” Lockwood said in a recent interview with Q Spirit. “It was so exciting to be a part of an international grassroots news and activism network. It had influence way beyond its small subscription base, and had the only coverage in English of a lot of Japanese, South Korean and Asian feminist activism.  What we learned then has helped us for our entire life.”

“Feminist Forum” was the first place to publish the articles that grew into the bestselling book “Womansword: What Japanese Words Say About Women” by Kittredge Cherry. Now Cherry runs Q Spirit with help behind the scenes from Lockwood.  Thanks to marriage equality laws, they are legally married now after decades together.

Lockwood and Cherry Japan 1983

Audrey Lockwood, left, and Kittredge Cherry at a washi paper-making studio in Japan in 1983

It was through “Feminist Forum” that they first learned about the LGBTQ-affirming Metropolitan Community Churches. MCC Los Angeles pastor Nancy Wilson told them about it when she subscribed to “Feminist Forum.” Later Cherry went on to be ordained as MCC clergy, and Wilson rose to become moderator of the entire MCC denomination. In the 1990s they worked together advocating for LGBTQ rights at the National Council of Churches and World Council of Churches.

Feminist Forum, September 1984, examined sexism in the Olympics with a cover story titled “Behind the Gold Medals.

“Feminist Forum” was the only publication in the world that published an article about the workshop on lesbian feminism at the First Annual Conference of Feminists in Japan in June 1983.  Primarily in English, the conference brought together 50 Japanese and 50 expatriate attendees at the National Women’s Education Center in Saitama, 19 miles north of Tokyo.  The whole July issue was devoted to the conference.  Lockwood wrote about the lesbian feminist workshop in a report titled “Tears of Insight.”

Feminist Forum - 1983-7

“Feminist Forum,” July 1983, devoted the whole issue to the First Annual Conference of Feminists in Japan — including the only article ever published about the lesbian feminist workshop there.

“The power of this global feminist news network influenced my life over time, well beyond the boundaries of Japan,” Lockwood said. Thanks to “Feminist Forum,” she was invited to write a review of “Lesbian Nuns: Breaking Silence” for “Telewoman” in Oakland, CA. Later she became friends with activist Jeanne Cordova, one of the contributors to that anthology.

A similar connection grew out of Lockwood’s review in “Feminist Forum” of Chinese American poet Kitty Tsui’s groundbreaking Asian lesbian poetry book “Words of a Woman Who Breathes Fire.” “Decades later, I met Kitty, who remembered with excitement my review and we became friends in Long Beach, California,” Lockwood said.

Feminist Forum 1986 ad in Woman of Power

An ad for “Feminist Forum” appeared in “Woman of Power: A Magazine of Feminism, Spirituality and Politics” magazine in Fall 1986.

“Feminist Forum” writers included Kazue Suzuki, a Japanese journalist who studied in Iowa and later rose to the position of editor at the Asahi Shimbun, one of the most respected newspapers in Japan.  She helped Cherry do research for “Womansword” and became a lifelong friend.

“Feminism was a unifying force that connected us with Japanese activists in a really authentic way,” Lockwood said.  “People are struggling with it today, but our experience with ‘Feminism Forum’ shows that you can go beyond boundaries of race, nationality and language if you really want to.  Being a racial minority creates a different dynamic and causes new possibilities.  We learned how powerful internationalism is when you are in solidarity.”

“Feminist Forum” was founded by Anne Blasing and its final publisher was Maki Yoshida. The friendships forged through “Feminist Forum” led Blasing to become an official witness at Lockwood and Cherry’s 1987 Holy Union church wedding in San Francisco.

Feminist Forum, May 1984, did a cover story on “Women Warriors” with photos of a woman mayor leading a re-enactment of a battle from Japanese history.

The magazine featured English-language articles with news and views by Lockwood, Cherry and a wide variety of other writers, including pioneering Japanese lesbian feminist Mieko Watanabe, Japan Times reporters Kazue Suzuki and Mayo Issobe, Yuko Hasegawa, Toshiko Sunada, Kathryn Tietz Treece and scholar Rebecca Jennison. On one occasion, Cherry wrote an article in Japanese and their neighbor, Kazuko Katsuda, typed it for “Feminist Forum” on her Japanese typewriter. “Mrs. Katsuda was a wonderful business woman who proudly owned a stationery store in our Kamiochiai neighborhood,” Lockwood recalled.

“Feminist Forum” covered lesbian issues, but it had a broader focus of women’s rights in general. Memorable articles covered Japan’s Equal Employment Opportunity Law, sex discrimination in the Olympics, Japanese women warriors, and a visit to Ise Shrine, which is dedicated to the Shinto sun goddess Amaterasu. Regular features included a news roundup called “Take Back the News,” Cherry’s “Womansword” column, and the satirical “Feminist Fuss of the Month.”

Feminist Forum, February 1984, had a cover story titled “Woman was the Sun,” reflecting on the Shinto sun goddess and her shrine in Ise.

“Feminist Forum” did exchanges with lesbian and feminist magazines and newsletters all over the world, including Australia, Canada, England, Germany, India, New Zealand, South Korea and the United States. Well-known lesbian periodicals that exchanged with “Feminist Forum” included “Lesbian Tide,” “Lesbian Insider,” “Off Our Backs,” “Woman to Woman” and “Lesbian Connection,” the longest-running lesbian publication in the United States. They were part of a larger counter-cultural movement of women’s music festivals and feminist bookstores.

Copies were sent to academic institutions and libraries such as the Sophia Smith Collection of Women’s History at Smith College and the Lesbian Herstory Archives in New York. All of these publications and many more crowded into Lockwood and Cherry’s mailbox at their apartment in Tokyo’s Shinjuku ward.

The wide-ranging magazine sometimes addressed religion and spirituality. Lockwood’s 1984 reflection on her visit to Ise Shrine concluded,

“Feminism, in its attempt to come to terms with religious experience, must strive for the real, the true, and the holy. There can’t be a hint of hatred or a whiff of fraud in its expression. If women seek a new religion, they might do well to see how the people who really believe in it worship. Or better yet, search through their own national religious tradition, as Dr. Letty M. Russell, an American Christian feminist theologian has done. In “Human Liberation in a Feminist Perspective: A Theology.” Dr. Russell brings to light previously buried female prophets of the Old Testament, gives age old Biblical stories new feminist interpretations, and illuminates the general male bias of Biblical scholarship. The answers, as the trite saying goes, really are in your own backyard most of the time.”

Feminist Forum, November 1984, did a cover story on “Definite Victory” about support for U.S. vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro among Japanese feminists, including Mariko Mitsui, who was later elected to the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly.

The magazine was funded entirely by subscription fees paid by its roughly 300 to 400 subscribers.  A one-year subscription cost $24 by airmail or $19 by sea for international subscribers, or 3,000 yen in Japan. “I was very proud that it never lost money — quite an achievement for a feminist anything! I didn’t make a fortune on it, but there was always a little bit extra in the bank,” Lockwood said.

She was surprised at the enthusiastic reaction from millennial women when she brought photocopies of “Feminist Forum” to a women’s workshop in Los Angeles a few years ago. “One college freshman went into shock when she saw the date and realized that lesbian feminist stuff existed in Japan in 1984. She was stunned to meet me too. She said she wished she could do something like that,” Lockwood recalled.

It reminded her of how she felt when she first took a women’s history course taught by Linda Kerber at the University of Iowa. “I was drop-dead amazed,” Lockwood said. “I’d never heard of all these women of history who were being rediscovered. It’s an awakening: There have always been women in history who wanted freedom, and they get buried by patriarchy. By the time I got to Japan in 1979, I’d already taken women’s studies classes, so I had some advanced knowledge that wasn’t widely available.”

Feminist Forum, January 1985, interviewed Japanese feminist activist Aya Konishi for the cover story “Lessons of History” by Mayo Issobe.

Complete sets of “Feminist Forum” from Lockwood’s term as editor (1983-85) are archived at the University of California Los Angeles in the June L. Mazer Lesbian Archives and at the University of Iowa in the Kittredge Cherry and Audrey Lockwood papers at the Iowa Women’s Archives.

“Feminist Forum” was edited by Blasing until June 1983, when she turned it over to Lockwood. “I was in the right place at the right time and I seized the opportunity — and I did it all when I was 26 years old,” she recalled. “I had worked on it four years with Anne so I was well prepared to take over. I had a very clear vision of what to do and the skills to carry it out, and I had quite a bit of support.”

Founding of “Feminist Forum” remembered

Lockwood wrote the following account of those historic times for Q Spirit:

Anne Blasing founded the monthly magazine in 1979. Anne and I worked at Executive Language Schools in Tokyo, so when she started publishing it, I was in on the ground floor. I was a devoted helper — stuffing envelopes every month to send it worldwide, taking the issues to the post office, and meeting with Mr. Umeki, the printer. Mr. Umeki was a wonderful Japanese small business owner who loved to practice his English, and he was kind of on the adventure with us. He really respected our work and dedication.

Anne was a lesbian feminist mentor who helped me understand Japan when I was the new kid in town. She was about ten years older than I was, and came from my same home state. Anne grew up in a suburb of Milwaukee and had been a Peace Corp volunteer in Thailand. Her girlfriend was a Thai woman, the very first person from that country that I had ever met. Every morning during our break, Anne and I would go out for coffee and breakfast in Japanese cafes nearby across from Tokyo Station, in the business district. The Feminist Forum was the newsletter promoting the group, The International Feminists of Japan (IFJ), which she had also founded in 1979. She started the whole thing!

Audrey Lockwood in Kyoto 1986

Audrey Lockwood at Ginkakuji, the Temple of the Silver Pavilion, in Kyoto in summer 1980. Photo by George Lockwood.

IFJ met monthly at a dance studio called Jora, and also later in the basement of Tokyo Union Church. Every month, IFJ had a guest speaker or panel discussion on topics such as sex tourism, rape crisis centers, solidarity with Asian feminists, reporting on the United Nations World Conferences on Women in Stockholm and Nairobi. We advertised IFJ meetings and contact info in the Japan Times. About 30-50 women attended monthly from many countries– England, France, West Germany, Yugoslavia, US, South Korea, Japan, Canada, and New Zealand, to name a few… We sponsored one international conference, which was covered in Feminist Forum.

Chris Boatwright defended hetero rights amidst the lesbian juggernaut of IFJ and co-founded its “Straight Support Group.”  She was a combination of big sister, old Japan hand, party pal and fun hetero troublemaker.  Fluent in Japanese, Chris was a native of Alaska with a Japanese chef for a boyfriend.”

Feminist Forum, November 1983, had a political cartoon on the cover asking, “Aren’t they attacking the wrong things?”

More details and the flavor of the times are provided in the article that Lockwood wrote for the July 1983 issue when she assumed the role of editor. It is reprinted in full here:

From the Editor: “You may have noticed some changes…”

By Audrey Lockwood, July 1983

You may have noticed some changes in this issue of the “Feminist Forum.” That is because the “Forum” now has a new editor. Anne Blasing has resigned as editor as of June 5. Before I introduce myself, I would like to thank Anne for the fine job she has done on the newsletter over the past four and a half years.

Four and a half years ago there was no newsletter and there was no International Feminists of Japan. Anne decided that Tokyo sorely needed these two things, and so she got to work organizing them. As it turned out, there was a crying need for an international feminist organization, and the group grew rapidly. Newsletter subscriptions were solicited at the IFJ meetings, and it became the somewhat unofficial organ of IFJ.

Over time IFJ changed rather dramatically. The first members were university students and a few older women, but after a while, it became a diverse group of many nationalities and many factions. Meanwhile, as members left Tokyo, the newsletter spread to other cities in Japan and to other nations across the sea. The focus of FF changed too. It was as much a journal of feminist issues around the world as it was the voice of IFJ.

A few members of IFJ felt the Forum wasn’t concentrating enough on issues vital to the group. What was the role of FF? No one knew exactly, and this became a troublesome issue indeed. After much discussion (midnight meetings and heated arguments), the IFJ coordinating committee decided that IFJ needed its own newsletter; a publication run by the members of the group. In 1983, the IFJ Newsletter was born.

Obviously, it would be quite silly to have two newsletters publishing approximately the same things; it’s time for a change in editorial policy.

Oh yes the introduction I promised earlier. I’m Audrey E. Lockwood, and it is with great pleasure that I take over responsibility for the Forum’s publication and distribution. I’ve been involved with the newsletter for almost four years now; I feel it is time to broaden its appeal. In the next few months be prepared for some graphic, as well as journalistic changes.

All editors have special interests and causes to promote, and I am no exception to this rule. I hope to make the Forum into a journal of feminism in Japan. By this, I mean that I want FF to concentrate most of its pages on issues directly related to the experience of women in Japan; their hopes, fears and triumphs. At the moment, there is no regular English language publication of this kind.

I have many plans and dreams for this publication. When I asked Anne for some parting words of advice she said, “…just print the truth.” The simplicity of those words was a bit overwhelming, but I am determined to do this to the best of my ability.

The newsletter will aspire to journalistic excellence. Feminism needs an articulate voice. Of course, I am asking all of you for help in this area. Finding feminist news in Japan is not easy. If you have a good story or story idea, please feel free to write and tell me about it. However, I think I should make clear some things I cannot, in all good conscience, do.

Many feminists have argued that a true feminist editor should publish everything women write. But I don’t subscribe to this belief. I believe in editing pieces so that they are well written when they appear in print. A feminist journal should be fearless, but also it should dedicate itself to clarity and quality. Without those things, the rest of the world won’t be able to understand the urgency of our cause. Women have always been writers and great ones at that. Someone once told me this joke, “How many feminists does it take to screw in a light bulb? …Twenty, one to screw it in and nineteen to write about it.” There is some truth to this, and if nineteen great writers creep out of the tatami, this will be a wonderful English language voice of feminism in Japan.

“You may have noticed some changes,” began Audrey Lockwood in her “From the Editor” reflection in the July 1983 issue of “Feminist Forum.”

 

Feminist Forum, March 1984, did a cover story on “Fight for Equality” by Mieko Watanabe, a pioneering Japanese lesbian scholar and writer.

 

Feminist Forum, December 1984, covered the Osaka lecture by Susan Griffin, author of “Woman and Nature: The Roaring Inside Her.”

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Related books:

Rethinking Japanese Feminisms” by Julia C. Bullock, Ayako Kano and James Welker (editors). Published by University of Hawaii Press, 2017.

The Feminist Bookstore Movement: Lesbian Antiracism and Feminist Accountability” by Kristen Hogan (Duke University Press, 2016)

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Top image credit:
Audrey Lockwood collates copies of “Feminist Forum in 1984 with a sake barrel and a women’s suffrage doll in her Tokyo apartment. Photo by Kittredge Cherry.

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This post is part of the LGBTQ Calendar series by Kittredge Cherry. The series celebrates religious and spiritual holidays, events in LGBT and queer history, holy days, feast days, festivals, anniversaries, liturgical seasons and other occasions of special interest to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people of faith and our allies.

This article was originally published on Q Spirit on Aug. 1, 2021, was expanded with new material over time, and was most recently updated on March 8, 2024.

Copyright © Kittredge Cherry. All rights reserved.
Qspirit.net presents the Jesus in Love Blog on LGBTQ spirituality.

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