Jujitsu (1937)

Jujitsu for women didn’t start as a means for women’s self-protection. It was an offshoot of the Progressive Era’s views on physical education. If a woman strengthened herself physically and mentally, she’d become a better mother.¹

Women in the U.K. (white women especially) took the mental aspects of women’s advancement even further. When men refused to surrender their suffrage power, women used their newfound skills including jujitsu to gain the right to vote. Enfranchisement in the U.S. came later with the passage of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution.²

What types of self-defense were women learning? It varied by instructor and location. One of my favorite photographs of young girls learning jujitsu comes from the Yoshiaki Yamashita album from the Special Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries (posted above).³

Des Moines, Iowa

The advertisements I was able to locate to teach women jujitsu popped up in Iowa newspapers from 1900-1930s. Then didn’t show up again until the late 1960s. Was it due to the threat of Japanese imperialism? The return to domesticity of the 1950s? Maybe all of the above? I don’t know how many women took these classes. But there must have at least been a demand. Otherwise, why advertise?³

1. Rouse, Wendy, and Beth Slutsky. “Empowering the Physical and Political Self: Women and the Practice of Self-Defense, 1890-1920.” Journal of the Gilded and Progressive Era 13, no. 4 (2014): 470–99. ↩︎
2. “The Suffragettes Who Used Jiu-Jitsu To Literally Fight For Their Right To Vote,” All That’s Interesting. April 23, 2017. https://allthatsinteresting.com/jujutsu-suffragettes. ↩︎
3. Senryuken, Noguchi. Jujutsu. (1913). Translated by Eric Shahan, 2020. Darrell Max Craig. Japanese Jiu-Jitsu. Rutland, Vermont: Tuttle Publishing, 1995. ↩︎
4. “Jiu Jitsu School.” Des Moines Register. Des Moines, Iowa: February 27, 1923, 13.
   “Jiu Jitsu Club.” March 12, 1923. Des Moines Register. Des Moines, Iowa: 12.
   “Draws ‘Oofs’ Of Sheriffs By Jiu-Jitsu.” Des Moines Tribune. Des Moines, Iowa: December 12, 1935, # 17. “Jiu-Jitsu Expert to Teach Self-Defense.” Des Moines Register. Des Moines, Iowa: January 29, 1924, 3. “Masters of Self-Defense.” Iowa Bystander. Des Moines, Iowa: April 11, 1913, 2. ↩︎