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Kishida Toshiko (岸田 俊子), afterwards Nakajima Toshiko (中島 俊子 Nakajima Toshiko), (also known as Nakajima Shōen), was one of the first Japanese feminists. She wrote under the name Shōen (湘煙).

Biography
Kishida Toshiko was born in Kyoto Prefecture, Japan, in 1863. She grew up in a sound merchant household where her mother, Kishida Taka, would help strengthen her daughter's intellect through readings and discussions. She lived during the Meiji-Taishō period, which lasted from 1868 through 1926. During this period Japanese leaders opened themselves up to new ideas and reformers called for “new rights and freedoms”. The women of this reformist movement are now known as “Japan’s first wave feminists”. Kishida was one of these feminists and the focus of her movement was to increase the status of young Japanese girls, particularly those of the middle and upper classes. This improvement “was essential if other technologically advanced nationals were to accept them”. Reformists stressed that equality had to be given to all Japanese women. With the reforms that took place in Japan, Japanese women were given greater opportunities to gain new rights and freedoms. The women coined the term “good wife, wise mother” which meant that “in order to be a good citizen, women had to become educated and take part in public affairs”.

Kishida spoke out against the inequality of Japanese women. She worked at the imperial court as a tutor serving the Empress; however, she felt that the imperial court was “far from the real world” and was a “symbol of the concubine system which was an outrage to women”. Kishida took on the reform movement full time and began speaking across Japan. After her 1883 speech, “Daughters in Boxes” she was “arrested, tried, and fined for having made a political speech without a permit” which was necessary under Japanese law at the time.

The "Daughters in Boxes" speech criticized the family system in Japan and the problems it raised for young Japanese girls. Although the speech criticized the family system that was in place in Japan, it also acknowledged that the system was a cultural fixture and many parents did not understand the harm that they could have potentially been causing their daughters by restricting them. Kishida recognized that upper and middle class Japanese parents did not mean to restrict their daughters' freedom. This ignorance existed because the parents were blinded by their overwhelming need to teach certain values in order to fit into Japanese culture and society.