ABSTRACT
This chapter shows how nation, culture and the gender order have been used as a nexus within the Japanese modernisation process to construct a foundation and framework for the creation of collective and individual identities. It explores the factors that enabled two courageous women, Kanno Sugako and Kaneko Fumiko, to develop insights into the core problem of the emperor system and to evade the control of the patriarchal system of the nation-state, culture and the gender order. Kanno Sugako and Kaneko Fumiko both criticised the emperor system and were sentenced to death and life imprisonment, respectively, for lese-majesty. The process of nation-state formation in Japan is only distinctive in that it was implemented between the two poles of the West and the non-West. The chapter considers the Japanese nation-state formation process to have great significance for nation-state studies in general. It also focuses specifically on the formation of national identity.
