Yasui Kono

Yasui Kono is the first woman in Japanese history who got a doctorate degree in 1927. Her major was Botany and studied at several universities such as Ochanomizu University in Tokyo, University of Chicago, and Harvard University. Women seldom studied at college during the Taisho and Showa eras because being a house wife was a stereotype for women. Furthermore, it was very difficult for women to get a scholarship to study abroad because people think that it was worthless to spend money on them because they would end up as house wives. Yasui Kono, however, never gave up her passion. After finally gaining a scholarship from the government, she finally went to the U.S. and, after coming back to Japan, she started to work as a professor at a Japanese university. And then she got a doctorate degree from the University of Tokyo in 1927. It is very encouraging that she came from Kagawa Prefecture, where I live now.