25 (non-Bravo) real life housewives who are pretty badass

Komako Kimura, a prominent Japanese suffragist at a march in New York. October 23, 1917. Image via Wikimedia Commons/public domain

Komako Kimura

Komako Kimura was among the most influential women of the Japanese 20th century. She was foremost a journalist, but also a dancer, actress, editor and suffragist. In fact, she came to America in 1917 to march with her American counterparts to protest for the right for women to vote.

From childhood, Kimura trained as an actress, studying Western literature closely. Her particular favorites were Shakespeare’s plays, and she was known to play all the parts herself. Later, she found herself particularly drawn to feminist author Ellen Key, and became a fan of her writing.

As her interests and education grew, she became more interested in Japanese suffrage, and she helped start The Real New Women’s Association (Shin Shin Fujinkai) and became editor of its journal Shin shin fujin. Although she enjoyed quite a successful career as a journalist and actor, her heart was always in the equality of the vote.

She once told a perplexed American journalist (probably male), “I am told that a dancing suffragist is something America does not quite understand, but we all have to have some means of a livelihood while we fight for our ideals.”