Beate Sirota Gordon

Young woman who secretly drafted gender equality articles for Japan's postwar constitution

At age 22, Beate Sirota Gordon (1923-2012) became the only woman on the team drafting Japan's postwar constitution in 1946. Fluent in Japanese from childhood in Tokyo, she clandestinely wrote Articles 14 and 24 establishing women's legal equality and marriage rights - provisions revolutionary for any nation at the time.

Working under Douglas MacArthur's occupation government, Gordon navigated male-dominated bureaucracy to include clauses banning sex discrimination and promoting "essential equality of the sexes." She later recounted in her memoir The Only Woman in the Room how she researched global constitutions at the Tokyo library, finding no models for gender equality language.

Despite death threats from Japanese traditionalists, Gordon's articles survived intact. Her work laid groundwork for Japan's 1985 Equal Employment Opportunity Law. Yet her contribution remained classified until 1995, when she began lecturing about her extraordinary role in redefining Asian gender norms through constitutional law.