Yasuo Fukuda
Fukuda was born in Takasaki, Gunma, the eldest son of politician (later the 67th Prime Minister) Takeo Fukuda. He grew up in Setagaya, Tokyo, attending Azabu High School and graduating from Waseda University in 1959 with a degree in economics. After university, he joined Maruzen Petroleum (now part of the Cosmo Oil Company). He was only minimally involved in politics over the next seventeen years, working his way up to section chief as a typical Japanese "salaryman". He was posted to the United States from 1962-64. While his father Takeo Fukuda was prime minister from 1976–78, Yasuo became a political secretary. From 1978 to 1989, he was a director of the Kinzai Institute for Financial Affairs, serving as a trustee from 1986 onward.
Fukuda Hideko
Fukuda's last years were spent in poverty and hardship. Ishikawa moved to Belgium and shortly afterwards Fukuda contracted beriberi. Nevertheless, she continued writing and had her article "The Solution to the Woman Question" printed in Seito, a popular women's rights magazine. Inclusion of Fukuda's article caused the entire issue to be banned. The government was especially sensitive to Fukuda's article because it not only focused on women, but brought in issues of class. Fukuda saw the difficulties faced by women as intrinsically tied to the exploitative capitalist system in place, and yearned for a return to an agrarian-modeled society. The article also spurred intense debate within the Seito group, composed primarily of educated young women. Fukuda moved beyond the goals of many other prominent feminists by discussing the plight of the labor class and impoverished in Japan. Fukuda saw the issue of gender inequality as intrinsically tied in with class inequality, saying "along with the liberation of women, the liberation of men, too, must be accomplished." Fukuda's article pushed for an encompassing discussion of equality as a societal issue over the more personal approach taken by other leading feminists of the day. She was one of the pioneers of reform movements in Japan, and pursued reforms in the Meiji period longer than any other woman.