She went to Washington, where she secured a job as an interpreter on General MacArthur’s staff. ...
One of MacArthur’s first priorities was drafting a constitution for postwar Japan, a top-secret assignment, begun in February 1946, that had to be finished in just seven days. As the only woman assigned to his constitutional committee, along with two dozen men, young Beate Sirota was deputized to compose the section on women’s rights.
She had seen women’s lives firsthand during the 10 years she lived in Japan, and urgently wanted to improve their status.
Commandeering a jeep at the start of that week in February, she visited the libraries in Tokyo that were still standing, borrowing copies of as many different countries’ constitutions as she could. She steeped herself in them and, after seven days of little sleep, wound up drafting two articles of the proposed Japanese Constitution.
--Margalit Fox, NYT, on a nice first job out of college
