The opening lines of the Tosa Diary state: "It is said that diaries are kept by men, but I shall see if a woman cannot also keep one."Paul Varley writes in Japanese Culture (4th ed.) that prior to and during Heian-period Japan (794-1185), Chinese was seen as the proper mode of writing. Learned men were expected to learn Chinese, which made their writings legitimate. Women wrote too, although more often in kana, the syllabic Japanese script also derived from Chinese.
Anyway, it should be an interesting topic of personal research for spring semester.
