"When they were first developed, hiragana were not accepted by everyone. Many felt that the language of the educated was still Chinese. Historically, in Japan, the regular script (kaisho) form of the characters was used by men and called otokode (男手?), "men's writing", while the cursive script (sōsho) form of the kanji was used by women. Thus hiragana first gained popularity among women, who were generally not allowed access to the same levels of education as men. From this comes the alternative name of onnade (女手?) "women's writing". For example, The Tale of Genji and other early novels by female authors used hiragana extensively or exclusively."
Source : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiragana
I had originally heard that women first developed hiragana since they weren't allowed access to higher education.
Source : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiragana
I had originally heard that women first developed hiragana since they weren't allowed access to higher education.
