#Feminism in Japan

[gacha-incels]

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[thefemaleterrorist]

fyi, women’s sports in japan is plagued by men who show up to events to take pics w/ infrared cameras that reveal undergarments or skin. It’s gotten so bad that japan’s women’s volleyball team at the paris olympics have sported uniforms that absorb infrared rays.

[animentality]

[baby-yongbok]

Bang Chan for Nylon Japan

Brb gonna go make this my entire personality.

[bumblee-stumblee]

I think Naoki Hyakuta should kill himself.

"In a recent stream on his YouTube channel, Naoki Hyakuta, a Japenese novelist and Conservative Party leader, argued that societal changes— such as banning women over 18 from attending university and women over 25 from getting married, as well as removing the uteruses of women above 30— could increase the country's birth rate."

[lala-blahblah]

everyone who says you won't use your college degree after graduation is lying. For example, I just used my degree to explain to my friend the four waves of feminism so that she could speak intellectually about how anime portrayed women, and in return she used her minor in Japanese to go through the list of original Japanese names for the ace attorney characters so I could listen to how they were pronounced and nod sagely

[coochiequeens]

Because large-scale organising is “almost impossible” in China, women are turning to “all kinds of alternative ways to maintain feminism in their daily lives and even develop and transfer feminism to others,” she says. These may take the form of book clubs or exercise meet-ups. Some of her friends in China organise hikes. “They say that we are feminists, we are hiking together, so when we are hiking we talk about feminism.“ - Lü Pin

To find evidence that China’s feminist movement is gaining momentum – despite strict government censorship and repression – check bookshelves, nightstands and digital libraries. There, you might find a copy of one of Chizuko Ueno’s books. The 74-year-old Japanese feminist and author of Feminism from Scratch and Patriarchy and Capitalism has sold more than a million books in China, according to Beijing Open Book, which tracks sales. Of these, 200,000 were sold in January and February alone.

Ueno, a professor of sociology at the University of Tokyo, was little known outside in China outside academia until she delivered a 2019 matriculation speech at the university in which she railed against its sexist admissions policies, sexual “abuse” by male students against their female peers, and the pressure women felt to downplay their academic achievements.

The speech went viral in Japan, then China.

“Feminist thought does not insist that women should behave like men or the weak should become the powerful,” she said. “Rather, feminism asks that the weak be treated with dignity as they are.”

In the past two years, 11 of her books have been translated into simplified Chinese and four more will be published this year. In December, two of her books were among the top 20 foreign nonfiction bestsellers in China. While activism and protests have been stifled by the government, the rapid rise in Ueno’s popularity shows that women are still looking for ways to learn more about feminist thought, albeit at a private, individual level.

Talk to young Chinese academics, writers and podcasters about what women are reading and Ueno’s name often comes up. “We like-like her,” says Shiye Fu, the host of popular feminist podcast Stochastic Volatility.

“In China we need some sort of feminist role model to lead us and enable us to see how far women can go,” she says. “She taught us that as a woman, you have to fight every day, and to fight is to survive.”

When asked by the Guardian about her popularity in China, Ueno says her message resonates with this generation of Chinese women because, while they have grown up with adequate resources and been taught to believe they will have more opportunities, “patriarchy and sexism put the burden to be feminine on them as a wife and mother”.

Ueno, who found her voice during the student power movements of the 1960s, has long argued that marriage restricts women’s autonomy, something she learned watching her own parents. She described her father as “a complete sexist”. It’s stance that resonates with women in China, who are rebelling against the expectation that they take a husband.

Ueno’s most popular book, with 65,000 reviews on Douban, is simply titled Misogyny. One review reads: “It still takes a little courage to type this. I have always been shy about discussing gender issues in a Chinese environment, because if I am not careful, I will easily attract the label of … ‘feminist cancer’.”

“Now it’s a hard time,” says Lü Pin, a prominent Chinese feminist who now lives in the US. In 2015 she happened to be in New York when Chinese authorities arrested five of her peers – who were detained for 37 days and became known as the “Feminist Five” – and came to Lü’s apartment in Beijing. She narrowly avoided arrest. “Our movement is increasingly being regarded as illegal, even criminal, in China.”

China’s feminist movement has grown enormously in the past few years, especially among young women online, says Lü, where it was stoked by the #MeToo movements around the world and given oxygen on social media. “But that’s just part of the story,” she says. Feminism is also facing much stricter censorship – the word “feminism” is among those censored online, as is China’s #MeToo hashtag, #WoYeShi.

“When we already have so many people joining our community, the government regards that as a threat to its rule,” Lü says. “So the question is: what is the future of the movement?”

Because large-scale organising is “almost impossible” in China, women are turning to “all kinds of alternative ways to maintain feminism in their daily lives and even develop and transfer feminism to others,” she says. These may take the form of book clubs or exercise meet-ups. Some of her friends in China organise hikes. “They say that we are feminists, we are hiking together, so when we are hiking we talk about feminism.

“Nobody can change the micro level.”

‘The first step’

In 2001, when Lü was a journalist starting out on her journey into feminism, she founded a book club with a group of friends. She was struggling to find books on the subject, so she and her friends pooled their resources. “We were feminists, journalists, scholars, so we decided let’s organise a group and read, talk, discuss monthly,” she says. They met in people’s homes, or the park, or their offices. It lasted eight years and the members are still among her best friends.

Before the book club, “I felt lonely when I was pursuing feminism. So I need friends, I need a community. And that was the first community I had.” “I got friendship, I deepened my understanding of feminism,” Lü says. “It’s interesting, perhaps the first step of feminist movements is always literature in many countries, especially in China.”

Lü first read Ueno’s academic work as a young scholar, when few people in China knew her name. Ueno’s books are for people who are starting out on their pursuit of feminism, Lü says, and the author is good at explaining feminist issues in ways that are easy to understand.

Like many Ting Guo discovered Ueno after the Tokyo University speech. Guo, an assistant professor in the department of cultural and religious studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, still uses it in lectures.

Ueno’s popularity is part of a larger phenomenon, Guo says. “We cannot really directly describe what we want to say, using the word that we want to use, because of the censorship, because of the larger atmosphere. So people need to try to borrow words, mirror that experience in other social situations, in other political situations, in other contexts, in order to precisely describe their own experience, their own feelings and their own thoughts.”

There are so many people who are new to the feminist movement, says Lü, “and they are all looking for resources, but due to censorship, it’s so hard for Chinese scholars, for Chinese feminists, to publish their work.”

Ueno “is a foreigner, that is one of her advantages, and she also comes from [an] east Asian context”, which means that the patriarchal system she describes is similar to China’s. Lü says the reason books by Chinese feminists aren’t on bestseller lists is because of censorship.

Na Zhong, a novelist who translated Sally Rooney’s novels into simplified Chinese, feels that Chinese feminism is, at least when it comes to literature, gaining momentum. The biggest sign of this, both despite and because of censorship, is “the sheer number of women writers that are being translated into Chinese” – among whom Ueno is the “biggest star”.

“Young women are discovering their voices, and I’m really happy for my generation,” she says. “We’re just getting started.”

By Helen R Sullivan

This is the third story in a three-part series on feminism and literature in China.

[cherryvampyre]

The Japanese conservative party leader, Naoki Hyakuta, is proposing banning women from education, marriage, and children

“Naoki Hyakuta, a Japenese novelist and Conservative Party leader, argued that societal changes— such as banning women over 18 from attending university and women over 25 from getting married, as well as removing the uteruses of women above 30— could increase the country's birth rate. He has since apologised

Sumie Kawakami, a lecturer at Yamanashi Gakuin University and gender issues author, condemned the comments as a "call to violence against women". She noted that the degrading political dialogue in Japan has started following trends seen in the U.S. since Trump's 2015 campaign. Kawakami expressed concern that fewer Japanese women speak out against misogyny, indicating a heightened risk for women in Japan compared to their counterparts in the U.S.”

now this man claims that his statement “does not reflect his personal beliefs & “is like a science fiction novel” …. right

says women should not be educated, women 25 & 30+ shouldn’t have children or marry, pretends he didn’t really mean it like a coward to save his ass from getting (rightfully) lynched. lol.

edit; here is the video of him talking about it, it wouldn’t let me post it so i had to put it on youtube instead

he weakly says “hypothetically” to protect himself against criticism and then proceeds to say women don’t know their biology and women shouldn’t call themselves young

[sunwooyeon]

???

[lil-gingerbread-queen]

Everytime I see a fucking USAmerican defends Marie-Antoinette, I want to get the guillotine out.

She was an adult woman in her thirties, one of the most powerful women in Europe. She was older than her husband, and the dominant one in their relationship (and if you treat her as a victim because her marriage was arranged when she was a teen, you better start treating ALL French like this. News flash, it was normal at the time for everyone, even men, nobody chose their spouse) She had slaves, she was pro-slavery, she was against the human rights, and more conservative than her husband.

"The French people were racist toward her" yeah, because her husband started a war against her family so her family could kill French people to kill the Revolution. And she was the one who wrote to her family to ask them to do this, btw. She wrote letters to her brother asking him to kill the people for daring to ask for food, when all she wanted was the newest expensive fashion items.

USAmerican historians wants y'all to side with the French monarchy and against the Revolutionaries, don't buy their lies. It's all because France was against the Iraqi war, and to paint resistance and revolution as terrorism. French historians hate them. (I have a bachelor degree in history and a passion for revolutions. So like, I have read and wrote A LOT about revolutions in the last years.)

She is not a victim, she is literally just like any billionaire we have today. She is not a feminist icon or a lgbtq+ icon. Noble women at the time had a lot of rights, poor women had none, and you are putting the woman with the most freedom, and who used it to oppress other women and poc, on a pedestral. Damn, if you really want a feminist icon for the French Revolution, we have Olympe De Gouges! And Robespierre, who is the one who has been framed for centuries when he was too poor and sick to actually be menacing to any other politicians, was clearly aroace! (from my own research. I haven't seen any historian actually calling him that, but, as an aroace, I can deduct he was because he literally was known for not having relationship of any kind and only cared about his work. Historians are lost on his sexuality, because they aren't educated on us) And they both fought for equality OF ALL humans, of all colors and religions.

[cantate-domino]

Ways to other yourself while in high school in Japan (female edition), a guide:

- Don’t shave your entire body

- Be 188cm/6’2

- Have hair that isn’t pin straight

- When asked about celebrity crushes, show a man with a beard

- In the same situation as above, show any woman

- Be loud

- Sit cross legged, even if you wear the trouser uniform and aren’t flashing anyone

- Wear the trouser uniform

- Have a big nose

- Don’t desire to get surgery on your nose, or any plastic surgery for that matter

- Expect male classmates to treat you with respect and talk back to them when they don’t

- Be unafraid of bugs, frogs, deer, and other various animals

[noobtothecrook]

Further info:

@aromanticannibal @geekandafreak

Sorry, I know It doesn't go with any of your blogs, this isn't even the platform it will happen on, but i find the situation serious enough to spam like this, i'm trying to rope as many people as i can in it too.

I myself won't be able to continuously participate, but every contribution could be of help!

Again, so sorry about this, feel free to block me if it's too annoying.

[zatdummesmadchen]

Hello My Freind 🌹

I want your support My house was destroyed and I am currently living in a tent with my children 😞

My Mom and Dad who suffer from chronic diseases, They need urgent medical care and medications that are not available 💔

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Please help my family by donating or reblog my campaign is going very slowly 🙏🍉

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HELLO EVERYONE PLEASE DO PAY ATTENTION !

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AT THE VERY LEAST CONSIDER REBLOGGING SO IT REACHES MORE PEOPLE !

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[hyacinthsgrimoire]

@researchgate for the text; me @hyacinthsgrimoire for the edit

[nickysfacts]

Magic Girls help to remind us that are femininity isn’t a weakness, but something that can be empowering!

✨🚺✨

[lacerise]

Love Exposure (2008) | Pinterest