Rethinking Japanese Feminisms

by Julia C. Bullock (Editor), Ayako Kano (Editor), James Welker (Editor)

Rethinking Japanese Feminisms offers a broad overview of the great diversity of feminist thought and practice in Japan from the early twentieth century to the present. Drawing on methodologies and approaches from anthropology, cultural studies, gender and sexuality studies, history, literature, media studies, and sociology, each chapter presents the results of research based on some combination of original archival research, careful textual analysis, ethnographic interviews, and participant observation.

The volume is organized into sections focused on activism and activists, employment and education, literature and the arts, and boundary crossing. Some chapters shed light on ideas and practices that resonate with feminist thought but find expression through the work of writers, artists, activists, and laborers who have not typically been considered feminist; others revisit specific moments in the history of Japanese feminisms in order to complicate or challenge the dominant scholarly and popular understandings of specific activists, practices, and beliefs. The chapters are contextualized by an introduction that offers historical background on feminisms in Japan, and a forward-looking conclusion that considers what it means to rethink Japanese feminism at this historical juncture.

Building on more than four decades of scholarship on feminisms in Japanese and English, as well as decades more on women’s history, Rethinking Japanese Feminisms offers a diverse and multivocal approach to scholarship on Japanese feminisms unmatched by existing publications. Written in language accessible to students and non-experts, it will be at home in the hands of students and scholars, as well as activists and others interested in gender, sexuality, and feminist theory and activism in Japan and in Asia more broadly.

Genres: Japan, Feminism, Nonfiction, History, School

310 pages, Hardcover

Published December 31, 2017

Reviews

[Diz · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a collection of academic articles on feminism in Japan. You don't usually think of Japan as a country with a feminist heritage, so it is interesting to read these accounts of Japanese women fighting for equal rights.

[styx · Rating 4 out of 5]

Super fascinating collection of chapters that tackles a very wide arena of topics and areas of discourse starting from the Meiji Restoration to Present. It really did a lot to strengthen some personal viewing lenses to use while watching Yasujiro Ozu movies & how he chose to depict women's liberation in discussion with cultural tradition during and American occupation in Japan (i.e. the Noriko trilogy)

[Gita Swasti · Rating 3 out of 5]

NOT ALL ACTIVISM BY WOMEN HAS BEEN CLASSIFIED AS FEMINIST

Tersebutlah sekumpulan perempuan bernama Jan Bardsley. Laura Dales, Hikari Hori, Ronald Loftus, Dina Lowy, Elizabeth Miles, Vera Mackie, Barbara Molony, dan Ueno Chizuko yang menginisiasi konferensi mengenai perempuan modern di Jepang.

Studi feminism di Jepang atau disebut dengan joseigaku bercampuran dengan studi LGBT (queer studies) yang menumbuhkan perspektif baru mengenai perempuan modern. Di situlah studi LGBT dan joseigaku saling mempengaruhi. Tahun 1920 menjadi sebuah transisi di mana perempuan Jepang harus menampilkan kualitasnya dengan berkontribusi pada masyarakat luas, tidak hanya untuk urusan rumah. Dibuktikan dengan adanya organisasi sosialis seperti Red Wave Society (Sekirankai) dan the Eight Day Society (Yokakai). Perempuan Jepang juga merespon secara antusias untuk melobi pemerintah supaya bisa berkontribusi di berbagai sektor.

Buku ini terasa berguna karena memang informatif sekali. Jika ingin mempelajari sejarah feminis, bacalah buku ini dengan seksama maka kamu akan mendapatkan semuanya. Oh iya, buku ini juga kaya sekali dengan berbagai referensi jurnal di setiap babnya.

[Gerd · Rating 4 out of 5]

A worthwhile collection of essays serving as a sort of primer on the development and different streams within the feminist movement. The various authors do not shy away from looking at internal short comings and raising some loaded questions.
Many of the persons these essays focus on will naturally be unknown to us western readers, but that doesn't matter little, because the ideas and ideals presented, same es the problems faced within and without, are still familiar.

Recommended reading for everyone interested in feminist thought.

[Natalie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Up and down, as with any collection, I had natural affinities for some essays, but the whole things gets 5 stars because the last essay was amazing 😍 Positionality is so important and I often had the same desire to look inwards and examine what it means to be an American studying Japanese literature.

[Becca · Rating 2 out of 5]

Informative and useful for thesis, good buildup and well-cited.

[Meli · Rating 2 out of 5]

Abandoned at 20%

[Mills College Library]

305.42095 R4382 2018