cait’s Reviews > Geisha, a Life > Status Update

according to mineko, mizuage has nothing to do with virginity or sex at all and that’s horrifyingly disgusting if true because why would arthur golden manipulate the truth that way. disgusting man!!

Though their lives seem glamorous they are still working. They perform a job and live in a society that is highly based on etiquette and unbreakable rules. It can be physical and psychological torture the way they are expected to behave. It may seem like opulence and partying from the outside but these women are suffering in a way. They forgo hobbies, interests, and normal life experience to please others.

The pressure Mineko put on herself feels unbearable. She strived for perfection and being number one in her field. She worked every single day of the year, getting such little sleep it’s unfathomable a human is capable of such behavior. Geisha seem so fortunate in how much money they make, how expensive their clothing is, and how they are treated with such high regard. Continued…

Mineko was raised primarily by women in a very matriarchal society. Because of this she may not have felt the pressure to submit to and accept the behavior of men that the patriarchy often trains women to do. However the competition between women is evident and a patriarchal trait. One can’t help but wonder if her popularity with mainly men fueled this, as if women were jealous of the attention she got over them.

Mineko had such a unique experience with her siblings. She grew up with some but didn’t find out others existed until existed until later. Yaeko is her villain and also an older sister she never really shared parents with.

how educated most geiko must’ve been as they studied all the different customers they planned to entertain from music to politics to literature etc.

The purity and cleansing of japanese culture has always intrigued me. I find it interesting the men aren’t allowed in the okiya. The way Mineko writes this, you can hear her tone of irritation around the misconceptions that geisha/geiko “entertain” men at their abodes.

Shutting down the geisha districts during the war is an interesting topic between Iwasaki & Golden’s books. Mineko’s family is well off and wouldn’t have suffered as hard but I’m curious of the people who didn’t have money or family to return to. Factory life must’ve been miserable but Iwasaki family didn’t have to experience it.

I love the gender swap here with babies being born in the okiya. They prized girls and shunned men for the same reason it happens vice versa, for heirs. Men need boys to carry on their name in the same way these women need girls to carry on their business.

Another Arthur Golden misstep. The baron is mentioned here as a person Mineko has heard of sponsoring a geiko but sexual favors are not expected. They may happen naturally but it’s not the way dhanna were described in Memoirs of a Geisha. I have to wonder whether Iwasaki is covering things up. She is the first woman in 300 years to speak of this because they were barred from it, maybe she’s not entirely honest.