“Sexual Equality” Causes Birth Dearth, Makes Unicorns Sad
“To My Only Desire.” The Lady and the Unicorn. Image copyright Musée national du Moyen Âge.
I’m sure no one is surprised that C.B. Liddell, the art critic who tragically just “can’t” understand women continues to fail at discussing women in art, or, to be perfectly honest, art itself. The National Art Center in Tokyo recently hosted an exhibition of medieval/Renaissance art, including the famous tapestries The Lady and the Unicorn. I knew the writer of “Making Sense of Medieval Avatars” was Liddell the moment I read the first paragraph:
The Western model of sexual equality — one that drives women to focus on careers but also contributes to lower birthrates — may not be an entirely unmixed blessing, but the roots of the West’s gender attitudes run deep and stem from some interesting places, as “The Lady and the Unicorn” exhibition at The National Art Center, Tokyo shows.
Yes, how horrible that women want to 1. have control over their bodies, including reproduction, and 2. enjoy fulfilling careers and/or financial independence! It must be the West’s fault for bringing the poison of what Liddell thinks is “sexual equality” to Japan. You know, because we women in “the West” are not all busy fighting for equal recognition on bank notes or to not be raped while serving their country or to have access to equal wages or anything like that.
Continue Reading »
Posted in Art, Expat Living, Visual Culture | Tagged art criticism, art history, art review, C.B. Liddell, criticism, critique, feminism, Flanders, France, functional art, Gender, medieval, medievalism, Renaissance, Richard Kearney, Rousseau, sexism, social history, tapestry, The Japan Times, The Lady and the Unicorn | 1 Comment »
Trigger warning: sexual harassment
In preface to today’s guest post, a little background about chikan. Somewhere between 50-70% of young Japanese women experience chikan (“pervert,” often “groper”) on Japanese commuter trains in metropolitan areas (Burgess & Horii, p. 3). To combat this, some train lines have created women-only train cars in major cities to help prevent groping in crowded train cars by providing safe spaces for women. Additionally, Japan’s camera phones make a snapshot noise that cannot be turned off to help prevent upskirt shots (see Stevens, Hayashi). Finally, in order raise awareness of the chikan problem, train stations and train lines have posted warning signs about gropers: “Beware of chikan,” “Chikan is a crime,” and so on.
When Juliana first contacted me about her personal experience with chikan, I was a little surprised, because groping on Japanese public transit is so common that a lot of us expats treat it as just another part of living in Japan–maybe not being groped regularly, but to the point where you’re convinced it’s bound to happen sooner or later. I used to consider myself “lucky” that I went 4.5 years without ever being groped, especially when traveling in Tokyo during rush hour. How horrible to think of this as luck, when that’s how everyone ought to be treated–to travel without fear or threat of molestation.
Continue Reading »
Posted in Advertisements, Expat Living, Gender | Tagged assault, セクハラ, チカン, chikan, groping, harassment, hollaback, japan, sexism, sexual violence, stopping harassment, trains, 性犯罪 | 18 Comments »
I’m very much a city person, but I do like to escape to the country on occasion, and the Okunoto, the northernmost part of Ishikawa’s Noto Peninsula (能登半島) is just the place to get away for a weekend. As a victory lap of Ishikawa, some of my friends and I drove around the 249 during the last weekend in May.
The 249 is a long drive, taking roughly 2 hours (nonstop) from Anamizu to Wajima to Suzu to Noto and back to Anamizu. Two or three day-long trips are really needed to cover it all, but we tried to hit some of my favorite spots, spending one day exploring the Okunoto and the second in the Notojima area near Nanao. RocketNews24 had a good short guide to the Noto, but I’d like to show off the area in photos, starting with Senmaida (千枚田), the “Thousand Rice Fields.”
Continue Reading »
Posted in Noto, Photography, Rural Life | Tagged 能登, Harry Potter, Ishikawa, japan, Noto, Okunoto, parseltongue, photography, road trip, Senmaida, snake, Travel, Wajima, 千枚田, 奥能登 | Leave a Comment »
I’m featured in a Tofugu article about the usage of the word gaijin, which I have used in the past but now reject. There’s a lot of interesting responses by other bloggers and commenters, too.
Hashi writes,
Continue Reading »
Posted in Expat Living, Language, Rural Life | Tagged alienation, expat, foreign, foreigner, gaijin, japan, language, Tofugu, 外国人, 外人 | 2 Comments »
I'm planning to do some posts on the Noto after my recent trip there, so I was pleased to see that RocketNews24 did one as well! Enjoy!
Posted in Ishikawa, Noto, Reblog | Tagged Ishikawa, japan, Noto, reblog, RocketNews24, Travel | 2 Comments »
…Suddenly I thought of an old friend
Separated from me by miles of mountain and rivers.
Will we ever meet again?
I gaze toward the sky,
Tears streaming down my cheeks.
-Taigu Ryôkan (1758-1831), translated by John Stevens (Dewdrops on a Lotus Leaf)
Mt. Hakusan, July 2010
Continue Reading »
Posted in Blog | Tagged japan, John Stevens, Kanazawa, moving, poetry, Ryokan, Translation, US | 6 Comments »
Suppose you are the Prime Minister in a country with a poor gender-equality ranking and a potential population crisis on hand. In order to encourage the birth of more children, should you
A. Focus on wage discrimination and the glass ceiling* so that women can earn a living wage?
B. Focus on legal and social actions to reduce the unpaid required overtime and increase flextime/telecommuting?
C. Focus on building more affordable childcare facilities and training more workers in early childhood education?
D. Focus on revamping the adoption/foster/group home system?**
E. Focus on treating women as walking uteri devoid of logic and reason?
Continue Reading »
Posted in Gender | Tagged Abe, childcare, Gender, japan, Masako Mori, maternity leave, Mori, parental leave, sexism, Shinzo Abe, women's notebook | 2 Comments »
Older Posts »
