Gender

Archive for the ‘Gender’ Category

Is Abe’s “Most Underused Resource” Respect for Women?

Posted in Gender, tagged Abe, childcare, Gender, japan, Masako Mori, maternity leave, Mori, parental leave, sexism, Shinzo Abe, women's notebook on 2013/05/20 | 2 Comments »

Image from Abe’s English-language Facebook page regarding his plans for “supporting women.”

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?

(more…)

About these ads

Read Full Post »

Ôoku: Tanjô, Ep. 7

Posted in Ôoku, Culture, Gender, Manga, tagged alternate history, Arikoto, Aso Yumi, Ôoku: Tanjô, female sexuality, Gender, gender expression, genderswap, Gyokuei, Iemitsu, J-drama, Kasuga, Masakatsu, Matsudaira, Ooku: The Inner Chambers, Oooku, Sakai Masato, samurai, shipping, Tabe Mikako, Tanaka Koki, Yoshinaga Fumi, Ōoku on 2013/05/04 | 1 Comment »

First of all, a bit of (old?) news from the entertainment world: Kanno Miho, who played Shogun Tokugawa Tsunayoshi in the film Ôoku: Eien, and Sakai Masato, who played Arikoto in the drama and Emonosuke in the film, registered their marriage on 2 April. おめでとうございます！May your work in excellent gender-based dramas lead to you happiness. (Sources: Oricon, Tokyo Hive)

Source: Oricon

(more…)

Read Full Post »

Soap-Bubble “Empowerment”: Dove’s Missed Chance

Posted in Advertisements, Gender, Visual Culture, tagged advertisement, beauty product, collusion, culture, Dove, Dove Real Beauty Sketches, fail, feminism, intersectionality, patriarchy, sexism on 2013/04/20 | Leave a Comment »

Dove’s “Real Beauty” Campaign‘s latest attempt to engage consumers has gone viral, and you’ve likely seen some of the criticisms about it. The video “Real Beauty Sketches” depicts a group of women being asked to describe their physical appearance (faces) to an FBI profile artist who couldn’t see them; afterward, the women were described by strangers, including each other. The punchline is that the drawings on of the women based on their own descriptions are far less conventionally attractive than those based on others’ descriptions, and the tagline is “You’re More Beautiful Than You Think.”

Not buying it.

“A Social Experiment”

From Dove’s Youtube page:

Florence from Dove Beauty Real Sketches.

Women are their own worst beauty critics. Only 4% of women around the world consider themselves beautiful. [Ed: Where are your citations, Dove?] At Dove, we are committed to creating a world where beauty is a source of confidence, not anxiety. So, we decided to conduct a compelling social experiment that explores how women view their own beauty in contrast to what others see.

Several other writers have already taken the campaign to task. (more…)

Read Full Post »

Gender Reader: Geek Edition (April 2013 #2)

Posted in Culture, Gender, Media, tagged 16-bit Sirens, 50 Shades of Green, anime, Antonella Inserra, CONset, Cosplay =/= Consent, Doctor Who, Erika Moen, fake geek girl, female representation, feminism, Feminist Pax Enforcers, Feministe, geek, geek girl, genderqueer, idiot nerd girl, Lindsay Ellis, manga, Mark Oshiro, Mark Reads, marketing, nerd, nonbinary sexuality, PAX East, scifi, sexism, strong female characters, The Mary Sue, Tomb Raider, video games, Yvonne Brill on 2013/04/11 | Leave a Comment »

Via 16-Bit Sirens’ “CONsent.”

(more…)

Read Full Post »

Gender Reader: April 2013, #1

Posted in Anime, Gender, Manga, tagged 3-11, anime, Black composer, classical music, feminism, Gender, gender gap, glass elevator, manga, Margaret Bonds, recession, Sailor Moon, stalking, Tohoku Earthquake, violence, wage gap on 2013/04/02 | 3 Comments »

In this gender reader: women overlooked in recovery hiring, gendered violence in Fukushima, Koyuki Higashi’s big damn wedding, Flootchism, empowerment in Sailor Moon, and more.

Image credit: Haruko Kudo. Via Higashi Koyuki’s blog.

(more…)

Read Full Post »

Gender Reader (March 2013, #2)

Posted in Advertisements, Art, Gender, tagged Alice Ross, art, BBC, beauty pageant, bisexual, cattle, Downy, feminism, gay, Gender, Guy Ritchie, Irene Adler, Ishihara test, James Bond, laundry, lost in translation, Raoul Silva, sex, sexism, Sherlock, Sherlock Holmes, Skyfall, Sophie McDougall, Tide commercial, villain on 2013/03/26 | Leave a Comment »

In this reader: Bond gets hit on by a man, BBC Sherlock‘s Irene Adler is naked and that’s okay, a man does laundry, and women are not cattle. Don’t forget the “You’re Doing It Right” section at the end for some good news.

Jenna #1, detail. Copyright Alice Ross.

(more…)

Read Full Post »

A Bento is Not As Big As the World

Posted in Cooking, Culture, Gender, tagged bento, cute, division of labor, Emily Matchar, feminism, food, foodwork, Gender, housework, Japanese food, NPR on 2013/03/21 | Leave a Comment »

A Bento is Not As Big As the World

Reblogged from I’ll Make It Myself!

In the lead-in to Carlsen’s and Turner’s “In Japan, Food Can Be Almost Too Cute To Eat,” there is a slideshow showcasing the cuter side of Japanese food: tofu character goods, a kyaraben (character bento), and images of Anpanman in cartoon and pancake form. The authors mention that food presentation is part of the culture of cute, but instead of an obsession with food presentation dictating the creation of characters and mascots like Anpanman, I would actually say that Japan’s love of cute things dictates the creation of anthropomorphized food. I don’t just mean in terms of kyaraben, I mean that the regular onions I buy at the grocery store have an anthropomorphized onion on the bag. So do my eringi mushrooms. So do my tomatoes. Visual presentation of food is definitely a part of Japanese food culture, and creating a cute obento for a child to eat is part of that culture, but the food presentation didn’t create the characters necessarily.

More: A Bento is Not As Big As the World

Read Full Post »

Gender Reader (March 2013)

Posted in Gender, tagged Calcutta, Egypt, feminism, fighting back, H&M, Jezebel, Kainat Riaz, Make Me a Sammich, Malala, mannequins, rape, rape culture, sexism, Steubenville, street harassment, Swedish, Tahrir Square, The Banjaran Manifesto, They Know What They Do, wives mothers sisters on 2013/03/20 | 4 Comments »

Question: do you prefer reblogs or readers? I’ve been doing more reblogs lately, but I wonder if the old format of gender readers is better for this blog. What do you think?

Warning: some of today’s links deal with rape, rape apologists, and Steubenville.

Don’t forget, there’s always an item of good news at the end.

@shelbyknox, via Guerilla Feminism.

(more…)

Read Full Post »

“A Mere Male”: Mansplaining Women’s Art

Posted in Art, Culture, Gender, Visual Culture, tagged agency, art, Asian art, C.B. Liddell, discrimination, female artists, female representation in art, feminism, japan, male gaze, minority art, representation, sexism, The diverse works of Asian women artists, The Japan Times, Tochigi Prefectural Museum of Fine Arts, women, women artists, women in art, Women In-Between: Asian Women Artists 1984-2012, women's bodies on 2013/03/14 | 2 Comments »

This piece also appeared in Feministe on 1 April 2013.

One of the most striking scenes in the 2012 miniseries version of Ford Maddox Ford’s Parade’s End is one in which suffragette Valentine Wannop takes refuge in an art museum during a rally. While she is quietly admiring a painting of Venus, another woman enters and slashes the painting with a cleaver, shouting, “What are you all gawking at? Do you think that is all women are good for?”¹

As someone with a deep love of art, I was alarmed as Valentine was. I do not believe in the destruction of art, but what the stand-in for Mary Richardson said stuck with me. Consider the status of women in the art world: often considered the “muse,” rarely the artist; lauded as the pinnacle of beauty but having no worth otherwise: the Venus forever looking in her mirror, the object of the (male) gaze, not the subject of her own agency. Should a gallery or museum try to strive for the inclusion of women artists (and artists of color, queer artists, and so on), there may be criticism of ignoring the masters, so-called “female privilege,” and the desire for a gender-blind meritocracy that simply does not exist at present. If you were wondering what such an article might look like, look no further than C.B. Liddell’s “The diverse works of Asian women artists,” a special to The Japan Times.

(more…)

Read Full Post »