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
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.
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…)
Posted in BeruBara (The Rose of Versailles), Manga, tagged Andre Grandier, BeruBara, LINE, manga, Marie Antoinette, messaging, Oscar, Oscar de Jarjeyes, Riyoko Ikeda, stamp, sticker, The Rose of Versailles on 2013/04/13 | 1 Comment »
My favorite part of using the “global messaging service” LINE is being able to chat with my friends for free even if they use another carrier or are in another country. A close second is the “sticker” (スタンプ [stamp] in Japanese) function, which are basically bigger and better emoji. On April 11, LINE released 5 new paid sets of stickers, including a BeruBara (The Rose of Versailles) set:
Image from LINE
The BeruBara stamps/stickers were 199 yen. Some of my favorites are below the cut.
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 »
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.
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.
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.
Posted in Ôoku, Gender, tagged alternate history, Arikoto, Aso Yumi, Ôoku: Tanjô, Gender, gender expression, genderswap, Gyokuei, Iemitsu, J-drama, Kasuga, Masakatsu, Matsudaira, Ooku: The Inner Chambers, Oooku, Sakai Masato, samurai, Tabe Mikako, Tanaka Koki, Yoshinaga Fumi, Ōoku on 2013/03/07 | 2 Comments »
Have no fear–I didn’t forget about this project!
Aired Nov. 14, 2012, on TBS.
This recap contains spoilers for the drama and the manga. Episode 5 recap here; manga analysis here; Ôoku category (film, manga, and drama) here.
Image via TBS. http://www.tbs.co.jp/ohoku2012/gallery/p06-04.html
Posted in Advertisements, Consumer Culture, Cooking, Gender, Visual Culture, tagged advertising, beer, Bitch Beer, craft beer, feminism, Gender, I'll Make It Myself, objectification, sexism, South Austin Brewing Company, visual anthroplogy on 2013/03/02 | Leave a Comment »
Reblogged from I’ll Make It Myself: I Did Not Order My Beer with a Side of Sexism“
Source: coffeefirstalways
While I’ve regrettably come to expect national-brand beers to perpetuate the stereotype of beer as a man’s drink and insult women in the process, what about craft beers? Caroline Wallace of Bitch Beer recently discussed this in her article “How to alienate female beer drinkers in one easy step.”
Bitch Beer is a Austin, Texas-based beer blog written by a group of women. Bitch Beer’s name is similar to that of Bitch Magazine/Bitch Media:
We went with the name Bitch Beer because we want to disprove the old adage that women aren’t really beer drinkers. We’re evoking a name often given to sugary, low-alcohol content beer substitutes like Smirnoff Ice or Mike’s Hard Lemonade to prove that, from a stout to an IPA, these so-called bitches can drink any damn beer they please. You heard us, every beer is a Bitch Beer.
Wallace starts with a comparison of two beer ads seen at a local roller derby event… [full article]
Posted in Gender, Manga, Takeuchi Sachiko, tagged 男になりタイ, 迷走ラブゲーム, japan, Kai, lesbian, LGBT, manga, Otoko ni Naritai, queer, Sachiko Takeuchi, sex reassignment, SRS, Straying Love Game, surgery, Thailand, trans*, transman on 2013/02/15 | Leave a Comment »
I Want to Be a Man! My Boyfriend Used to Be a Woman (『男になりタイ！私の彼氏は元女』)
By Sachiko TAKEUCHI (竹内佐千子)
Published by Media Factory (メディアファクトリー）
Color; black and white
2008
1100 yen
Amazon.co.jp
Hello, my name is Sachiko. I’m a woman.
Up until now, I’ve dated women. I’m a lesbian.
Recently, I’ve taken a new lover. His name is Kai, and he’s a man.
But Kai was born a girl. Kai’s body is female, but his heart is male. (p. 5)
The title of Takeuchi Sachiko’s third volume of autobiographical manga contains one of the best untranslatable puns I’ve seen in Japanese. 『男になりタイ！』 literally means “I want to be/become a man!”; however, Takeuchi has written the verb ending for “to want” (~たい, ~tai) as the katakanaタイ. In this case, the katakana refers to Thailand (Tai), the setting of most of the manga.
(This review contains spoilers for honey & honey, honey & honey deluxe, Otoko ni Naritai, and Straying Love Game.)
