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?

A little bit of A (if only women CEOs) and C and a lot of E, apparently. As you have probably have heard, Prime Minister Abe has come up with new, fun ways to insult women’s intelligence, such as the “women’s notebook,” which reminds women that our eggs will shrivel and dry one day, so it’s best to get on this baby-making business pronto. As reported in Kwan Weng Kin’s “Japanese women trash ‘notebook’ idea for having babies” on AsiaOne,

Announcing the proposal earlier this month, Ms Masako Mori, the minister in charge of birth issues, said: “As (a woman) grows older, it becomes harder to become pregnant. The risk to mother and unborn child also increases. We must spread this knowledge among teenage girls and upwards to enable women to make choices and plan their lives.”

My favorite part of the article is the round-up of some women’s reactions to the notebook:

“It’s none of the government’s business,” said marketing officer Natsuki Sasaya, 31.

“They seem to have concluded that women alone have no knowledge or awareness of those things. I have friends who want to have children but cannot do so and are on fertility treatment.”

Ms Mori was severely reproached in Parliament by opposition lawmaker Renho, who had briefly held the same portfolio from September 2011. “It is up to the individual to decide when to get married or to have children,” Ms Renho said.

In an article on the Nikkei Business website, Ms Kaoru Kawai, who has a PhD in health sciences, wrote: “I don’t remember being told that one can have a baby by oneself.”

Japan Crush‘s Mika also lists some reactions in “‘Support Women In Workplace To Increase Birthrate’, Says Abe“:

ルナさん:

3 years? And if your second kid is born at the end of those 3 years, do you get another 3 years on top of that?

sa*k*r*k*r*d*001さん:

I’m entirely for supporting female employment. However, if you think about the actually contents, they are too superficial. I think that if we don’t properly re-examine things, there won’t be any results.

Mother of god, Abe and Mori, we’re not stupid. Unless people are drinking the Sex & The City Koolaid about women in their late-30s with non-viable eggs miraculously being able to get pregnant and give birth, women more often than not grow up considering their lives with children because that’s how we’re socialized.

Lyla Cicero wrote a really excellent piece called “I Was ‘Leaning Out’ of My Career Before It Even Began” in Role/Reboot about how she had always considered her future work-life balance with children and a career, but when her husband tried to “lean in” at home, he faced a lot of institutionalized and social discrimination. She writes,

Then I saw Sheryl Sandberg’s TED talk in which she urges women to “lean in” instead of out of their careers when children are on the horizon. “Don’t leave until you leave,” she advises. I thought back to my pregnancy, how I made no plans to pursue a career immediately after obtaining my doctorate because I was already pregnant. I thought about how I’d been determined, for years, not to get pregnant until I was already licensed, but then freaked out about my biological clock, and instead, am now trudging slowly through the licensing process part-time.

Then I thought back further. I was honestly stunned when I realized I had been leaning out of my career since well before my children were conceived. An honest, critical assessment of my life history led me to the terrifying conclusion that I started leaning out well before graduating college.***

Note: because Japan has one of the lowest rates of births outside of marriage (see OECD 2012 [pdf]) and the lack of legal and even social recognition of same-sex couples, I’ll be discussing this issue as it relates to heterogamous married couples in Japan.

The same is true in Japan. Women are already socialized to consider marriage and children in their futures, but men aren’t; and if men are considering a future with children, it seems unlikely that the current social and work cultures would really allow them to participate in family life. Legally, men are entitled to a portion of the parental leave following the birth of a child, but if their companies essentially refuse to let them take it, what good is it?

Meanwhile, the other big part of Abe’s measures to increase the birth rate seems ill-advised: 3-year maternity leave. Abe claims that it will allow women to care for their children for the first three years, as they claim to want (see comments on this article, too), but to me it seems like a measure for companies to force mothers onto permanent maternity leave. It could work if the time had to be split equally between both parents, but it seems unsustainable: if parents space children 2-4 years apart, that’s 4-6 years on leave. What company could manage with that?

A better solution would be to work with companies on flex-time, reduced hours, telecommuting, on-site childcare, and other solutions that allow both mothers and fathers to continue their careers, work effectively for their companies, and have time to raise their children no matter what their industry is. (A computer programmer or city hall employee could telecommute, whereas a construction worker or nurse may benefit more from flex-time/reduced hours and childcare.)

In the Financial Times article “Abe pushes for more women in senior roles,” analyst Kathy Matsui is quoted, “The fact that the prime minister is talking this openly about women as part of the growth agenda is a big step,” she said. “But it’s one to talk the talk, another to walk the walk.”

In other words, if you want to know how to “solve” the birth dearth, Abe and Mori, you need to start at the conclusion and work your way backward to discover the social causes–you’ve got a decent start with the “why do women quit?” issue, but you need to go deeper and to do so without insulting women. The “support of women” means you need to step up for women’s legal, institutional, and social equality, something that goes far, far beyond promoting motherhood at a “reasonable” age.

I’m disturbed by the whiplash I get from Abe and the LDP: actually talking about women CEOs and supporting women in the workplace is tempered by unrealistic proposals, the tendency to treat “support of women” as only the support of mothers (but not necessarily fathers), and for the cause not to be the right to equality but the desire for more children and currying political favor without enacting real political action. (I might believe him when the surnames bill passes. Maybe.) The LDP claims to care and to be moving forward, but to what end–more female support? More babies? (And why is Huffington in his pocket?) The full details of the plan are supposed to come out in June; let’s hope Abe and his team understand that you can’t just slap a couple bandaids on this issue and claim you’re the champions of gender equality.

Notes

*Hire women as full-time workers, not just as part-timers and contractors; expect and plan for women to return after maternity leave; enforce parental leave for fathers; alleviate social stigma for fathers who care for their children.

**Also: immigration reform, allowing same-sex couples to adopt, making workplaces more efficient and cost effective with modern technology, alleviating discrimination against “non Japanese,” seeing how countries with equal participation in the workforce are doing business, allowing separate legal names for married couples, and a host of other options.

*** Interestingly, American teens seem to falsely believe they are infertile, though I’m not sure how teens in Japan feel.

Behold the dekayama:

The dekayama  (でかやま) are 12 meters high and weigh 20 tons–the biggest in Japan.

The dolls are life-size and apparently made by hand! This is the Uomachi dekayama.

We came to Nanao Fisherman’s Wharf (能登食際市場) on the morning of May 5 to see the dekayama‘s parade through town.

In order to turn the float to get it down the streets, participants push pieces of wood under the wheel.

The Kajimachi dekayama.

The Fuchumachi dekayama.

We may not have a naked man festival, but Ishikawa and the Hokuriku region have one of the richest and most prolific festival cultures in Japan, especially when it comes to floats and lanterns. Floats are crashed into each other in the Fushiki Kenkayama Matsuri in Toyama; carried into the sea in just about any port town (Wajima, Suzu); pillars of straw are set ablaze in the Kawakita fireworks and Wajima Taisai; mikoshi are destroyed in the Abare Matsuri (“fire and violence” festival). Moreover, I love the mix of wild and romantic and spooky that summer embodies here–the heat is awful, but the food and the atmosphere (almost) make up for it.

Just a note: none of these entries is wrong; this is not Engrish. If I had to deal with the sheer amount of slang that English has as a non-native speaker, I would be glad to have a place that could explain what buck wild means. However, going from Japanese to English turns up a lot of results that have odd slang terms listed as the first entries, which is why I find it so funny.

For example, here we have a bizarre sample sentence:

Melons?

Usually 手際 yields sample sentences about “cooking skills,” and yet–

“A good lay”

When there’s the terms you know and the one you have never heard:

“Watch the submarine”?

When you learn a brand new word:

Grok. There’s a new one for me.

When you just have no idea:

A blue-arsed fly?

I feel sorry for non-native speakers who need to figure out which one of these English phrases is appropriate to their present situation:

What the deuce!

When the entries range from “barbaric” to “buck wild”:

“Buck wild”

And my favorite of this group: when in America, try to speak like the natives:

Source: Oricon

Aired Nov. 23, 2012, on TBS.

This recap contains spoilers for the drama and the manga. Episode 6 recap here; manga analysis here; Ôoku category (film, manga, and drama) here.

Iemitsu and Denemon. Image from TBS.

Vol. 3, p. 140

Summary

1642: a famine and the Pox have devastated Edo, but in town is as lively as ever, bustling with working women–shopkeepers. Iemitsu (TABE Mikako) and Denemon are out on the town, and she notices the new popular up-dos, which Denemon says make it easier for mobility. Iemitsu purchases combs from a shop, and the shop-keeper offers her a night with her (adult) son, as well. Iemitsu is shocked that the men are being prostituted out by their families. They head to Yoshiwara (the famous brothel and the same one from which Kasuga procured the female prostitutes for the monks), which is populated by sick men.

In order to combat the famine and the farmers’ fleeing, Iemitsu decides that peasants will be tied to the land.

Meanwhile, Gyokuei (TANAKA Kôki) is preparing to sleep with Iemitsu at Arikoto’s  (SAKAI Masato) request. He and Iemitsu chat in the bedroom first. Gyokuei is very hesitant about the request since sleeping with her, especially in the same bed that she and Arikoto shared, makes him uncomfortable, like he’s betraying Arikoto. However, he says that refusing Arikoto’s request–something he says he cannot do–would have been more painful still. But Gyokuei doesn’t want Arikoto to “lose” to Onatsu, the new concubine, and says, “I don’t serve you or Buddha, I serve Arikoto.” Iemitsu finds his devotion attractive (see “Best Scene”), and they spent the night together.

The next morning, Iemitsu and Arikoto talk about Gyokuei/Otama, and Arikoto says that Gyokuei is the light to his shadow (are we in BeruBara now?), an extension of himself. He tells Iemitsu about a time when a monk predicted that Gyokuei would become “the father of the entire country.”

At the August greetings to the Shogun, Matsudaira and Terutsuna (who is cross-dressing) meet the governor of Sanuki and his son Tadatomo. Terutsuna tells her father afterwards that Tadatomo is a girl. Meanwhile, Masukatsu’s son returns from the event with a “heat rash” (read: the pox).

At a meeting of advisors, Masamori and others suggest that women should be able to inherit the daimyoship. Kasuga (ASO Yumi) objects, saying that such a position is a birthright of the samurai class; what the peasants and shopkeepers do is their own business. Kasuga asks if the men want to see women as generals, and the men say that Iemitsu is doing a great job as the Shogun–sex doesn’t seem to matter. (Bravo!)

Image from TBS.

Kasuga is quite angry and becomes even more angry when she discovers that Arikoto has arranged a chrysanthemum-viewing party for the men of the ôoku. Arikoto is advising Gyokuei on his outfit for the party (“don’t be too showy”). Kasuga is furious that the men of the ôoku. are doing something so “frivolous” instead of something more manly. Arikoto argues that all they do is martial arts and working on protecting the Shogun; why can’t they just have a small party to enjoy themselves once in a while? (More on this scene here.) Kasuga exits in a rage and collapses.

In discussing Kasuga’s sickness, Arikoto suggests that Kasuga is sort of a mother figure to Iemitsu; Iemitsu says that even though Kasuga killed her mother and has tried to ruin her relationship with Arikoto, she still feels something toward her. When the wet nurse Yajima neglects Kasuga on her sick bed, Arikoto becomes her nurse. Oraku, still an invalid after his fall, and some of the servants have caught the pox, and Arikoto becomes nurse to them all, moving the sick men into the room next to Kasuga’s since she can’t catch it. He orders the men to tell Iemitsu that they all have a cold so as not to worry her. Kasuga allows him to move the sick men into her room. Finally, Masakatsu’s son Masanori has caught the pox, too.

Compared to the manga

The remains of Yoshiwara. Vol. 3, p. 145.

I stupidly packed up my manga in a box that I won’t have access to for a little bit, so I’m going to have to wing this. In the manga, the Yoshiwara is populated by sick women, which is why Iemitsu decides to repopulate it with healthy men. I thought this was a little strange to change this part, and I’m pretty sure drama!Iemitsu didn’t even mention it. (It might be in the next episode.)

I’m also pretty sure Terutsuna/Shizu was a boy in the manga instead of a girl who has had to live as a boy to become the heir of her family.

[I'll update this when I get my hands on my manga.]

Best Scene and Acknowledging Female Sexuality

Gyokuei’s preparations to sleep with Iemitsu, particularly his dialogue with Arikoto, broke my heart. Cutting to shots of Arikoto sitting in his room as Gyokuei’s hair was shaved off and dressed, as if Arikoto were mentally tracing his path to her chambers, was particularly effective. Both the men clearly were conflicted about the request.

Also, when Gyokuei tells her that he’ll do anything for Arikoto, even sleep with her, her reaction is priceless. “You and I are similar… Arikoto and I will talk about what happened here tonight,” she says, caressing his lips. “Arikoto will still love you.” Is Iemitsu (un)secretly a Arikoto/Gyokuei shipper?

I love that this drama and the manga acknowledge female sexual agency and sexual diversity, including kink. In a way, Iemitsu gets off on Gyokuei’s relationship with Arikoto, but that does not mean she loves Arikoto less. In contrast, Tsunayoshi’s sexual experimentation in vol. 5-6 and the second movie arises as a cure for boredom, and while it’s easy to dislike that character because of her cruelty and her disinterest in running the country, Yoshinaga has plenty of other female characters who deviate from sexual norms, both those of the real world and those of the world she built.

That’s really the crux of her ability to explore sexual and gender: there are so many female characters and so many male characters that no single character somehow represents the entirety of a sex. A token female (or racial/ethnic/sexual minority) often ends up standing in for “all women” in media devoid of other female characters. When a story has a more balanced cast, we can see character flaws not as an indictment of women but as a facet of well developed characters. Tsunayoshi’s inability to lead is not because she’s female any more than Iemitsu’s and Yoshimune’s leadership qualities come from their being female. We rarely accuse men of being poor leaders because they are men, after all. Similarly, Yoshimune’s and Hiraga Gennai’s (of vol. 9) tendency to dress plainly and practically becomes a personal choice rather than a rejection of feminine dress; Iemitsu, when she has the power to choose, chooses to dress like a fashionable woman and wear makeup. The same is true of the men. There’s no one right way to be a woman or a man in this series.

Next time on Ôoku: the lipstick Shogun.

This photo was taken in May 2012 at Natadera Temple in Komatsu. Established by the priest Taichô in 717 BCE, Natadera is a sprawling temple complex with gorgeous gardens. One of the highlights is the pavilion, which offers a view of the cliff-face, into which are carved shrines and paths.

Natadera is one of the region’s famous temples, and yet, it’s so quiet there, even with other tourists roaming the grounds. If the great golden statue of Kannon were meant to inspire awe in worshipers, the paths through the temple complex must be meant for reflection. (One could say the same of cathedrals vs. Western-style labyrinths, I suppose.) It’s easy to see how Shinto and Buddhist beliefs overlap here, and, if you’re willing to spend a little time looking, you can find the shrine on the site, too.

Mr Postman, do you have a letter for me?
A letter for me
From my own true love
Lost at sea
-The Decemberists – “From My Own True Love (Lost at Sea)”

I wrote about Tôjinbô (東尋坊) once in 2009, when I went on a road trip to Fukui. (It seems like a million years ago.) I only posted one photo(!), so today I’ll share some from my return trip in March 2012.

The thing about living or traveling in Hokuriku is how moody the landscape seems, particularly in autumn and winter. The constant precipitation and thundersnow, the rugged coasts, the harsh winters, the isolation of some of the areas (Suzu, Shirakawa-go) historically cut off from travel by snow or mountains…. The areas near the sea always remind me of The Decemberists’ “From My Own True Love (Lost at Sea),” a short, evocative song about waiting for a letter that will never come.

The area around Tojinbo has a  fascinating topography. According to the Fukui prefecture website, Tojinbo, a Designated Place of Beauty,” is the only place in Japan where one can see such a gigantic columnar joint of pyroxene andesite.”

Tôjinbô has a sad reputation as “suicide cliffs” thanks to the 30-m drop and pointy rocks below. Along the 1-kim stretch of cliffs, there are signs with messages like “Think of your family and friends” and pay phones to try to deter jumpers. [If you are in Japan and need counseling in English, go to http://www.telljp.com/ or phone the TELL Lifeline 03-5774-0992)

The island of Oshima in the background is connected to the mainland with a bridge. There’s an old lighthouse there, an abandoned (?) shrine, and a hell of a lot of hawks.

Tide pools at low tide.

To return to the subjects of the rocks, pyroxene andesite is a geographically rare phenomenon featuring pillars of pentagonal or hexagonal stone (JNTO). I’ve never seen anything quite like it.

The area is popular with tour groups, so it’s not as creepy as being near the shore alone as I have been in other travels in the area. Yet, the cliffs in winter are always sort of foreboding, and when the weather turns to sunshine, there’s still something mocking about it. The area may not be as poetic as the gleaming coast of Shirasaki, but there’s a mysterious beauty to the place.

Lost at sea

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. Miss Representation linked to Jazz Brice’s post “Why Dove’s “Real Beauty Sketches” Video Makes Me Uncomfortable… and Kind of Makes Me Angry, ” in which the author discusses the video in terms of lack of intersectionality and the value of conventional beauty. She writes,

When it comes to the diversity of the main participants: all four are Caucasian, three are blonde with blue eyes, all are thin, and all are young (the oldest appears to be 40). The majority of the non-featured participants are thin, young white women as well. Hmm… probably a little limiting, wouldn’t you say? We see in the video that at least three black women were in fact drawn for the project. Two are briefly shown describing themselves in a negative light (one says she has a fat, round face, and one says she’s getting freckles as she ages). Both women are lighter skinned. A black man is shown as one of the people describing someone else, and he comments that she has “pretty blue eyes”. One Asian woman is briefly shown looking at the completed drawings of herself and you see the back of a black woman’s head; neither are shown speaking. Out of 6:36 minutes of footage, people of color are onscreen for less than 10 seconds.

Brice continues that, based on the verbal descriptions included in the video, “beauty” seems to be defined by thinness and youth. As for the ultimate takeaway of the campaign, she writes,

And my primary problem with this Dove ad is that it’s not really challenging the message like it makes us feel like it is. It doesn’t really tell us that the definition of beauty is broader than we have been trained to think it is, and it doesn’t really tell us that fitting inside that definition isn’t the most important thing. It doesn’t really push back against the constant objectification of women. All it’s really saying is that you’re actually not quite as far off from the narrow definition as you might think that you are (if you look like the featured women, I guess).

Having a positive body image is important, but a lot of the flaws these women describe almost sound like something out of the Twilight and associated fanfictions-turned-published-fiction world of faux-character flaws: oh, no! I’m too pale and clumsy and thin and my hair is weird. Woe is me. No one will ever love me.

Image via Salon.

Meanwhile, Erin Keane cuts right to the bone in her brilliant piece “Stop posting that Dove ad: “Real beauty” campaign is not feminist” in Salon:

Take-away: Women are our own worst critics!

Except we’re not — at least, not naturally. All of that body image baggage is internalized by growing up in a society that enforces rigid beauty standards, and since the target demographic for this ad is clearly women over 35 with access to library cards (which is to say, women who have had some time to figure this reality out), it is baffling that Dove can continue to garner raves for its pandering, soft-focus fake empowerment ads.

She also notes that,

When he reveals both sketches to each woman, everyone has feelings, because Sketches A, based on self-description, look like outtakes from the Napoleon Dynamite Book of Cryptozoology. Sketches B, of course, look like actual human beings.

The Tool of the Weak

In addition to the aforementioned issues of selling “empowerment” in the form of beauty products and the conventional beauty of the models*, I’m bothered, too, by Dove’s missed chance to address what I saw as an obvious point about showing women and men that they don’t have to 1. judge other women solely based on appearance and 2. that judging others on appearance divides us. The time women spend snarking on each other’s appearance and (perceived) sexual history could be used instead to join forces against problematic depictions of women in media and increase awareness of intersectionality. Instead of judging, we could be creating our own media, selling products to other women with the respect and consideration we deserve.

This is the critical part to remember: we are socialized to be this way by society. Women are not born with a natural predisposition to be catty, sneaky, or backstabbing. When a group of people lacks power in society, the way to get ahead is to compete with treachery, to tear down others with rumors, lies, and criticism based on fatuous standards that are forced upon us by those in power. That includes using our internalized body image issues to sell us products to correct our “problems.”

Via Sociological Images. “WOMEN, NEVER FORGET YOUR BODY IS BEING JUDGED”

And this isn’t just about worrying that one’s body isn’t in fashion–rejection of problematic discussions about bodies can also lead to shaming and snarking. I’m reminded of other advertisers and individuals who talk about “real women,” as in “real women have curves.” Just because this body type or that one is “in” or “out” of fashion doesn’t make any body type better or worse. It’s just another thing to fight over. It keeps us weak.

When people accuse women of keeping themselves down, they usually mean that somehow having less power politically, professionally, and socially has some sort of “benefit” and that we want to preserve the gap to continue said “benefit.” For example, recently, Kaori Shoji wrote in The Japan Times** that 

Once upon a time [the 1980s] the joshi (女子, girls) of the nation were courted, coddled, wined and dined. Christmas meant dinner at a swank shitī hoteru (シティホテル, city hotel) and the okimari (お決まり, routine) tryst in a deluxe double room with a bottle of Champagne. Two decades later one hears such things assailing the lives of women, sure. But these days, they are more likely to assail Beyonce than the average Japanese joshi. (“The life and times of the destitute girl“)

Even after breaking down the household economics of single women of meager means in Tokyo, instead of actually addressing the issue of women systematically earning less than men due to rampant sexism in all levels of society, Shoji would rather treat the issue as if it were in some sort of vacuum. No social issue occurs in a vacuum: this is all interconnected. (For some overview graphs of how Japan compares to other countries, see Sarah Mirk’s “Nine Graphs That Show Babies Aren’t Solely to Blame for the Wage Gap” on Bitch Media.)

If you’ll indulge me, I’d like to use the manga Ôoku briefly as an example. This manga is an alternate history of a genderswapped Edo period brought on by a pox that kills off most of the male population; you can find all my posts on it in the Ôoku tag. I’ve made the same point about it time and time again: those in a position of less power are taught to and use backhanded methods to cut down their “opponents”:

As I stated in my posts on the film and first volume, any group of people, women or men, kept in luxurious isolation with the sole purpose of competing for romantic partners, are likely doomed to a life of frivolity in attempting to outdo each other and also amuse themselves. We’ve seen evidence of this cattiness in volume 2 through the cruelties the men of the ôoku inflict on Arikoto and Gyokuei… (“Like Goldfish: The Sexual and Cultural Revolution in Ôoku, Vols. 3 & 4, Part 3“)

Most notably, she is angered by her lack of real power and takes out her frustrations on the men of the ōoku. She enjoys playing humiliating power games with the men to show who is in charge. She refers to all the men by feminine names [because it makes them angry and]…because, as members of her harem, they are “like women” (85). She forces them to dress as women and dance to amuse her (205). (“Bodhisattva and the Beast”)

What do you think court gossip was, after all, but a tool for faux-empowerment through hurting others, a vote of social no-confidence?

Verbally, the words used to refer to women to shame and hurt them–words like ugly, old and fat, but also slut and whore–have consequences. It could be as “small” as making someone feel ashamed of her/his body once or as much as constant, ruthless bullying and violence. When young women are committing suicide due to continued bullying by female classmates following sexual assault, what does that say about our society? And, furthermore, what does that say that the words we use to hurt the most always seem to be about female bodies and female sexuality? Backstabbing and shaming isn’t constructive, and it averts our focus from addressing actual issues, like ending rape culture and getting a fair and living wage.

It’s certainly not easy to retrain oneself to fight the urge to make critical comments about other’s bodies after years of being told, both overtly and through interacting with one’s culture, that we can judge other women’s bodies with impunity.  You might not like Sarah Jessica Parker as an actress and you may not find her attractive, but her chin and nose don’t exist just to piss you off. You may be proud of your curves without accusing women with fewer curves of being anorexic or slutty; you may be proud of your “boyish” figure without thinking that femme people are weaker or somehow lesser. You’re allowed to be attracted to a certain body type (say, small-breasted women) or to have small breasts without implying that women with larger breasts are unathletic, slovenly, or dumb just because this cycle of fashion has–or has not–deemed them the figure victor of the decade. (Speaking of which, check out the site of photographer Haley Morris-Cafiero, whose series Wait Watchers features bystanders reacting to her body.)

Dove Facebook. Via jazzylittledrops

So what does this have to do with “Real Beauty”? The chance for Dove to reach out and show that women can interact positively with each other and be kind regarding others’ appearances was lost. It was not the focus. It was not even mentioned.

It’s not enough, Dove, to tell us we’re all “beautiful” and just don’t realize it. That is not empowerment. Stop perpetuating the idea that women are no more than the bodies we inhabit, whether it’s a “socially acceptable” body here for the pleasure of the male gaze or an “incorrect” body to be ridiculed.***

Furthermore, have you considered the reason that we just ourselves so harshly is because others judge us so harshly? That we are trained to judge women based on their appearance rather than their contributions to society? What about ending that cycle as a means to feeling more self-confident?

Imagine a world in which you don’t pretend that beauty allows you to “reach your full potential.”

Imagine a world in which Unilever doesn’t pander to cultural biases about appearance and gender expression by selling skin whitening lotions or use objectifying ad to sell men’s products like Axe/Lynx (see Elena Rossini’s “The Problem with Dove” on The Illusionists.)

Imagine a world in which we work together and discuss intersectionality, where we stop colluding with an outdated, exclusive, damaging view of feminine (and masculine) beauty that keeps us from fulfilling our potential because we’re too busy calling each other ugly sluts, where we refuse to be objectified by individuals, advertisers, and the culture at whole.

Dove, imagine a world where you actually help us do that.

Notes

*I will say that even people who are considered to be attractive DO find faults and flaws in their appearance, whether it’s a crooked nose or a scar or stretch marks. That doesn’t make their internalized fear of being judged by others less, especially when it happens to them on a grossly exaggerated level: just look at the headlines about celebrities’ bikini bodies or pregnancy weight gain. However, for the rest of us, comments about acquaintances’ (or stars’) weight (going all ways–thin people criticizing “fat” people or fat-positive bloggers calling thin women “fake” and everything in between), facial features (can’t help the nose you’re born with), and so on are hurtful to the party in question and perpetuate the stereotype that women are judgy and catty.

**If this newspaper is supposed to represent the voices of the English-speaking expat community in Japan, why doesn’t it give a fuck about women? You have the chance to provide real news on social struggles of people other than Debito, you know?

*** According to its own press/Yahoo Finance, Unilever, Dove’s parent company, is supposedly one of the best companies to work for based on their LGBT policies and is supposedly attempting to reduce environmental impact. (Call me when you stop using SLS…) Why not highlight those points as a selling point?

While we did get a few spectacularly sunny days in Kanazawa for hanami, two cold fronts and storms rolled through during the two weeks of blooming. Kanazawa, moody as always.

I took these photos at the Former Takamine Residence and its garden, which are near the moat around Kanazawa Castle and the Kuromon entrance to the grounds. (Map). The home once belonged to Jokichi Takamine (1854-1922). In addition to purifying adrenaline and isolating the enzyme takadiatase, he is also famous for having donated the cherry trees in Washington, D.C. The grounds of the residence-turned-museum, which are free to enter, contain several beautiful “weeping” shidarezakura trees (しだれ桜).

As you can see from the first photo, I’m rather enamored of the roof of the wall surrounding the residence. I also didn’t touch up the photos, since I wanted you all to see what Kanazawa looks like most of the time: cloudy, yet somehow elegant.

Image from LINE

The BeruBara stamps/stickers were 199 yen. Some of my favorites are below the cut.

Most of the stickers are of Oscar, Antoinette, and Oscar, but Louis XVI, Louis Charles, Fersen, and Rosalie make appearances, too. The stickers often depict scenes from the manga. I’m not exactly sure when I’ll get to use the one of Andre with the text “Someday I’ll give my life for you” (おれはいつか。。。おまえのために命をすてよう) one, but I fully expect to use the one of Oscar laughing uproariously at her “engagement party” frequently.

進撃！(Charge!)

More posts about BeruBara here.

Via 16-Bit Sirens’ “CONsent.”

Mutant and Proud

“Beyond Categories: Non-Binary Sexuality” Panel at Emerald City Comic Con. Erika Moen. 7 March 2013.

This video is an hour long and worth every single minute of your time. From the discussion of biphobia-fueled homophobia to “wibbly wobbly” sexuality (to appropriate the Tenth Doctor’s description of time), the all-star panelist cast of Randall Kirby, Leia Weathington (a fellow Yoshinaga Fumi fan!), Charles “Zan” Christensen, Ellen Forney, Jason Thompson and Erika Moen

gathered together to discuss having bi/pan/queer sexualities in a monosexual world where both the straights and the gays don’t accept you (or straight up view you as The Enemy) and our experiences with biphobia– all with a healthy dose of dick jokes and wise-crackin’.

Root. “The Five Best Genderqueer Characters in Comics.” Bitch.  6 March 2013.

Speaking of which, here’s a list of genderqueer characters (more in the comments) in American comics. My favorite right now? Hiraga Gennai from Yoshinaga Fumi’s Ôoku.

Cosplay is Not Consent

Jill Pantozzi. “When Professionals Aren’t:  The PAX East Tomb Raider Cosplay Harassment Story.” The Mary Sue. 28 March 2013.

A cosplay (or any) outfit is not an invitation. Pantozzi writes about the harassment of Lara Croft cosplayers at a convention and the culture of harassment as it relates to cosplay.

“He proceeded to tell me that ‘I was one of those oversensitive feminists’ and that ‘the girls were dressing sexy, so they were asking for it.’ Yes, he pulled the ‘cosplay is consent’ card.”…

Wizemann said, “Honestly, I couldn’t think of a less sexualized costume at the event, but I suppose anything worn by a woman can be ‘sexualized.’”

Sushi Killer. “The Beginnings of CONsent.” 16-bit Sirens. 3 April 2013. [Via The Mary Sue.]

In this brilliant photo essay, Sushi Killer takes back the con:

I presented cosplayers with a wipe off board, simply reading “Cosplay =/= Consent” and asked them about their experiences of harassment. I was not surprised to hear many horrible stories from women and men alike. These can be as seemingly harmless and annoying as not asking for permission before taking a picture or bothering them for a picture or interview while they were taking a water or food break. But the majority of the stories were more serious and ranged from threats of violence to inappropriate touching, and from lewd facebook messages to stalking.

Susana Polo. “What if Feminist Ryan Gosling… Was Pictures of Con Staff?“ The Mary Sue. 10 April 2013.

Also in response to the PAX East fuckery, the Feminist Pax Enforcers were born.

A bit older, but still relevant:

Then something awesome happened. Dark Horse Comics editor Rachel Edidin staged a “cheerful coup” to overrun the Quickmeme page for the Idiot Nerd Girl with image macros written from the perspective of a Genuinely Nerdy Girl who’s tired of being automatically labelled a poser just for being female. Now a majority of the newest pictures at Quickmeme are of this type, and I f–king love it.

Mind the Gap

Mathilda Gregory. “Why Doctor Who needs more female writers.” The Guardian. 27 March 2013.

Doctor Who hasn’t had a female writer since 2008, and the show has had only one female writer since its reboot in 2005. What’s happening with the lack of women behind the scenes in contemporary sci-fi TV and film? (And when will the Doctor get his wish to be a [ginger] woman?)

“We can knock and knock, but if they won’t let us in, we’ll never get to see how big the Tardis really might be inside. Right now, the Tardis only holds men, so maybe it’s not that big, after all.”

Susana Polo. “Game Developer Had to Specifically Request that Focus Groups Include Women.” The Mary Sue. 9 April 2013.

Fact: overlooking women in focus groups and marketing for video games doesn’t actually help market video games to women.

In fact, if the folks who were responsible for problematic portrayals of female characters or poor representation of real women in games industry were doing it all purely deliberately, it’d probably be a lot easier to fix. The reality is that a lot of this stuff is far more subtle than that, and the sad fact remains that all of us are capable of having noble or even neutral intentions while still overlooking the subtle ways in which we’re contributing to a stereotype, operating on a false assumption, or missing out on a different but important perspective.

Caperton. “How to write about lady-scientists (e.g., stuff they cook that ISN’T dinner).” Feministe. 2 April 2013.

Caperton discusses some articles on Beef-Stroganoff-gate, otherwise known as the sorry excuse for rocket scientist Yvonne Brill’s obituary:

Brill developed the concept for a new rocket engine, the hydrazine resistojet, but the paper of record starts off with her beef noodle skills.

Double Dose of Awesome

(Okay, a lot of these were awesome. But have some more!)

Kathryn Hemmann. “Writing ‘Strong’ Female Characters.” Contemporary Japanese Literature. 9 April 2013.

Hemmann lays out some ground rules for writing female characters well. (The inclusion of Kushana from Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind made my heart explode from joy. Manga!Kushana is one of my all-time favorite characters in the history of literature.)

Since gender is an important component of any work of fiction, I feel that this is an excellent opportunity to clarify my own opinions about what makes a “strong” female character, with “strong” meaning “well developed” in a literary sense.

Lindsay Ellis and Antonella “Nella” Inserra. 50 Shades of Green. Chez Apocalypse & Blip.

Tired of “steamy” Twilight fanfic getting published while your favorite AU slashfic is overlooked? Never fear, the minds behind Nostalgia Chick have come to the rescue!

Crowdsourcing the next, worst erotic paranormal romance novel.

The riveting romance between Cthulu (Edward) and Lego Brick (Bella) as told by every one of us who threw Twilight across the room, screamed “THAT’S NOT HOW S&M WORKS” at 50 Shades of Grey (please see Mark Reads‘ Mark Oshiro attempt to tackle this crap here and here),  and now want to shake Simon & Schuster because it just needs to stop.