The Lobster Dance

In this Japan gender reader: Sailor Moon, sex and gender statistics, gender-equality Jizo, and more!

Concept art by Takeuchi Naoko. From Sailor Moon Wikia

Warning: some links may be NSFW.

Pop Culture

Soleil Ho. “What I Learned About Gender and Power from Sailor Moon.” Bitch Magazine. 31 May 2013.

Haruka Tenoh: the senshi, the woman, the legend–and the one responsible for queering the narrative for an entire generation of women. She was my favorite in the manga, too.

I didn’t want to be a girl anymore, but I wasn’t yet sure of what a woman was supposed to be. My mother was beautiful – too beautiful – for me to even imagine us as being part of the same species. Instead, my mind moved toward my favorite Sailor Moon character: Sailor Uranus…. I wanted to be strong and handsome like her, and I identified with her inability to trust other people, especially men. She was all of that, and yet she was a girl.

Statistics

Sex in Japan: Rankings (ニッポンのセックス). Sagami Rubber Industries (相模ゴム工業株式会社). 2013.

A condom-manufacturer’s survey ranks the prefectures of Japan by reported sexual satisfaction (Top 3: Kagoshima, Yamanashi,and Fukui); rate of affairs; frequency; number of partners, and so on.

Gender Equality Bureau Cabinet Office.  内閣府男女共同参画局。

From Kathryn in the comments of the June gender reader. This website has statistical data on all sorts of gender issues in Japan, including work-life balance, poverty, and domestic violence in both English and Japanese. As Kathryn commented, the bureau’s issues lack intersectionality–no talk of queer issues, non-Japanese living in Japan, etc. However, this bureau is a huge step in the right direction and will be a valuable resource for

History

Caleb Carter. “Criticizing Female Exclusion in Fifteenth Century Japan.” Ascetics and Pilgrims. 29 June 2013.

Carter translates a 15th-century document that contains a possible critique of nyonin kekkai 女人結界, a boundary prohibiting women from sacred mountains.

“That area is a bordered land (kekkai chi 結界地), upon which the trace of women has been removed.  Because this defies the Buddha’s orders and ignores his original vow, the benefits of conversion are shallow and scarce.”

Outside Japan

James Turnbull. “Consent is Sexy: SISTAR, slut-shaming, and sexual objectification in the Korean idol system.” The Grand Narrative. 20 June 2013.

Turnbull takes a long, critical into SISTAR and K-pop to discuss objectification and consent in the idol system as well as issues of applying academic theory to real-life situations.

Marianne Cassidy. “The Sex Education I Wish I Had.”  Role/Reboot. 15 July 2013.

I’ve started thinking about the sex education I wish I’d had. I even went as far as drafting a syllabus, because I’m obsessive like that, but I will not inflict it on the Internet because I’m not an educator and also it’s five pages long. But I will show you my wish list. Because maybe it’s just my inner Hermione Granger talking, but I do wish there’d been a class.

 Jess Eagle. “How Accepting Leggings as Pants Made Me a Better Feminist.” Feminspire. May 2013.

And, it’s taken me a long time — about seven years’ worth of judging women for wearing comfortable, trendy not-pants — but it’s finally, fully dawned on me: I was judging women for not conforming, too. All this time, I thought I was the system-bucker because I avoided this trend like the plague. But it turns out I actually missed out on years’ worth of system-bucking via comfy, trendy bottoms. OH GOD. Excuse me while I crawl off to a corner now and die of self-disappointment.

Looking for more articles about gender? Follow me on Twitter, Facebook, or Tumblr! Have suggestions for next month’s gender reader? Leave me a comment!