Via Mashable
Costume-seller Party City blocked a woman who complained on Facebook about their sexist gender binary in occupation-based costumes for children (read: cop vs. sexy lady cop):
Posts Tagged ‘sexism’
Feminist Halloween, Day 5: Children’s Costumes
Posted in Feminist Halloween, tagged sexism on 2015/10/05| 1 Comment »
10 Ways the “Women in Japan” Series Misses the Point
Posted in Gender, tagged bad journalism, glass ceiling, sexism on 2014/11/05| 10 Comments »
RocketNews24 has some questionable content, but the site has really dropped the ball with Amy Chavez’s “Women in Japan” series, first offering 5 “powerful reasons” to be a woman (?) in Japan–you know, if your only aspiration is to be a mother and you are in a heterogamous marriage to a man who earns enough and you have no fertility issues. Powerful! (Do read the comments.)
Amy Chavez of the herbivore-man-shaming “humor” column that graces The Japan Times has written another contribution that both ignores big-picture institutionalized sexism but also includes a number of “female friendly” items that are generally available to men and women (of a certain class) because why not have some fun with gender essentialism?
Criticizing this list and, thus both Chavez’s writing and Japan, is not to say that the US and other countries do not have institutionalized misogyny, fatphobia, etc. However, for this list of “uniquely” Japanese “perks” “for women” is so out of touch with reality that it boggles.
Feminist Halloween, Day 16: Rewatching The Craft
Posted in Gender, Media, tagged ableism, sexism, The Craft on 2014/10/21| 2 Comments »
via Wikipedia
Like many people who grew up in the 90s, I loved The Craft. While it didn’t send me into goth mode, it did inspire some less-than-rousing rounds of “light as a feather, stiff as a board” at sleepovers and wanting to be a special snowflake “natural witch.” (I was in junior high. Go away.)
I re-watched it about 6 years ago, and then re-watched it in the spirit of Halloween last week. While I’d say the first half of the movie “holds up” as a campy, fun movie about female friendship, the second half, which was scary to me as a teen, falls short of what I wish the movie could have been.
In The Craft, Sarah, the new girl at a Catholic school in LA, falls in with three unpopular girls rumored to be witches. Together, they learn “the craft” for fun and to improve their lives–until, of course, everything goes wrong. (Moderate spoilers.)
What Happened to The Mary Sue?
Posted in Gender, tagged feminism, Geekosystem, sexism, The Mary Sue on 2014/07/02| 13 Comments »
Update, May 2015: Glen Tickle left The Mary Sue after that summer, thank Goddess, and after many months of the “About” description below, feminist is back in the picture.
We pride ourselves on being an inclusive, feminist community of people who not only love what they love but care about others who love it and have an intense passion for those who create it. Fan trends, social issues, geek fashion and art, innovative gadgets, and beyond: The Mary Sue is the heartbeat of geek culture.
Vast, vast improvement, connecting inclusivity and feminism to geek culture. The content, as I understand from what my friends share, is more inclusive than ever. It feels a bit like getting back together with a friend who burnt you badly and maybe cut off your arm. To me, though, owning that feminist status is just as important as owning your geek status.
Interrupting the series again for breaking news:
The Mary Sue merger has me feeling a bit like Obi-Wan today.
Source unknown, but memetastic.
Let me explain.
The Mary Sue, popular geek website for geek women by geek women, merged with Geekosystem, a sister site from Abrams Media. The merger was a decision from the top, and it’s been handled unbelievably poorly by everyone involved. I had seen the notices that it was going to happen but didn’t have time to check things out until toranosukev from Nubui Kuduchi showed me this.
About What Exactly?
Regarding the merger, an announcement like the following would have been the best call:
Japan Gender Reader: June 2014
Posted in Gender, Language, Translation, Visual Culture, tagged いのちリスペクト, ホワイトリボン・キャンペーン, beauty, China, 生理休暇, Elliot Rodger, gendered pronouns, history of beauty, hurricanes, Isla Vista, ＬＧＢＴの学校生活に関する実態調査(2013) 結果報告書, japan, Lean In, LGBT students, linguistics, menstrual leave, misogyny, patriarchy, satire, sexism, singular they, YesAllWomen on 2014/06/04| 1 Comment »
Utagawa Kunimasa, “Young Woman and a Cat at a Kotatsu”
Tokyo National Museum. Ukiyo-e, Nihon bijutsu zenshū, Tokugawa, (Comprehensive Collection of Japanese Art) vol. 20 (Kōdansha, 1991), p. 34. Via Japan Focus.
I ended up skipping the May reader since I was busy with the edits for the cross-dressing in anime and manga series. However, the gender issue rightfully on everyone’s mind in May was Elliot Rodger and #YesAllWomen. I don’t have much to contribute that conversation other than a link to a list of well written articles below, but I do have some more articles to share about gender in Japan.
In this gender reader: the history of beauty in Japan and China, gendered pronouns in Japanese and English, a survey of LGBT students in Japan, a collection of essential articles about Isla Vista, and more.
Japan Gender Reader, Dec. 2013
Posted in Consumer Culture, Gender, Media, Race, Visual Culture, tagged Abe, Abenomics, advice columns, animation, cultural appropriation, dimorphism, Disney, feminism, Gender, Katy Perry, sexism, video games on 2013/12/29| 1 Comment »
In this gender reader: more on Abenomics, Disney dimorphism, video games before gendered marketing, and more.
HULK SMASH YOUR DELICATE LADY HAND. Image from Frozen via Family Inequality.
Japan Gender Reader, November 2013
Posted in Expat Living, Gender, Race, tagged Abe, Abenomics, coeducation, feminism, Gender, gender gap index, gender reader, harassment, japan, misogyny, racism, rape culture, sexism, University of Michigan, womenomics on 2013/11/30| 3 Comments »
In this gender reader, doing some catching up from October (when I did a spooky gender reader instead): harassment of non-Japanese women in Japan; bottoming out a whopping #105 in the Gender Gap Index; the problem with all the patronizing “sexless” Japan journalism; and Social Justice Wario.
Frequency of sex vs fertility rate via Yuki Aota.
Halloween Gender Reader, October 2013
Posted in Geek Culture, Gender, Halloween, Race, Visual Culture, tagged costume, female ghosts, feminism, Gender, Halloween, horror films, horror literature, Podcastle, Psuedopod, racism, sexism, sexy Halloween costumes, Take Back Halloween, The Yellow Wallpaper, We're a Culture Not a Costume on 2013/10/24| 7 Comments »
Halloween! Let’s celebrate my favorite holiday with a (mostly positive) gender reader!
Source: Wikipedia.
Japan Gender Reader: Sept. 2013
Posted in Culture, Gender, tagged Anything That Loves, dudebro, dwango, j-jobs, japan, joshi-mane, Korea, non-binary sexuality, patriarchy, Self Defense Force, sexism, sociology on 2013/09/29| Leave a Comment »
In this Japan gender reader: Dwango grabs some girls from the steno pool circa 1950 and puts them in tracksuits; how the koseki (family registry) continues to ostracize residents of Japan; and is the patriarchy dead–a qualified NO. Read on!
Dwango’s joshi-mane: when health care is feminized. Run, ladies, run away! Image via Akihabara News.
Making No Sense of Medieval Avatars: When Women Were Passive and Men Were Unicorns
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 on 2013/06/13| 3 Comments »
“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.
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