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Posts Tagged ‘sexism’

Feminist Halloween, Day 5: Children’s Costumes

Posted in Feminist Halloween, tagged on 2015/10/05| 1 Comment »

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):

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10 Ways the “Women in Japan” Series Misses the Point

Posted in Gender, tagged , , 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.

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Feminist Halloween, Day 16: Rewatching The Craft

Posted in Gender, Media, tagged , , on 2014/10/21| 2 Comments »

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.)

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What Happened to The Mary Sue?

Posted in Gender, tagged , , , 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. 

You were the chosen one!

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:

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Japan Gender Reader: June 2014

Posted in Gender, Language, Translation, Visual Culture, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 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.

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.

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Japan Gender Reader, Dec. 2013

Posted in Consumer Culture, Gender, Media, Race, Visual Culture, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on 2013/12/29| 1 Comment »

In this gender reader: more on Abenomics, Disney dimorphism, video games before gendered marketing, and more.

I have never met a person who could completely cover my hands in theirs. I'd be making that face, too. Image from Frozen via Family Inequality.

HULK SMASH YOUR DELICATE LADY HAND. Image from Frozen via Family Inequality.

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Japan Gender Reader, November 2013

Posted in Expat Living, Gender, Race, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 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.

Frequency of sex vs fertility rate via Yuki Aota.

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