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The recent resignation of Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama has drawn attention once again to the issue of US military bases in Okinawa. One of the main issues contributing to his loss of popularity was his reneging on a campaign promise to have US Marine Corps Air Station Futenma closed. Hatoyama had long been an advocate of reducing the US military presence and as early as 1996 had campaigned for the lower house on a platform that included renegotiating the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty and “map[ping] out a structure in which no U.S. forces would be stationed in Japan in normal times.”

Had a Prime Minister with that sort of history backtracked on a promise that was unpopular, it would merely be an issue of internal politics and a fairly mundane one at that. In this case, however, Hatoyama bowed not to internal

Yukio Hatoyama tweets his resignation.

pressure but to external pressure. Steve Clemons at Talking Points Memo has gone so far as to argue that Obama has brought down the wrong Prime Minister, though I think that makes the issue a bit too personal. Obama is hardly the first US President to believe that the US has a right to keep military bases in places where they are not wanted. Indeed, doing so is a key element of creating a global image of US power and influence.

It’s not the kind of influence I’ve always valued. It’s not the kind of influence that means people listen to your ideas because they are good and well-supported or trust you because they know your strange-sounding plans have turned out well in the past; it’s not the kind represented by the wild geese in TH White.  It is neocolonialist. Or maybe we could just drop the “neo”.

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image by Amuse Soft Entertainment

You may have already heard about “Crying Girl” DVD, released in Japan last month.  It features 11 young Japanese actresses, crying over real-life dramas they’ve had.  And…that’s about it.  The DVD is being marketed toward Japanese men, either for sexual or ego enjoyment purposes.

While I’m not really surprised that this DVD exists, given the wide rage of fetishes out there especially when it comes to viewing women as victims or vulnerable (just because I’m not surprised doesn’t mean I don’t find that problematic), I’m really bothered by the lack of criticism it’s receiving from bloggers and news outlets, where it’s gotten any coverage at all.

It’s been highlighted (in English-language blogs) as just one more “WTF, Japan” idiosyncrasy, that also provides a fleeting glimpse into a gender status quo that most Westerners are taking for granted.

Steve Levenstein over at the blog Inventor Spot posted a somewhat cynical take of the DVD but nonetheless concluded, “it seems that men in Japan need to have their “conquering instinct” stoked up, and the way to do this is by watching beautiful women cry. Yep, in a nutshell: men feel stronger after experiencing the weakness of women. But hey – Japan is a different culture and Crying Girl just underlines that fact.”

Notes Marie Claire, “the film pitches itself as a self-help tool to empower men and stir up their ‘macho instincts’ by showing the ‘vulnerability’ of women.”

Levenstein notes, smartly or perhaps cheekily, that if a self-help tool for empowering men…which utilized women as props to do so…were marketed in the US,  “you’ll earn yourself a swift kick in the, er, nutshells.”  Yet it’s OK to condone that dynamic in Japan.  Maybe he didn’t feel empowered to take a feminist critique?

Posts didn’t ask questions about the deeper why that this DVD existed or whether they were doing something helpful by advertising it.  Instead of being “culturally sensitive,” or culturally insensitive in a tongue in cheek way which is what I think most of the blogs that posted about it sought to be (“hey – Japan is a different culture…”), such coverage is participating in the perpetuation of Western stereotypes about Japanese women as meek and submissive. Read the rest of this entry →

Welcome to GAB’s first monthly book club! Feel free to use this post as an open thread for discussion of the novel and to post any comments or questions you have about it here, but if you’re not sure where to start, here are some ideas to get the discussion going:

• What did you think of the characters?

Hiroko Tanaka is of course the most clearly drawn; I found her at once remarkable and remarkably average. Her greatest strength seemed to come from her ability simply to keep moving, while the extraordinary nature of her experiences is what makes that movement extraordinary. Then again, the seemingly extraordinary things she experiences happened to many people: that is what makes them historical events. This tension between the ordinary and the remarkable not only makes for a compelling protagonist but also suggests a more thematic issue related to the question of what happens when history becomes personal. Read the rest of this entry →

As mentioned yesterday, we’re starting a global feminist book club here at Gender Across Borders. Every month, we will choose a new book to read and discuss. The book for April will be Kamila Shamsie‘s Burnt Shadows. This sweeping book tells the story of the postmodern age, beginning with the atomic bombing of Nagasaki and ending after 9/11, through the remarkable and at times agonizing life of a Japanese woman. Hiroko Tanaka fits none of the stereotypes Westerners often hold about Japanese women. She is, like all of us, at times helpless against the brutal forces of history and the decisions of the powerful but she faces the world recreated by those forces with determination and daring. Her bravery at first may come from a certain naivete. By the end, however, after surviving calamity after calamity, her ability to move on in life and to new countries, comes from another kind of calmness and self-possession.

What makes this book so powerful is that the tension comes not from wondering what is going to happen but from knowing and being unable to stop it. In this way, Shamsie personalises the experience of reading history.

Please join us on April 1 when we will open up a thread for discussion of this striking work of contemporary fiction.

We are very excited to announce a monthly book club on Gender Across Borders! All of us are avid readers as well as writers, and would love to engage more with our readers (that means you!) through a monthly book club. Each month we will announce our text of choice, giving readers a month to read and prepare for discussion on the first day of the following month. We hope to promote dialogue, inspiration and also have some fun. Since we welcome a global audience who could not all gather in the same physical space, we will share our ideas together on the blog.

To get ready for next month’s discussion on Kamila Shamsie’s Burnt Shadows, all of the editors have contributed a book they find important to the global feminist discourse. (Check back tomorrow for a post from Elizabeth who will lead the discussion this month.) Read below for our Editor’s Picks.

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For women in many countries, getting to work or school and back home again on the bus or subway isn’t just a matter of trying to pass the time with a book and hoping there aren’t any delays. It means hoping, each day, that you won’t be targeted by a man who believes that he is entitled to your time, space, and body. It means running the real risk of being trapped in an enclosed space with a harasser because you can’t just leave between stops, and even when you reach a stop, getting off might mean being late for work and losing your job. If the bus or train is crowded, or if you are sitting by the window and the man harassing or assaulting you is sitting next to the aisle, you might not even be able to move away. You can scream, but you don’t know how this man will react. If he feels entitled to touch you, just how violent might his anger be when this is denied him? Japan, South Korea, and other countries have introduced women-only subway cars in order to reduce harassment and groping.

Clearly, harassment and assault on public transportation is a serious problem. So why do some people still see it as a joke? Last week, Tumblr’s official Tuesday update, posted by an apparently male staff member, began with a story about a dream in which real life was Tumblrized, complete with like and reblog buttons. It was funny, and cute, right up until reality hit: Read the rest of this entry →

Women forced into sex slavery in Japan during WWII, nicknamed “comfort women”, are still seeking an official apology from the Japanese government. These now elderly women, mostly from North and South Korea, are hoping for the official apology they have deserved for decades. It is estimated that up to 200,000 were forced into sexual slavery in Japanese military brothels during the war. Then opposition party leader, now Prime Minister of Japan, Yukio Hatoyama, stated in 2002 that the Japanese government should officially apologize to these women. Prime Minister Hatoyama has yet to deliver on his promise, but the women have reason to be hopeful.

Lee Yong-soo, 81 year old former Comfort Woman (AP Photo/Itsuo Inouye)

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Right now, most American sports spectators are finally peeling the baseball caps off their heads, getting knee deep into football season, indulging in some hockey, and dreaming of spring basketball. In Japan, however, there’s no need for seasonal adjustment on the part of Sumo wrestling fans. A Japan travel site  based in the United Kingdom informs us that Sumo season actually happens all year ‘round in 15-day tournaments that rotate through different locations. All the tournaments of 2009 have been played out except for the one in November, which will go down from the 15^th to the 29^th in Fukuoka.

Only men will be in the ring. The reason for the long-standing absence of women in mainstream Sumo runs deeper than the gender biases that still shock Americans when girls demand to wrestle boys in high school competitions.

Elissa Reinsma defeats John Weeding in a Minnesota high school wrestling tournament in March 2009

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Picking Bones From Ash
By Marie Mutsuki Mockett
Graywolf Press

Marie Mutsuki Mockett’s debut novel, Picking Bones from Ash, drew me in from the first sentence. Satomi, one of the two main characters of the book, learns from her mother at a young age that in order to be safe in this world, a woman must be talented—not well educated and certainly not beautiful, a woman must be talented. Satomi spends the rest of her life following this example, first as a pianist both in Japan and Europe and then as a successful cartoonist.

The story begins in Japan in the 1950s when Satomi is a little girl. Because Satomi has never met her father, and her mother runs an izakaya (pub) to support them, the two are outcasts in their small town, facing scorn from most of the women. Satomi’s mother eventually marries, largely for their financial security, to ensure Satomi will become a famous pianist. As Satomi goes to Tokyo, and later Paris, to study, she becomes increasingly independent and alienated from her mother.

The story abruptly switches narratives at a key moment in the plot, Read the rest of this entry →

Recent online discussion of a New York Times article about men with “pillow girlfriends” has largely ignored the role of the construction of masculinity in the development of what the Japanese call moe. The men who turn to 2-D love are not considered successful men, either by themselves or by the people around them.

Consider the man profiled in the New York Times article. Read the rest of this entry →