The other women's lib : gender and body in Japanese women's fiction /
Bullock, Julia C,
The other women's lib : gender and body in Japanese women's fiction / Julia C. Bullock. - 1 online resource (ix, 200 pages)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Introduction: Bad wives and worse mothers? rewriting femininity in postwar Japan -- Party crashers and poison pens: women writers in the age of high economic growth -- The masculine gaze as disciplinary mechanism -- Feminist misogyny? or how I learned to hate my body -- Odd bodies -- The body of the other woman -- Conclusion: Power, violence, and language in the age of high economic growth.
Use copy Open Access
The Other Women's Lib provides the first systematic analysis of Japanese literary feminist discourse of the 1960s--a full decade before the "women's lib" movement emerged in Japan. It highlights the work of three well-known female fiction writers of this generation (Kono Taeko, Takahashi Takako, and Kurahashi Yumiko) for their avant-garde literary challenges to dominant models of femininity. Focusing on four tropes persistently employed by these writers to protest oppressive gender stereotypes--the disciplinary masculine gaze, feminist misogyny, "odd bodies," and female homoeroticism--Julia Bullock brings to the fore their previously unrecognized theoretical contributions to second-wave radical feminist discourse. In all of these narrative strategies, the female body is viewed as both the object and instrument of engendering. Severing the discursive connection between bodily sex and gender is thus a primary objective of the narratives and a necessary first step toward a less restrictive vision of female subjectivity in modern Japan. The Other Women's Lib further demonstrates that this "gender trouble" was historically embedded in the socioeconomic circumstances of the high-growth economy of the 1960s, when prosperity was underwritten by an increasingly conservative gendered division of labor that sought to confine women within feminine roles. Raised during the war to be "good wives and wise mothers" yet young enough to take advantage of the opportunities presented to them by Occupation-era reforms, the authors who fueled the 1960s boom in women's literary publication staunchly resisted normative constructions of gender, crafting narratives that exposed or subverted hegemonic discourses of femininity that relegated women to the negative pole of a binary opposition to men. Their fictional heroines are unapologetically bad wives and even worse mothers; they are often wanton, excessive, or selfish and brazenly cynical with regard to traditional love, marriage, and motherhood. The Other Women's Lib affords a cogent and incisive analysis of these texts as feminist philosophy in fictional form, arguing persuasively for the inclusion of such literary feminist discourse in the broader history of Japanese feminist theoretical development. It will be accessible to undergraduate audiences and deeply stimulating to scholars and others interested in gender and culture in postwar Japan, Japanese women writers, or Japanese feminism.
Electronic reproduction.
[S.l.] :
HathiTrust Digital Library,
2011.
Master and use copy. Digital master created according to Benchmark for Faithful Digital Reproductions of Monographs and Serials, Version 1. Digital Library Federation, December 2002.
http://purl.oclc.org/DLF/benchrepro0212
In English.
9781441671479 1441671471 9780824860752 0824860756 9780824833879 0824833872
10.21313/9780824860752 doi
22573/ctt62vfth JSTOR 102977 Knowledge Unlatched
2009032034
1900-1999
Japanese fiction--History and criticism.--20th century
Women in literature.
Japanese fiction--Women authors--History and criticism.
Feminist literary criticism--Japan.
Gender identity in literature.
Human body in literature.
Women--Identity.--Japan
LITERARY CRITICISM--Asian--General.
SOCIAL SCIENCE--Gender Studies.
Feminist literary criticism.
Gender identity in literature.
Human body in literature.
Japanese fiction.
Japanese fiction--Women authors.
Women--Identity.
Women in literature.
Litteraturvetenskap--Japan--1900-talet.
Författare.
Kvinnobilden.
Könsidentitet.
Kropp.
Genus.
Japansk litteratur--historia--1900-talet.
Japansk litteratur--kvinnliga författare.
Kvinnor i litteraturen.
Människokroppen i litteraturen.
Japan.
Electronic books.
Criticism, interpretation, etc.
Electronic book.
PL747.82.W64 / B85 2010eb
895.6/35093522
The other women's lib : gender and body in Japanese women's fiction / Julia C. Bullock. - 1 online resource (ix, 200 pages)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Introduction: Bad wives and worse mothers? rewriting femininity in postwar Japan -- Party crashers and poison pens: women writers in the age of high economic growth -- The masculine gaze as disciplinary mechanism -- Feminist misogyny? or how I learned to hate my body -- Odd bodies -- The body of the other woman -- Conclusion: Power, violence, and language in the age of high economic growth.
Use copy Open Access
The Other Women's Lib provides the first systematic analysis of Japanese literary feminist discourse of the 1960s--a full decade before the "women's lib" movement emerged in Japan. It highlights the work of three well-known female fiction writers of this generation (Kono Taeko, Takahashi Takako, and Kurahashi Yumiko) for their avant-garde literary challenges to dominant models of femininity. Focusing on four tropes persistently employed by these writers to protest oppressive gender stereotypes--the disciplinary masculine gaze, feminist misogyny, "odd bodies," and female homoeroticism--Julia Bullock brings to the fore their previously unrecognized theoretical contributions to second-wave radical feminist discourse. In all of these narrative strategies, the female body is viewed as both the object and instrument of engendering. Severing the discursive connection between bodily sex and gender is thus a primary objective of the narratives and a necessary first step toward a less restrictive vision of female subjectivity in modern Japan. The Other Women's Lib further demonstrates that this "gender trouble" was historically embedded in the socioeconomic circumstances of the high-growth economy of the 1960s, when prosperity was underwritten by an increasingly conservative gendered division of labor that sought to confine women within feminine roles. Raised during the war to be "good wives and wise mothers" yet young enough to take advantage of the opportunities presented to them by Occupation-era reforms, the authors who fueled the 1960s boom in women's literary publication staunchly resisted normative constructions of gender, crafting narratives that exposed or subverted hegemonic discourses of femininity that relegated women to the negative pole of a binary opposition to men. Their fictional heroines are unapologetically bad wives and even worse mothers; they are often wanton, excessive, or selfish and brazenly cynical with regard to traditional love, marriage, and motherhood. The Other Women's Lib affords a cogent and incisive analysis of these texts as feminist philosophy in fictional form, arguing persuasively for the inclusion of such literary feminist discourse in the broader history of Japanese feminist theoretical development. It will be accessible to undergraduate audiences and deeply stimulating to scholars and others interested in gender and culture in postwar Japan, Japanese women writers, or Japanese feminism.
Electronic reproduction.
[S.l.] :
HathiTrust Digital Library,
2011.
Master and use copy. Digital master created according to Benchmark for Faithful Digital Reproductions of Monographs and Serials, Version 1. Digital Library Federation, December 2002.
http://purl.oclc.org/DLF/benchrepro0212
In English.
9781441671479 1441671471 9780824860752 0824860756 9780824833879 0824833872
10.21313/9780824860752 doi
22573/ctt62vfth JSTOR 102977 Knowledge Unlatched
2009032034
1900-1999
Japanese fiction--History and criticism.--20th century
Women in literature.
Japanese fiction--Women authors--History and criticism.
Feminist literary criticism--Japan.
Gender identity in literature.
Human body in literature.
Women--Identity.--Japan
LITERARY CRITICISM--Asian--General.
SOCIAL SCIENCE--Gender Studies.
Feminist literary criticism.
Gender identity in literature.
Human body in literature.
Japanese fiction.
Japanese fiction--Women authors.
Women--Identity.
Women in literature.
Litteraturvetenskap--Japan--1900-talet.
Författare.
Kvinnobilden.
Könsidentitet.
Kropp.
Genus.
Japansk litteratur--historia--1900-talet.
Japansk litteratur--kvinnliga författare.
Kvinnor i litteraturen.
Människokroppen i litteraturen.
Japan.
Electronic books.
Criticism, interpretation, etc.
Electronic book.
PL747.82.W64 / B85 2010eb
895.6/35093522