The experience of a feminist anime fan.
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I started a Tumblr account as I had mentioned earlier. I’m still not terribly sure what to post on it, but I’m thinking I’ll just collect bits around the web that interest me but not necessarily enough to write a whole post about them.
I’ve allowed other people to share there too, so please go ahead and post anything that strikes you as interesting! (About feminism/gender and geeky stuff, of course.)
March is National Women’s History Month, and I’ve decided to do several small features on breakthrough achievements women have made over the years. Each will be tied to an anime series that portrays the issue well (or poorly) or incorporates the particular theme in its plot or character development.
The first post (and the only one I’ve thought of, hehe) will be about birth control. Many women take it for granted that they can plan if and when they want to become pregnant, but it was a huge battle to get to this point. (And it’s still a huge battle, since the social conservatives in power in the U.S. don’t want women to have access to services that give them control over their own bodies – scary!)
The anime I’m currently prolonging watching because I don’t want it to end is NANA. NANA deals full on with women’s choices over their lives and their bodies, and it’s one of the only anime I’ve seen that even mentions birth control.
So look forward to a post in the next few days! And if you have suggestions for topics or anime to include, please let me know!
Tags: birth control, feminism, Nana, women's history month, women's rights
Some stuff I’ve been reading around the Web lately:
• I Came to Run
My new favorite running blog! Emilie, the blogger, has started an ambitious project aimed at promoting body acceptance. It’s called Embrace:Me. Also check out this great post by her husband about the ways that men are culturally trained to perceive women.
• Gendered Battle Gear
Awesome comic about the differences in battle gear for men and women.
• First look at the new Wonder Woman TV series
Color me skeptical …
• Spandex Attack
A discussion of sex appeal in comic book movies.
• Challenge to Japan’s marital surname law
Japan is the only G8 country that still requires married couples to have one surname, meaning that married women (and a very, very small amount of men) lose their names. But five people may be about to change that law – best of luck to them!
• The NY Times takes on the Tokyo child pornography law
Tags: comics, feminism, Japan, Japanese laws, Japanese women, links, sexuality
While I try to motivate myself to keep writing longer reviews and essays, I’ve decided to post a short addition to the feminism + Fumi Yoshinaga series I had going for a while. This time, it’s a page from Not love but delicious foods make me so happy! that one could easily glide right over. In her usual style, Y-naga pokes fun at the fact that we hold men and women to different standards, this time when it comes to food.
Not Love but Delicious Foods Make Me So Happy is Yoshinaga’s ode to food and friendship. (I posted briefly about it HERE.) In it, “Y-naga” visits her favorite (real) Tokyo restaurants with her friends and assistants, and provides detailed descriptions of the food and conversation. Each vignette provides an in-depth look at the delicacies enjoyed by the foodies (and non-foodies) as well as some insight into their personalities and relationships.
In this chapter, Y-naga and her friend have just eaten a large meal, and are embarrassed when the wait-staff come out to thank them personally for their patronage. (Pardon the less-than-perfect scan …)
Y-naga and her friend feel like they should be chagrined for eating a hearty meal and being enthusiastic about it. Women are expected to become excited about eating “cute” foods like cakes, according to Y-naga, not meat. Food has become gendered, so that men and women are expected to consume it differently. We’ve all seen ads and TV sitcoms making fun of men who become vegetarians or order “girly” cocktails instead of beer. In the same way, women aren’t the ones expected to order steak on a date, lest they give the impression that they aren’t lady-like. (Then again, you aren’t supposed to just order salad either, because you don’t want to give the impression that you’re high maintenance – there are far too many rules for these things! Going sans garlic is definitely good advice, though.)
What I love about this, and most of Yoshinaga’s subtle jabs at cultural double standards, is that it’s so simple and yet shows us a lot about the two characters and the world they live in. These are not women who are afraid to eat what they want, but they are aware of the pressure on them to feel bad about it. It’s a simple panel, just one out of many, but it says a lot about the complicated ways women deal with food.
Tags: double standards, feminism, Fumi Yoshinaga, Not Love but Delicious Foods
I’m still here, just having a lack-of-motivation spell. In all areas, not just writing. It’s unfortunate, and something that seems to happen every year as soon as people start bandying the words “Holiday Cheer” about.
Today’s edition of Feminism Friday is an off-hand line from Revolutionary Girl Utena about personal freedom that pretty much encapsulates what feminism is to me. RGU is full of surprisingly adult themes that sometimes seem to come out of nowhere, and so lines like these can be easy to miss amongst the high school drama and strange animals popping out of closets and stampeding about the school.
“I can’t forgive a system that deprives someone of their personal freedom!” – Utena Tenjou, ladies and gentleman.
(And yes, it’s still Friday here.)
Tags: choice, feminism, Revolutionary Girl Utena