Rethinking Japanese Feminisms

Women's rights as proletarian rights : Yamakawa Kikue, suffrage, and the "dawn of liberation" / Elyssa Faison -- From "motherhood in the interest of the state" to motherhood in the interest of mothers : rethinking the First Mothers' Congress / Hillary Maxson -- From women's liberation to lesbian feminism in Japan : rezubian feminizumu within and beyond the ūman ribu movement in the 1970s and 1980s / James Welker -- The mainstreaming of feminism and the politics of backlash in twenty-first century Japan / Tomomi Yamaguchi -- Coeducation in the age of "good wife, wise mother" : Koizumi Ikuko's quest for "equality of opportunity" / Julia C. Bullock -- Flower empowerment : rethinking Japan's traditional arts as women's labor / Nancy Stalker -- Women's labor in the Japanese tourist industry / Chris McMorran -- Seeing double : the feminism of ambiguity in the art of Takabatake Kashō / Leslie Winston -- Feminist acts of reading : Ariyoshi Sawako, Sono Ayako, and representation of lived experience in postwar Japan / Barbara Hartley -- Dangerous women and dangerous stories : gendered narration in Kirino Natsuo's grotesque and real world / Kathryn Hemmann -- Yamakawa Kikue and Edward Carpenter : translation, affiliation, and queer internationalism / Sarah Frederick -- Rethinking Japanese feminism through the lessons of ūman ribu : notes toward a praxis of critical transnational feminism / Setsu Shigematsu -- Toward postcolonial feminist subjectivity : Korean women's redress movement for "comfort women" / Akwi Seo -- Queering friendship : Takemura Kazuko, feminism, and queer theory in a global context / J. Keith Vincent

''Rethinking Japanese Feminisms'' offers a broad overview of the great diversity of feminist thought and practice in Japan from the early twentieth century to the present. Drawing on methodologies and approaches from anthropology, cultural studies, gender and sexuality studies, history, literature, media studies, and sociology, each chapter presents the results of research based on some combination of original archival research, careful textual analysis, ethnographic interviews, and participant observation. Building on more than four decades of scholarship on feminisms in Japanese and English, as well as decades more on women's history, this book offers a diverse and multivocal approach to scholarship on Japanese feminisms unmatched by existing publications. It will be at home in the hands of students and scholars, as well as activists and others interested in gender, sexuality, and feminist theory and activism in Japan and in Asia more broadly

Introduction / Julia C. Bullock, Ayako Kano, and James Welker -- Part I. Rethinking activism and activists. Women's rights as proletarian rights : Yamakawa Kikue, suffrage, and the "dawn of liberation" / Elyssa Faison -- From "motherhood in the interest of the state" to motherhood in the interest of mothers : rethinking the First Mothers' Congress / Hillary Maxson -- From women's liberation to lesbian feminism in Japan : rezubian feminizumu within and beyond the ūman ribu movement in the 1970s and 1980s / James Welker -- The mainstreaming of feminism and the politics of backlash in twenty-first-century Japan / Tomomi Yamaguchi -- Part II. Rethinking education and employment. Coeducation in the age of "good wife, wise mother" : Koizumi Ikuko's quest for "equality of opportunity" / Julia C. Bullock -- Flower empowerment : rethinking Japan's traditional arts as women's labor / Nancy Stalker -- Liberating work in the tourist industry / Chris McMorran -- Part III. Rethinking literature and the arts. Seeing double : the feminism of ambiguity in the art of Takabatake Kashō / Leslie Winston -- Feminist acts of reading : Ariyoshi Sawako, Sono Ayako, and the lived experience of women in Japan / Barbara Hartley -- Dangerous women and dangerous stories : gendered narration in Kirino Natsuo's Grotesque and Real world / Kathryn Hemmann -- Part IV. Rethinking boundaries. Yamakawa Kikue and Edward Carpenter : translation, affiliation, and queer internationalism / Sarah Frederick -- Rethinking Japanese feminism and the lessons of ūman ribu : toward a praxis of critical transnational feminism / Setsu Shigematsu -- Toward postcolonial feminist subjectivity : Korean women's redress movement for "comfort women" / Akwi Seo -- Takemura Kazuko : on friendship and the queering of American and Japanese studies / J. Keith Vincent -- Conclusion : on rethinking Japanese feminisms / Ayako Kano.