Japanese-style feminism
Just after the new year, I interviewed journalist and novelist Veronica Chambers about her new book, "Kickboxing Geishas: How Modern Japanese Women are Changing Their Nation" (try not to judge this book by its Westerner-in-whiteface cover photo, or its silly title). Given my (somewhat obsessive) interest in Japan and my own discussions with Japanese friends, I was really excited to talk to Veronica about her research.
Veronica told me that while in Japan for a media fellowship in 2000, she sensed that women were frustrated with their situation, and she suspected that the country was on the brink of widespread social change. She spent three years talking to over 75 Japanese women about work, family, ambition, autonomy. Seventy-five may not sound like a lot, but many of the same themes kept coming up. I was impressed that Veronica, who speaks and writes some Japanese but isn't fluent, was able to get so many women in this famously private country to speak candidly with her--a total stranger--about such personal topics. The perspectives she recounts here bring color and commentary to the recent news stories to come out of Japan, like how that country's birth rates and marriage rates have been steadily plummeting.
However, I think Veronica gives her subjects a little too much credit.
First of all, Veronica makes sweeping generalizations about women in Japan based on the iconoclasts and barrier-breakers that she sought out and interviewed. For every high-powered female exec who refuses to pour tea, I'm sure there are ten dozen others stuck holding the teapot. At the same time, she doesn't include many numbers or stats on working women, so we're left thinking that all women in Japan are either old-fashioned office ladies or creative-thinking entrepreneurs, overlooking the vast number of mid-level clock-punchers in between.
Veronica is a smart and accomplished writer, so I'm sure she's aware of the sociological and economic data available on Japan, but she doesn't include much of it, preferring to let the women speak for themselves. For example, she repeatedly asserts that women are driving up the increasing number of entrepreneurs in Japan, and interviews a few who are, but doesn't have any numbers to quantify the rest of them. Focusing myopically on her sources, she also ignores the crucial external factor of the economy. How can we talk about working women without talking about the economic conditions of the country they're working in?! Perhaps some readers would have found an economic analysis tedious, but I would have appreciated it, and I think it would have strengthened some of Veronica's points.
But most importantly, based on stories about opting out of the corporate world, opening businesses of their own, reinventing their roles at traditional corporations, and eschewing marriage and motherhood, Veronica decides that Japanese women are talkin' bout a revolution. I didn't necessarily get that sense, and even if that is that case, they really are all talk. Her subjects are certainly doing cool, notable stuff, but for the most part, they're acting totally independently, in their own private bubble. There's no widespread movement, no organized push for revolution, and it doesn't sound like feminism is something women are even discussing amongst themselves. I'm not suggesting that Japanese women should take to the streets and stage their own 70's-style revolution, complete with consciousness-raising groups, marches and rallies. I realize that's not culturally appropriate for Japan. However, I also don't think that a couple hundred women acting in their own personal self-interest and not reaching out to anyone else is really going to do a damn thing to improve the situation for women in Japan. On second thought, what would be so bad about Japanese women getting together to talk about orgasms? And equal pay (they currently make half of what men do)? And maternity leave (from what I understand, it's not mandated by the government)? And doing something about all of it?
Side note: my frustration with this issue isn't limited to Japan. I find I'm always having conversations with my American friends about the personal vs. political approaches to achieving equality.
While I love the sound of Veronica's assertion that Japanese women are changing their nation, I don't quite buy it. Call me a pessimist, but I think Japanese women--and men--are simply responding to economic and social realities of their near-inhuman, untenable labor system by acting in a rather passive manner. Women there aren't demanding that companies get with the times, or better yet, elbowing their way into positions that allow them to enact feminist policies at their companies; they're quitting their corporate jobs. They're not educating their husbands on women's rights; they're divorcing them, or not marrying at all. They're not creating policies that benefit working moms; they're just not having kids (or, not working). They're not running for office or trying to raise the profile independent women in Japan; the more independent, progressive-minded women among them are moving abroad. But I suppose that doesn't make for a very catchy book title: "No Sex, No Kids, No Job, No Problem: How Japanese Women's Passive-Aggressive Behavior Isn't Really Changing Their Nation."
Veronica Chambers clearly respects and admires Japanese women, and I respect and admire her efforts to portray these individuals accurately and empathetically. "Kickboxing Geishas" is a valuable contribution to the discussion of Japanese (and global) feminism. But it should be viewed as a series of comments on the subject rather than the definitive last word.