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1931 Walter Benjamin
1931 Walter Benjamin
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N ft I T 5 CHIZUKO
Translated by Nathan Shockey
Reorganizations of
Gender and Nationalism:
EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION
003
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the Mars Club (Kasei Kurabu), a collective of women scholars working on
contemporary Japanese fiction.2 Naito addresses differential power and the
politics of representation in the classroom as well. While many of her courses
focus on modern and contemporary Japanese literature and media, she has
also taught comparative media studies courses, such as one on the Star Trek
series and U.S. imperialism.
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A NUMBER OP PIET MEMBERS
scholars approve of the term's aim to rectify PROM THE UBERAl-
the structures of gender discrimination in pEMOCRATIC PARTY HAVE
the educational system. Af?^gp ^ ,5 A
In response to this movement to advance 0Ap WORp
gender equality in the educational field, many 5TUPtES SHOUUP BE
conservative B groups * have self-righteously B 7
B groups * u B 7 REMOVEP PROM UNIVERSITY
circulated falsehoods that u "gender-free edu- w CUKKlOUUUyW^-
„ w
cation completely negates the differences be-
tween men and women, and is a dangerous '/
idea with the potential to destroy the traditional culture and family struc-
ture of Japan," and argued that gender-free education means "ignoring the
differences between boys and girls and allowing them to change clothes in
the same room." Such attacks have escalated, and a number of Diet members
from the Liberal Democratic Party have argued that " gender is a bad word and
gender studies should be removed from university curriculums."
We can view these phenomena as an indication of the ways in which gen-
der bashing is bound to xenophobic nationalism, behind which lie the linked
structures of neoliberalism and neoconservatism. It can be argued that this
configuration shares similarities with the power structure in place during the
period of gender bashing that occurred in America during the 1990s, when
conservative groups attacked what they called "radical sexual education."
Those conservative groups advocated an extremely austere sexual education
program, and neoconservative factions proclaimed at the 1995 UN World
Conference on Women in Beijing that "gender" will "destroy the family and
morality." The methods being used by "bashing" groups in Japan structurally
resemble some of the techniques used by American Christian fundamental-
ists, as the primary technique of local assemblymen and Diet members has
been to work together with financially linked media groups and magazines
to disseminate the idea that "gender-free education means boys and girls
changing clothes in the same room."
The connections between neonationalism and gender bashing become all
the more clear when one considers the movements of these conservative fac-
tions to revise the Constitution. The policies of the Liberal Democratic party
include efforts to revise Article 9 of the Constitution and its "Resignation of
War" ( senso hoki ) clause,7 to reassess the question of equality between men
and women in the home through the revision of Article 24,® and to rewrite
Article 25 to shift social security from federal to public control.9 These three
aims are closely interrelated. Essentially, the party's goal is to cut the na-
tional welfare budget, burden women with unpaid labor, and allow men to
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be sent off to war as soldiers. It is clear that the party's views resonate with
those of the conservative movement in America, and that the goal of these
factions is to create a Japanese society in possession of the ability to wage
war alongside America.
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NATIONAL IPENTITy IT5EUP
the empty vacuum of the interiority of the symbol COK|TA|N5 A euMK vo|P/
of the "young girl." In other words, such a symbol AMP IT IS THUS
possesses an extremely favorable set of conditions MECESSARy TO PIMP
for the expression r of masculinized desire. . „ , eCi„. ,--,M
r AM . „ , eCi„. OTHER ,--,M (TASHA) TO
One of the main problems r that arise from . ..... w#l- it
r FILL- . ..... IT w#l- WITH it ME AMIM6-
this situation is a structure of sexual commodifi-
national identity in order to fill the identity void they feel within themselves.
However, this national identity itself contains a blank void, and it is thus
necessary to find an "other" ( tasha ) to fill it with meaning. This is the same
construction as that which the Japanese empire used to symbolically affirm
itself through the negation of its colonies in a process closely resembling the
one described in Edward Said's Orientalism (1978). 14 Women, resident Ko-
reans ( zainichi korian ), and those with weak academic backgrounds come to
represent such a necessary "other," and Internet bashing directed at those
groups has become increasingly fierce at the same time it has metastasized
onto criticism of leftist groups. Thus we can see the deep relationship be-
tween Japanese neonationalism, gender bashing, and the loliconization phe-
nomenon within this social structure.
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SHdNO YORIKO'S CRITIQUE OF THE LOLICON
In order to think critically about these social phenomena and how they are
dealt with in the realm of literature, I would like turn to the works of Shono
Yoriko (1956- ), as I think that her novels offer us possibilities to help us
better understand the present situation. Shono Yoriko is held in very high
critical regard in Japan, and in her writings she consistently deals with the
problems of the relationship between the nation-state and the self, most re-
cently through a critique of the lolicon as a major theoretical problematic.
Shonos 2003 work, Suishdnai seido (System in a crystal)15 draws on the
myths of Izumo ( Izumokei shinwa) and is set in an imaginary state within Ja-
pan called "Uramizumo."16 The myths of Izumo have been largely purged from
the orthodox Shinto canon in favor of the myths of Ise Shinto ( Isekei Shinto )
that were used to support the Great Japanese Empire (Dainippon Teikoku). In
the novel, Uramizumo is a country of all women, a country from which men
are banished. In Uramizumo, whose economy is based on nuclear power, men
are discriminated against in favor of a doctrine of "dirty feminism" (kittanai
feminizumu). By reversing the gender structure of contemporary Japan, the
novel depicts the mechanisms of discrimination through the techniques of
visual burlesque. In the novel, a female writer is brought to Uramizumo from
Japan in order to write the country's national mythology, but she instead
criticizes the states system of discrimination and the uneasiness she feels
within it.
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x , FOR THE NATION OF PAINIHHON,
(tori) x where it creates a Martian girls , Th£ lOUCON 15 A MATTER OF
red-light district where young girls are poucy_ THg coy,^
commodified and abused. These policies exTORTS products
are opposed by 7 a religious ° 5 group known ^ ...
, 7 r a ° , 5 group 7 , x , OVERSEAS, ^ TAKIM<3 PART ... IM
as The Church , of r Mitako ( , Mitakokyo 7 , ); x the ,
1 / THE fi^OBAt-IZATIOM OF
national * government of Dainihhon 1 in- , ^iyil
* , i /. i LOUCON , AMP OTAKU ^iyil CULTURE,
tentionally misreads , the i first /. character i
in the groups name, mi, as on, thus dub- 'f
bing them The Church of Ontako ( Ontakokyo ). By continually referring to
the Mitako as Ontako, the nation-state attempts to negate the existence of
the group, in the end deeming themselves to be Ontako and usurping the
existence of the Mitako group. This Ontako group includes people such as I to
Hirobumi,18 Yamagata Aritomo,19 Koizumi Junichiro,20 and Karatani Kojin.21
These figures all possess the authority to define themselves as victims and
as minorities, and in doing so prevent the recognition and representation of
actual minority groups.
Through this overstated caricaturization of the Ontako-run nation of
Dainihhon, Shono depicts the power structure of contemporary Japan. Some
may doubt the validity of a critique based on the resistance of the religious
Mitakokyo group, but such a critique is deeply bound to the symbolic role of
the emperor system in post- 1945 Japan. The emperor system operates as a
kind of invisible religion that maintains the capacity to support individual
identity; this system is dealt with in Hoshino Tomoyukis 2004 novel Lonely
Hearts Killer (. Lonri hatsu kira)22
The works of Shono Yoriko problematize a cultural system that renders
minorities as unseen and invisible. By making this system itself visible,
Shono's writing produces unique and individual responses in each reader.
Her novels provide opportunities for readers to understand their own
"minoritiness" ( mainoritisei ) and thus gain an intellectual understanding of
what it means to be a minority. Although Shono Yoriko's work can seem diffi-
cult and obscure, her novels are valuable works of literature in their attempts
to dissimilate the desire of a loliconized society and urge radical changes in
consciousness.
lutes
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2. See the Mars Club Web site at http://www007.upp.so-net.ne.jp/kaseiclub/index.
html (accessed June 8, 2009).
3. Kimura Ryoko, ed., Jenda furl toraburu (Gender-free trouble) (Tokyo: Hakutakusha,
2005).
4. Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (New York:
Routledge, 1990).
5. [The resolutions of the conference, held in September 1995, include in part the
determination to "take all necessary measures to eliminate all forms of discrimination
against women and the girl child and remove all obstacles to gender equality and the
advancement and empowerment of women." - Trans.]
6. Barbara Houston, "Should Public Education Be Gender Free?" in Lynda Stone, ed.,
The Education Feminism Reader, 122-34 (New York: Routledge, 1994).
7. [Article 9 reads, in part: "Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on
justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the
nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes." - Trans.]
8. [Article 24 reads, in part: "Marriage shall be based only on the mutual consent of
both sexes and it shall be maintained through mutual cooperation with the equal rights of
husband and wife as a basis." - Trans.]
9. [Section Two of Article 25 reads: "In all spheres of life, the State shall use its
endeavors for the promotion and extension of social welfare and security, and of public
health." - Trans.]
10. Ogura Chikako, Kekkon nojoken (The condition of marriage) (Osaka: Asahi Shin-
bunsha, 2002).
11. [The term freeter has become a popular buzzword in recent social discourse in Japan.
The term is derived from the English free and the German arbeiter, referring to someone who
is not on a career path but instead takes a series of light, part-time jobs. - Trans.]
12. Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Between Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial
Desire (New York: Columbia University Press, 1985).
13. [The term shakaijin is generally used to refer to full-time company employees,
in contrast to freeters, who are flexible laborers. - Trans.]
14. Edward Said, Orientalism (New York: Pantheon Books, 1978).
15. Shono Yoriko, Suishdnai seido (System in a crystal) (Tokyo: Shinchosha, 2003).
16. [The name "Uramizumo" appears to be a combination of the word urami , meaning
grudge or ill will, and the proper name Izumo, evoking feelings of anger and vengeance in
the place-name itself. - Trans.]
17. Shono Yoriko, Dainihhon, Ontako meiwakushi (Dainihhon: the troublesome history
of Ontako) (Tokyo: Kodansha, 2006). In 2007, Shono published a follow-up novel, Dainih-
hon, Ronchiku ogeretsuki (Dainihhon: a vulgar record of the land of beastly logic) (Tokyo:
Kodansha 2007), and completed the trilogy in 2008 with Dainihhon, roriribe shindekeroku
(Dainihhon: a fuck-off-and-die account of loliconized liberalism) (Tokyo: Kodansha, 2008).
18. [Ito Hirobumi (1841-1909) was the first prime minister of Japan following the
drafting of the Meiji Constitution in 1889. He served as prime minister four separate
times, including during the First Sino- Japanese War (1894-1895), which he strongly
supported. Following Japans victory, he negotiated the treaty of Shimonoseki, in which
Taiwan became a Japanese colony. Ito also served as the first resident general of Korea,
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beginning after the Japanese occupation of Korea following the Russo-Japanese war. He
was assassinated in Harbin, Manchuria in 1909 by a Korean nationalist. - Trans.]
19. [Yamagata Aritomo (1838-1922) was the fourth prime minister of Japan, and the
first following the establishment of the Imperial Diet. He is sometimes referred to as the
father of the modern Japanese army thanks to his role in researching and adapting Euro-
pean military techniques, his role as the first war minister of Japan, and his role in the
suppression of the Satsuma Rebellion of 1877. - Trans.]
20. [Koizumi Junichiro (1942- ) served as prime minister of Japan from 2001 to
2006. - Trans.]
21. [Karatani Kojin (1941- ) is a well-known Japanese literary critic and theorist per-
haps best known abroad for his books Origins of Modern Japanese Literature (1980, Nihon
kindai bungaku no kigen ), Architecture as Metaphor: Language, Number, Money (1995, origi-
nally published in English), and Transcritique: On Kant and Marx (2001, Toransukuritiku:
Kanto to Marukusu). - Trans.]
22. Hoshino, Tomoyuki, Lonri hatsu kira (Tokyo: Chuo Koron Shinsha, 2004); trans-
lated by Adrienne Hurley as Lonely Hearts Killer (Oakland, Calif.: PM Press, 2009).
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