Aoki Yayoi
| Aoki Yayoi | |
|---|---|
| Native name | 青木やよひ |
| Born | 1927 |
| Died | 2009 (aged 81–82) |
| Occupation | Japanese scholar and eco-feminist |
Aoki Yayoi (1927–2009) was a Japanese scholar and eco-feminist critic. She has written extensively on sexuality, abortion rights, reproductive technologies, and women in the workplace. While she has accepted short-term positions at various universities and community colleges, Aoki maintains a non-institutional status.[1]
Scholarship
One of Aoki's most notable publications is "Feminism and Imperialism", which she wrote in the 1980s. The work analyzes the relationship between the Japanese imperial institution and the patriarchal Japanese household, and shows how this relationship is central to the construction of the modern Japanese nation-state. She argues that the model systemically marginalizes women, and raises the question of whether such a model is still legitimate in contemporary Japan and, if so, what its consequences are for the family unit and women.[1] She is also particularly interested in how Japanese honorifics influence power politics.[1]
Controversy with Chizuko Ueno
In the mid 1980s, Aoki was involved in a public debate with Chizuko Ueno, where Aoki's feminist principles were accused of being essentialist for they romanticize the problematic construct of the "feminine". Chizuko eventually wrote Can Women Save the Earth?, critiquing Aoki's analyses by showing that her work relies on an oversimplification of terms taken out of context.[1] Because of Aoki's use of the term "feminine principle" and her emphasis on reintroducing caring and nurturing values into contemporary society, her work has also been criticized for being too emotionally charged, maternalist, or utopian.[2]
Women and technology
Aoki's analyses regarding technologies is situated within the global geopolitical context. Aoki is particularly concerned about the impact of new technologies (especially reproductive technologies) on third world women, and argues that one must consider a variety of contexts within which women develop a relationship to technology. For example, Aoki cites that a Japanese woman may have a liberating or empowering experience with reproductive technologies while a South Indian woman's experience with the same technology might be involuntary.[1]
Aoki is also wary of contemporary society's growing dependence on technology for she believes it leads to political apathy, war, and nuclear disasters, and argues that we should be developing a more self-reliant system of existence.[1]
In 1990, Aoki, alongside several women's rights groups, opposed a government proposal to restrict Japan's abortion law as she argued that the policy would infringe on a woman's right to control her body.[3]
Women and the future
While Aoki recognized that the economic independence of woman is crucial to the feminist movement, she argued that "if all it achieves is the right of passage of woman into existing male social structures and practices, I don't know that we have achieved very much".[1] She cites alternative value systems like the ecological feminism of Denmark or the Green Party in West Germany as other routes that feminism should explore.[1]
See also
References
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Buckley, Sandra (1997-02-27). Broken Silence: Voices of Japanese Feminism. University of California Press. ISBN 9780520914681.
- ↑ "Vera Mackie: Feminist Politics in Japan. New Left Review I/167, January-February 1988.". newleftreview.org. Retrieved 2016-03-25.
- ↑ MILLER, KAREN LOWRY (1990-04-22). "Japan Women Fight Changes in Abortion Law : Family Planning: Groups protest further restrictions on females' already limited reproductive rights.". Los Angeles Times. ISSN 0458-3035. Retrieved 2016-03-25.
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