著者

織田 暁子

出版者

日本ジェンダー学会

雑誌

日本ジェンダー研究 (ISSN:18841619)

巻号頁・発行日

no.16, pp.13-26, 2013

著者

大山 治彦 大束 貢生

出版者

JAPAN SOCIETY FOR GENDER STUDIES

雑誌

日本ジェンダー研究 (ISSN:18841619)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.1999, no.2, pp.43-55, 1999-08-31 (Released:2010-08-04)

参考文献数

15

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This paper considers the subject under the following heads: (i) the history about one of most important stream of men's movements in Japan; and (ii) the Menzuribumovement.In the middle of 1970's, men, got a influence from the second wave of feminism, setabout the men's movements, called Manribu in general. It seems to be not an importation from the men's movements of the United States but an original movement by Japanesemen.One organization, Otoko no Kosodate wo Kangaerukai (The Men's Group Rethinking About Childcare), founded in 1978, Tokyo, is one of frontier in the men's movements. They tried to change the oppressive men with masculinities for the non-oppressive onethrough the domestic work and childcare. We name it “domestic work and childcare type of men's movement”.Other organization, Ajia no Baibaishun ni Hantaisuru Otokotachi no Kai (The Men Against Prostitution in Asia), founded in 1988, Tokyo, asserted the oppres sivites of menagainst women.Another organization, Menzuribu Kenkyukai (Men's Liberation Research Group), founded in 1991, Osaka, is a driving force to the expansion of men's movement in 1990's. It proposes the new movement style, called Menzuribu movement, which has a distinctive features in comparison with men's movements in the United States. Moreover, Menzuribu Kenkyukai is the next leader of Menzu Senta (Men's Center Japan), founded in 1995, Osaka. It is the first men's center and, today, the core of men's movements in Japan.Menzuribu has the two meanings as follows. One is the men's movements as a whole, with the exceptation with gay movements, and the other is this Menzuribu movement.Menzuribu movement has focussed on the masculine oppressions against men, withoutanti-eminist tendencies such as masculinist men's movement in the United States. Andit has learnt a feminist viewpoint of “the personal is political”. We can say their movement is counterpart of feminist movements. These are the significance of the Menzuribu movement. Menzuribu movement has some problems to solve in its activities. They are: i)a littleof the interests gaps between 20s-30s years old and 40s-50s; ii) the lack of education program for beginners without knowledge about feminism and gender issues; and iii) heterosexism and homophobia.

著者

野宮 亜紀

出版者

JAPAN SOCIETY FOR GENDER STUDIES

雑誌

日本ジェンダー研究 (ISSN:18841619)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.2004, no.7, pp.75-91, 2004-09-01 (Released:2010-08-04)

参考文献数

42

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In the middle of the 1990's, Japanese transgenders started self-help activities to improve their lives and social status. Trans-Net Japan (TNJ) is a self-driven group founded by Honoho Morino. The activities of TNJ vary greatly and include; providing a place for transgenders to study and communicate, publishing documents, holding symposiums for the public, and responding to the media to enhance public awareness of their issues. There have always been problems with running this group because all the programs are staffed by unpaid volunteers due to the lack of public funding for the transgender groups. This lack of funding makes certain programs and activities, such as peer counseling, more difficult to maintain. However, TNJ has held more than one hundred events as of January 2004.During the past ten years, TNJ, other groups and professionals have actively worked together to improve the social situation surrounding transgenders This collaboration has lead to major changes: the Japanese Association for Psychiatry and Neurology established guidelines for the diagnosis and the treatment of GID (1997), the first publicly announced SRS was conducted with recognized justification by the medical ethics committee (1998), a transgender was elected to the Setagaya Ward Congress (2003) and a law allowing transgenders to change the gender on their family registration (equivalent to birth certificate) passed the diet (2003).In the processes of changing the social system, the public view towards transgenders has shifted from“som ething about sex cultures” to “something about medical and human rights issues.” The concept of the mental disorder, GID, was spread in our society as a term to describe transgender individuals. This situation generated a debate in the transgender community about whether the purpose of transgender activities is to acquire the welfare as handicapped people depending on the concept of GID or to deconstruct social norms based on the male/female gender dichotomy.One answer is that the primary purpose of the self-driven activity is empowerment of the community. TNJ provides opportunities for the empowerment in their activities; the participants share a common problem, learn from each other and find strength in themselves. If all transgenders make the transition from passivity to self-reliance, they can confront the psychological and social issues in order to change their own lives and break discrimination based on gender issues.

著者

伊藤 公雄

出版者

日本ジェンダー学会

雑誌

日本ジェンダー研究 (ISSN:18841619)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.1998, no.1, pp.a2-a2, 1998-07-31 (Released:2010-03-17)

著者

南 貴子

出版者

JAPAN SOCIETY FOR GENDER STUDIES

雑誌

日本ジェンダー研究 (ISSN:18841619)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.2005, no.8, pp.43-56, 2005-09-01 (Released:2010-03-17)

参考文献数

50

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In recent years, there are various kinds of issues related to families, such as increase in the number of divorces, people who choose to remain single, and the decline in the number of children. People are now reconsidering the family which they had been accustomed to, and searching for new family styles. In this article, a new family style will be considered from the perspective of lesbian mothers. Lesbianheaded families are distinct from traditional heterosexual families and have not been fully accepted by society. Regardless of such circumstances, lesbian mothers, stigmatized as being “inappropriate mothers, ” are making their own families. What kinds of people are lesbian mothers? What kinds of relationships do they have with their children? What kinds of prejudice do they confront? Above all, what kinds of families are they aiming to be? To research their experiences would reveal some problems hidden in the traditional family system, such as patriarchy and heterosexism. Families seem to keep on changing dynamically as each person starts to strive for their own family style and challenge the notion of “the family.”

著者

上杉 孝實

出版者

日本ジェンダー学会

雑誌

日本ジェンダー研究 (ISSN:18841619)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.2003, no.6, pp.57-58, 2003-08-31 (Released:2010-03-17)

著者

田村 容子

出版者

日本ジェンダー学会

雑誌

日本ジェンダー研究 (ISSN:18841619)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.2001, no.4, pp.35-46, 2001-09-20 (Released:2010-03-17)

参考文献数

28

著者

海老原 暁子

出版者

JAPAN SOCIETY FOR GENDER STUDIES

雑誌

日本ジェンダー研究 (ISSN:18841619)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.2001, no.4, pp.3-16, 2001-09-20 (Released:2010-03-17)

参考文献数

27

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Looking at feminist fictional writings since the time of Charlotte Gilman's Herland from the perspective of how they dealt with the issue of reproduction, one can find a group of works using unisexual reproduction as the central theme or as an important motif. This paper examines one of them, Marginal (1985), a girls'manga (comic) by Moto Hagio. Girls' manga are an important source of insight into Japanese women's views on their gender, and this paper outlines the history of girls' manga in comparison with the boys' counterpart, which provides a clue as to what made Hagio use the theme of unisexual reproduction inMarginal, in which she attempted to examine the concept of maternity.In the first phase of manga's development from the late 1960's up to the 1980's, both girls' and boy's manga were based on illusions about the opposite sex. Boys in girls' comics were either dashing gentlemen or handsome rebels aching for maternal love, whereas boys' comics were interested in girls only as the object of the macho hero's desire. However, from the late 1980's, while Boys' manga stayed with its fantasies of women as mere recipients of the male sex drive, girls' manga started to see men in a more sober light. The gap between the ideal of equal partnership and reality began to feature strongly, and themes such as homosexuality, transsexualism and transvestism have been given a serious examination.This shift was a result of a significant change in Japanese women's view on reproduction. As women acquired education and financial independence, they rejected the notion that a woman's happiness lies in love, marriage and childbearing ; the link between marriage and motherhood was broken. Stories centring on the theme on unisexual reproduction appeared in girls' manga amidst this tidal change.Marginal is a sci-fi manga set in 2999A.D., when Earth is a polluted and diseased planet long deserted by most humans after a pandemic viral infection 700 hundred years earlier made all women infertile. A company that runs an economic empire across the solar system maintains experimental colonies on Earth where no babies can be born and all inhabitants are men. The company supplies the colonies with test-tube children through a pseudo-religious system, but inhabitants live under a dark shadow of apocalyptic pessimism. Hagio examines maternity in an imaginary world where, in the absence of women, motherhood is artificial and there are no heterosexual relationships.A scientist who has been running illegal reproductive experiments in a hideout on Earth is killed by the company, and a product of his experiments, a telepathic hermaphrodite with the ability to tune into other people's dreams and wishes, survives the attack and encounters colony men. The psychic child causes a catastrophic flood when he responds to the wishes of colony dwellers who dream their doomed world to end, but in a dramatic climax, he empathizes with the Earth's dream of ancient blue seas that nurtured life, a dream of life.The ambiguous ending ofMarginal seems to support conventional praise of maternity, but here the hope of regeneration comes not from the child's ability to conceive but through restoration of the Earth's productive potential. Hagio sees maternity as something more fundamental than the materialistic notion of baby-making; to her, restoration of the fertility of the Earth, the source of life itself, is the paramount concern.

著者

伊藤 公雄

出版者

日本ジェンダー学会

雑誌

日本ジェンダー研究 (ISSN:18841619)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.2006, no.9, pp.75-79, 2006-09-16 (Released:2010-03-17)

参考文献数

7

著者

舛屋 仁奈

出版者

JAPAN SOCIETY FOR GENDER STUDIES

雑誌

日本ジェンダー研究 (ISSN:18841619)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.2003, no.6, pp.41-54, 2003

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The Cinderella story, originally recorded by the Grimm brothers and Charles Perrault, is one of the most famous stories, and Cinderella has served as a symbol of the ideal woman in Japan. This paper discusses the way the story has presented for more than one hundred years by researching the translations, published from the Meiji period up to the present.<BR>During the Meiji period, foreign fairy tales played a supporting role in child education, although they were not permitted in school textbooks. For this reason, the original image of Cinderella as an active and smart woman was changed to that of a submissive, virtuous, and filial woman. These concepts were used by the government to teach women to be good wives and wise mothers, and thereby helped to establish the patriarchy.<BR>From the Taisho period to the early Showa period, out of the western woman's movement came the idea that women worked and sustained themselves as individuals. This idea was supported by Japanese intellectuals in a modernizing society, and the "new women", who were involved in the Japan's woman's movement, appeared. However, there was strong opposition to the idea, and the majority of people considered that young girls should not be so active. Owing to this, the importance of obedience and docility were emphasized in the Cinderella story, especially for women. The ideal of women's behavior emphasized in the Meiji period was no longer mentioned during this time, because it gradually came to be a common assumption.<BR>In postwar Japan, Cinderella was changed to be a poor but beautiful and polite girl. Moreover, the conception of Cinderella changed: she was a woman expected to be a good daughter-in-law after getting married to the prince. After the book of Disney's Cinderella was published, the Japanese willingly accepted that version because they preferred the idea that "virtuous equals beautiful" and "vice equals ugly". Besides, the idea, "marriage equals happiness for women" emphasized in Disney's Cinderella book, fitted Japanese ideology at that time. Disney omitted mention of the status of Cinderella as "the daughter of a nobleman", and as a result many women came to believe that they could be happy like Cinderella through marriage.<BR>Cinderella books were required to teach Japanese, especially women, the ethics and the ideology of Confucianism in the prewar era, and to promote the bright and sweet mind in the postwar years. Cinderella's image was changed to suit the changing ideologies of each period, so there is no longer the original image that is in the translated stories.

著者

桂田 恵美子

出版者

日本ジェンダー学会

雑誌

日本ジェンダー研究 (ISSN:18841619)

巻号頁・発行日

no.18, pp.103-113, 2015

著者

野口 李沙

出版者

JAPAN SOCIETY FOR GENDER STUDIES

雑誌

日本ジェンダー研究 (ISSN:18841619)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.2008, no.11, pp.29-41, 2008-09-15 (Released:2010-03-17)

参考文献数

17

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This paper explores the process of social construction of gender through the use of media, specifically on video games. The paper focused on the game playing behaviors among male and female adolescent age 5 to 15. The data collected from the governmental statistics published from 1999 to 2006, and the data from official white paper from entertainment suppliers' associations. In order to clarifying the social/cultural aspect on game playing behavior in Japan, data from the U.S. statistics were presented as comparison. This paper tries to interpret the usages of video-game within Japanese contemporary society, and observe social/cultural context that to construct the uniqueness of popular culture, which deeply oriented to media technology.According to CESA (Computer Entertainment Suppliers' Association), nearly 70% of the entire software was produced for male children users in Japan. The compelling fact found through the data analysis from CESA in Japan and ESA (Entertainment Suppliers' Association) in U.S. was nearly half of the game users were children under age 15 in Japan. The users' sexuality is vividly described and shown the clear contrast between male and female in Japan than in the U.S Male children are obviously targeted as main game users, while female children were absent as users. What portrays here is an example of media's construction of gender-bias. Game industry defines children as “boy” gender, and ignored “girl” gender during the process of marketing. This finding presents the strict gender-biased ideology within Japanese society.What game culture portrays is the rigid gender-bias, and the passivity of users which far from nurturing one's creativity. To look at video-game as a toy for children, the playfulness of the game need to be re-examined. Toys can help one's psychological/physical development by training one's ability for socialization. Since video-games exhibit the rigid gender-bias that to determinate the user's perception toward the world, playing games fail to enhance the users' creativity. Games are not perfect toys for children since they determine the users' gender, but they are clearly exhibiting the social construction of gender.As conclusion, paper states the necessity of media literacy to educate majority to manage the critical thinking on media's presentation. In order to create the constructive relationship with media, to promote media literacy in general population is significantly meaningful and essential in contemporary society.29

著者

舛屋 仁奈

出版者

JAPAN SOCIETY FOR GENDER STUDIES

雑誌

日本ジェンダー研究 (ISSN:18841619)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.2003, no.6, pp.41-54, 2003-08-31 (Released:2010-03-17)

参考文献数

5

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The Cinderella story, originally recorded by the Grimm brothers and Charles Perrault, is one of the most famous stories, and Cinderella has served as a symbol of the ideal woman in Japan. This paper discusses the way the story has presented for more than one hundred years by researching the translations, published from the Meiji period up to the present.During the Meiji period, foreign fairy tales played a supporting role in child education, although they were not permitted in school textbooks. For this reason, the original image of Cinderella as an active and smart woman was changed to that of a submissive, virtuous, and filial woman. These concepts were used by the government to teach women to be good wives and wise mothers, and thereby helped to establish the patriarchy.From the Taisho period to the early Showa period, out of the western woman's movement came the idea that women worked and sustained themselves as individuals. This idea was supported by Japanese intellectuals in a modernizing society, and the “new women”, who were involved in the Japan's woman's movement, appeared. However, there was strong opposition to the idea, and the majority of people considered that young girls should not be so active. Owing to this, the importance of obedience and docility were emphasized in the Cinderella story, especially for women. The ideal of women's behavior emphasized in the Meiji period was no longer mentioned during this time, because it gradually came to be a common assumption.In postwar Japan, Cinderella was changed to be a poor but beautiful and polite girl. Moreover, the conception of Cinderella changed: she was a woman expected to be a good daughter-in-law after getting married to the prince. After the book of Disney's Cinderella was published, the Japanese willingly accepted that version because they preferred the idea that “virtuous equals beautiful” and “vice equals ugly”. Besides, the idea, “marriage equals happiness for women” emphasized in Disney's Cinderella book, fitted Japanese ideology at that time. Disney omitted mention of the status of Cinderella as “the daughter of a nobleman”, and as a result many women came to believe that they could be happy like Cinderella through marriage.Cinderella books were required to teach Japanese, especially women, the ethics and the ideology of Confucianism in the prewar era, and to promote the bright and sweet mind in the postwar years. Cinderella's image was changed to suit the changing ideologies of each period, so there is no longer the original image that is in the translated stories.

著者

アーレント=シュルテ イングリット

出版者

日本ジェンダー学会

雑誌

日本ジェンダー研究 (ISSN:18841619)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.2005, no.8, pp.67-73, 2005

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Die strafrechtliche Verfolgung von Frauen als Hexen geh&ouml;rte in der Fr&uuml;hen Neuzeit zur Rechtspraxis im christlichen Europa. Sie basierte auf einer Gesetzgebung, die Zauberei als Verbrechen gegen Gott und die Menschen definierte, das mit dem Tod durch das Feuer bestraft werden sollte. Von der Strafverfolgung waren in geringer Zahl auch Manner betroffen. Der Prototyp der Angeklagten in Hexenprozessen war jedoch die weibliche Hexe.<BR>Der Vortrag befasst sich mit den Ursachen des besonderen Frauenbezugs des Hexereidelikts, die in den unterschiedlichen Diskursen und in der Gerichtspraxis verortet waren.<BR>Die Hexe als Straftaterin war ein theologisches Konstrukt, das von der christlichen Kirche im Kampf gegen vorchristliche Glaubensformen und die traditionelle Magie der bauerlichen BevOlkerung entwickelt wurde. Durch Damonisierung und Kriminalisierung dieser Tradition wurde am Ende des Mittelalters aus magiekundigen Frauen schadenstiftende, ketzerische Teufelshuren und Feindinnen Gottes. Diese Idee wurde im theologisch juristischen Diskurs seit dem 15. Jahrhundert verbreitet und die Verfolgung von Hexen zur Christenpflicht der Gerichtsherren erklart. Das Volk wurde durch Predigten und Flugschriften tiber die Bedrohlichkeit der Hexen und die Abscheulichkeit ihrer Taten unterrichtet.<BR>Die Zuschreibung von Hexerei auf das weibliche Geschlecht und auf individuelle Frauen folgte Genderkonzepten und war mit unterschiedlichen Formen von Gewalt verbunden, die nicht ausschlieBlich von Mannern ausging. Im gelehrten Diskurs wurde Frauen qua Geschlecht eine besondere Affinitat zur Hexerei zugeschrieben, die mit ihrer angeblich engen Beziehung zum Teufel, ihrer moralischen Schwache, ihrer Tendenz zur Bosheit und Rachsucht und ihrer sexuellen Triebhaftigkeit begriindet wurde. Im popularen Diskurs lief die Zuschreibung tiber weibliche Kompetenzen. Schadenzauber galt als Bestandteil des magischen Repertoires, das Frauen zur Alltagsbewaltigung und Existenzsicherung anwendeten. Nach dem Geschlechterstereotyp der &ldquo;heimlichen Weiberrache&rdquo;, wurden Frauen beschuldigt, ihr Wissen als Waffe in Konflikten einzusetzen und ihren Gegnern heimlich Schaden zuzuftigen.<BR>Die Selektion derer, die als Angeklagte vor Gericht kamen, erfolgte durch Bezichtigungen in den Nachbarschaften und durch Anzeigen bei den Gerichtsinstanzen. Vor Gericht wurden die Beschuldigten gezwungen, den zugeschriebenen Schadenzauber zu gestehen und sich mit den damonologischen Aspekten des gelehrten Hexenbildes zu identifizieren. Die Produktion von Hexen war ein gesamtgesellschaftlicher Prozess, sie erfolgte durch theologische und populare Deutungsmuster von Zauberei in Verbindung mit Genderkonzepten. 67

著者

伊藤 公雄

出版者

日本ジェンダー学会

雑誌

日本ジェンダー研究 (ISSN:18841619)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.2008, no.11, pp.59-60, 2008-09-15 (Released:2010-03-17)

著者

海老原 暁子

出版者

JAPAN SOCIETY FOR GENDER STUDIES

雑誌

日本ジェンダー研究 (ISSN:18841619)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.1998, no.1, pp.17-27, 1998-07-31 (Released:2010-03-17)

参考文献数

11

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A feminism comic book “Shinkirari” is a fine piece of work which gives a vividdescription of how a common housewife becomes a determined, independent woman. In this thesis, the problems of conjugal relations under the yoke of gender are investigated with “Shinkirari” as a text from the point of what a husband calls his wifeand how this type of labelling changes.Chiharu Yamakawa is a housewife in her earlythirties. Her husband is a typical male chauvinist of the apres-guerre generation. Hisown reason tells that men and women are equal, but he finds it hard to clearly imaginethat his wife also has her own dreams and goal in life. He takes it for granted thata house wife be unconditionally subordinate to her husband who works outside andmakes the money. As a natural result, he speaks to Chiharu in a peremptory tone andcalls her “Omae”. As the personal pronoun for the second person in Japanesere alistically represents human relations, what a Japanese couple call each other in sucha way that a husband calls his wife “Omae” and a wife calls her husband “Anata”is in general obviously unbalanced and explicitly demonstrates that the couple are byno means on an equal footing. Chiharu calls her husband “Anata” too, but starts tohave doubts about her position in marriage and begins to complain about her husband'sconduct. She also starts to feel negative towards her husband calling her “Omae”, as“Omae”-a word that holds a person in contemptcan lead to discourse that naturallycontains the feelings of disdain, jeer, unconcern, and ridicule of the counterpart. Chiharu makes up her mind to open a shop. Naturally, her husband is stronglyopposed to her going into business, but finds that Chiharu now has determine dresolution and gradually admits that he has to give way. From that time on, theexpression he uses to call her changes from “Omae” to “Kimi” which implies that therelationship between the two has now turned to be more equal. Chiharu's shop getsgoing and she turns a tidy profit, far beyond her husband's imagination. One evening, he speaks his mind to her, “Honestly speaking, I feel afraid to see you standing onyour own two feet. I can't help but think that you will not need me any more someday.” His remarks indicate the fact that the Japanese man and wife are connected witheach other only for reasons of economy, that at least men think their conjugal statusis maintained in such a way, and that they do not realize how much their wives arethirsty for a more spiritual relationship. The stronger economically turns out to be themaster in marriage. The relations are clearly demonstrated in the language used. Thestatus quo will be maintained as long as the language is used and reproduced in thenext generation. We can say, therefore, that the way a man refers to his wife is nolonger merely a word.

著者

名和 久美子

出版者

JAPAN SOCIETY FOR GENDER STUDIES

雑誌

日本ジェンダー研究 (ISSN:18841619)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.2003, no.6, pp.1-12, 2003

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In "My Dearest Roland", a man named Roland has a girlfriend. However, he meets another woman and forgets about his girlfriend. Then, he gets engaged to the woman. In this case, the reader is led to believe that the woman is at fault for seducing the man. But, when I read this story, there was one point which did not make sense to me- How was the woman guilty of seducing the man? The expression "woman's trap" was used in this story. This represents views people had of women back in the 1800s. In this paper, I wish to focus on these views people used to have in Western Europe.<BR>The first edition of "My Dearest Roland" was published in 1812. However, the "another woman" does not appear in this edition. "She" makes her first appearance in the second edition. Finally, in the third edition, "she" used her "trap" to seduce Roland, and she had complete responsibility. When reading this edition, the reader is led to feel that Roland is innocent and the woman is to blame.<BR>There are two reasons as to why "My Dearest Roland" was changed over the years. It was rewritten during the time Grimm brothers were alive, reflecting the societal norms of the age. The other reason is that it was heavily affected by Christianity. Moreover, by reading through all seven editions, the reader may come to two conclusions, the first being that men are good and women are innately evil. Secondly, all women fit into one of two groups: as the sinful Eve in the Garden of Eden, or the Virgin Mary. When a man falls in love with a woman, he is considered to be falling into Eve's trap. This "trap" is lust and lures the man into sex. Therefore, the more beautiful a woman is, the more sinful she is<BR>The view that women influence the nature of a relationship still remains today. When a woman falls in love in with a man, she does not think she was caught in his "trap". Sadly, a man can easily view the situation in this way. When can men start taking responsibility for their own feelings?

著者

横道 誠

出版者

日本ジェンダー学会

雑誌

日本ジェンダー研究 (ISSN:18841619)

巻号頁・発行日

no.18, pp.1-12, 2015

著者

武田 憲幸

出版者

JAPAN SOCIETY FOR GENDER STUDIES

雑誌

日本ジェンダー研究 (ISSN:18841619)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.2003, no.6, pp.13-26, 2003-08-31 (Released:2010-03-17)

参考文献数

22

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The aim of this paper is to point out the problem of gender bias in Japanese high school textbooks and suggest some solutions. I have examined the contemporary literature sections in “Kokugo-I”, a basic high school text, and “Kokugo-Sogo”, which will be used starting next year.I initially researched the male-to-female ratio of authors and editors of Japanese textbooks over the past ten years. Then later I examined the percentage of literature written by women that is presently being used in the Japanese school system. According to what I found, the percentage of female authors included in the textbooks still does not reach 20% and only 12.9% of the editors are female. These results clearly show us two problems that we are dealing with today: the mostly male editors are not including literature written by women, nor are females being chosen as editors.Another problem I found with the textbooks has to do with the questions following each work. The questions lead students to understand the material in a traditional way, directing them to prepare their answers according to the writer's intention. The questions do not allow for differences in opinion or critical thinking.I chose the short story titled Harunohino-Kageri by Shimao Toshio to illustrate the big difference in opinion between editors and female high school students. In this story, the character “I” recalls his school days, when he always had a sense of inferiority because of his lack of strength and bravery. Due to his inferiority complex, he once chased an unknown girl with the goal of impressing his fellows. Upon reaching the girl, he had no idea what he should do next. This novel perfectly shows the distress of “I” in adolescence. It is valued as a youth novel because readers can relate to the character “I”, and as a result it has become a widely used text in Japanese high schools. However, not all readers relate in the same way.Why does this difference in understanding arise? In my experience, some female high school students today have an intuitive understanding of the writer's sexism and feel that the character “I” looks down on women. This alternative interpretation shows quite a difference in opinion between predominantly male editors, who think that this story is about timeless youth distress and is applicable to everyone today, and actual adolescents who are required to read it.As educators, what can we do about the difference in understanding? Now that we know about the alternative ways of interpreting literature, we need to ensure the development of all high school students' minds. In order to do this, we need to have a “revision of ideas” represented by Feminist Criticism. Editors should be required to engage in text editing from this new point of view. High school students should be exposed to literature written by women as well as that written by men. The questions following the works should encourage students to critically interpret the meaning and to consider many points of view. Only through an overhaul of the current system can we achieve the goal of eliminating gender bias in Japanese high school textbooks.

著者

山岸 千香子

出版者

JAPAN SOCIETY FOR GENDER STUDIES

雑誌

日本ジェンダー研究 (ISSN:18841619)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.2002, no.5, pp.15-28, 2002-09-07 (Released:2010-03-17)

参考文献数

27