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English and French
Andro-Ueda Makiko and Jean-Michel Butel, eds. Japon Pluriel 9. Arles: Philippe Picquier, 2014.
Bereni Laure, Sébastien Chauvin, Alexandre Jaunait and Anne Revillard. Introduction aux études de genre [Introduction to Gender Studies]. Brussels: De Boeck, 2012.
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Notes
Ehara Yumiko 江原由美子, Feminizumu ronsō: nanajū nendai kara kyūjū nendai eフェミニズム論争-70年代から90年代へ [Feminist Debate from the 1970 to the 1990s] (Tokyo: Keisō shobō 勁草書房, 1990), 150-56.
Georges Canguilhem, Études d’histoire et de philosophie des sciences [Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science] (Paris: Vrin, 1968), 9-23.
Ludwik Fleck, Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact, translated by Frederick Bradley and Thaddeus J. Trenn (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979). In the French version of this text (Paris: Flammarion, 2008), the foreword by the historian of medicine Ilana Löwy highlights the social construction of biomedical science and how this field is not impervious to gender determinisms.
Laure Bereni, Sébastien Chauvin, Alexandre Jaunait and Anne Revillard, Introduction aux études de genre [Introduction to Gender Studies] (Brussels: De Boeck, 2012, 2nd edition), 10-16.
It is possible to separate gay studies (gei sutadīzu ゲイ・スタディーズ) and lesbian studies (rezubian sutadīzu レズビアン・スタディーズ), with the two terms also existing in Japanese.
The terms “queer perspective” (kuia no shiten kara クイアの視点から) and “queer theory” (kuia riron クイア理論) also exist.
“Trans” can refer both to transsexuals (who generally transition physically to a particular sex via surgery) and transgender individuals (who do not use surgery and simply identify as being trans without attempting to conform to one gender or another).
This term is borrowed from Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, whose book Epistemology of the Closet, published in the United States in 1990, rapidly became a classic text in the field of queer theory. Kosofsky Sedgwick Eve, Epistemology of the Closet (Oakland: University of California Press, 1990).
Ōta Tomomi, “Devenir écrivain/devenir femme/devenir soi : l’écriture et l’amour dans les textes littéraires de Seitō” [Becoming a Writer/Becoming a Woman/Becoming Oneself: writing and love in the literary texts of Seitō], Japon Pluriel 9 (Arles: Philippe Picquier, 2014), 117-26.
Marion Saucier, “Le débat dans Seitô entre Itô Noe et Yamakawa [Aoyama] Kikue sur la prostitution, ou la confrontation de deux féministes” [The Debate in Seitō between Itō Noe and Yamakawa [Aoyama] Kikue on Prostitution: a showdown between two feminists], Japon Pluriel 10 (Arles: Philippe Picquier, 2014), 239-49.
Isabelle Konuma, “L’avortement dans Seitô : la formation de l’espace décisionnel des femmes” [Abortion in Seitō: the emergence of a decision-making space for women], Japon Pluriel 10 (Arles: Philippe Picquier, 2014), 213-28.
Although both terms exist, the version using the suffix -gaku (jendāgaku ジェンダー学) is much more common.
Christian Galan and Emmanuel Lozerand, eds., La Famille japonaise moderne (1868-1926). Discours et débats [Discourse and Debate on the Modern Japanese Family (1868-1926)] (Arles: Philippe Picquier, 2011).
Claire Dodane, “Femmes écrivains des années 1910 : amour, féminisme et indépendance” [Women Writers in the 1910s: love, feminism and independence], Japon Pluriel 9 (Arles: Philippe Picquier, 2014), 137-44.
Christine Lévy, “Introduction”, in Genre et modernité au Japon. La revue Seitô et la femme nouvelle [Gender and Modernity in Japan. The Magazine Seitō and the New Woman], ed. Christine Lévy (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2014), 22-24.
Ibid. 13-14.
Claire Dodane, “L’écriture féminine dans le Japon moderne”, in La Famille japonaise moderne, ed. Galan and Lozerand, 431-43.
Lévy, Genre et modernité au Japon, 13-28.
Endo Orie, “Aspects of Sexism in Language”, in Japanese Women. New Feminist Perspectives on the Past, Present and Future, ed. Fujimura-Fanselow Kumiko & Kameda Atsuko (New York: The Feminist Press, 1995), 30.
The term fujin (婦人) has no masculine equivalent (though one could imagine danjin 男人). In contrast, the other terms systematically have a symmetrical structure using the opposing characters onna/otoko 女/男: josei/dansei 女性/男性, joshi/danshi 女子/男子 and onna no ko/otoko no ko 女の子/男の子. The term fujin therefore underlines the specificity of woman with regards the masculine, seen as universal.
Lévy, Genre et modernité au Japon, 13.
Texts by self-proclaimed socialist authors and journalists, such as Kōtoku Shūsui (1871-1911) and Fukuda Hideko (1865-1927), illustrate the link between socialism and feminism.
Similarly, the term in German is die Frauenfrage and in French, la question féminine.
Nagai Tōru 永井亨, Fujin mondai kenkyū 婦人問題研究 [Research on the Woman Question] (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1925).
Vera Mackie, Feminism in Modern Japan. Citizenship, Embodiment and Sexuality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 162.
Fujieda & fujimura-Fanselow, “Women’s Studies: An Overview”, 156-57.
Kimura Ryōko 木村涼子, “Introduction”, in Jendā to kyōiku ジェンダーと教育 [Gender and Education], ed. Kimura Ryōko (Tokyo: Nihon tosho sentā 日本図書センター, 2009), 3.
Dodane, “L’écriture féminine dans le Japon moderne”, 431-43.
Christine Lévy, ed., “Naissance d’une revue féministe au Japon: Seitō (1911-1916)” [Birth of a Feminist Magazine: Seitō (1911-1916)], Ebisu, no. 48 (Autumn-Winter 2012).
The history of women during the war (in particular the creation in 1942 and subsequent dismantling in 1945 of the Greater Japan Women's Association, Dainihon fujin-kai 大日本婦人会) was also instrumental in the post-war reformation of feminist movements.
Gayle Curtis Anderson, Women’s History and Local Community in Postwar Japan (London: New-York, Routledge, 2010), 9.
The Japanese word kaihō 解放 (emancipation) was replaced by the Anglicism ribu リブ, reflecting a change in era and the influence of North American feminist movements.
Kimura, Jendā to kyōiku, 3-5.
Betty Friedan’s book The Feminine Mystique (1963) created a stir when it appeared in Japan in 1965 (Atarashii josei no sōzō 新しい女性の創造 [The Creation of New Woman]), translated by Miura Fumiko and published by Daiwa shobō. The book’s criticism of the empty existence of the perfect housewife resonated with many Japanese women.
Ehara Yumiko, Feminizumu no paradokkusu. Teichaku ni yoru kakusan フェミニズムのパラドックス―定着による拡散 [The Paradox of Feminism: diffusion through fixture] (Tokyo: Keisō shobō, 2000), 15-17.
Mackie, Feminism in Modern Japan, 159-63.
Laura Dales, Feminist Movements in Contemporary Japan (London and New-York: Routledge, 2009), 31-37.
In November 1975 a conference was held to celebrate International Women’s Year, then in 1979 the UN adopted its Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, and finally, 1975-1985 was declared the Decade for Women.
Fujieda & fujimura-Fanselow, “Women’s Studies: An Overview”, 158.
Kokuryo Sonoko, “L’installation de cours d’études féminines et de centres de documentation sur les femmes au Japon” [The Creation of Women’s Studies Classes and Documentation Centres on Women in Japan], BIEF, no. 16 (May 1985): 114-20.
The Institute for Women’s Studies at Ochanomizu University, founded in 1986, became the Institute for Gender Studies in 1996. Ochanomizu University developed classes focused entirely on women’s studies, then on gender. A doctoral programme was created within the Women’s Studies Department in 1993, followed by a Master’s degree in Gender and Development Studies in 1997, then in 2005 by a doctoral programme in Interdisciplinary Gender Studies.
Ehara Yumiko, “Le développement théorique des études sur les femmes et le genre dans le Japon contemporain des années 1970 à nos jours” [The Theoretical Development of Women’s Studies and Gender Studies in Contemporary Japan Since the 1970s], in Societe franco-japonaise des études sur les femmes 日仏女性研究学会, Actes des Recherches collectives franco-japonaises : Pour la comparaison franco-japonaise des études sur les femmes. Sur la nécessité des nouvelles méthodologies comparatives 日仏共同研究報告書 女性研究における日仏比較 新しい比較方法論の必要性をめぐって [Report on French-Japanese Collaborative Research. A French-Japanese comparison of women’s studies: on the need for new comparative methodologies] (Tokyo: Maison Franco-japonaise, 2002), 40.
Ishida Hitoshi, Mark McLelland & Murakami Takanori, “The Origins of Queer Studies in Postwar Japan”, in Genders, Transgenders and Sexualities in Japan, ed. Mark McLelland & Romit Dasgupta (London: Routledge Curzon, 2005), 33.
Ehara, “Le développement théorique”, 17-20.
Endo Orie, “Aspects of Sexism in Language”, in Fujimura-Fanselow & Kameda, Japanese Women, 30-31.
Ibid.
Fujieda & fujimura-Fanselow, “Women’s Studies: An Overview”, 156-58.
Words currently employing the ideogram fu 婦 (from fujin 婦人) include fujinka 婦人科 (gynaecology), fujin zasshi 婦人雑誌 (women’s magazine) and fujin sanseiken 婦人参政権 (women’s suffrage). The term fujin can also be used to feminise a profession, for example fujin keisatsu 婦人警察 (policewoman).
Andrea Germer, “Feminist History in Japan. National and International Perspectives”, Intersections, Gender and the Sexuality in Asia Pacific, vol. 9 (August 2003): 4-5. Available at: http://intersections.anu.edu.au/issue9/germer.html (accessed August 2018).
Ibid. 3.
This debate took place from the late 1970s to the early 1980s. Essentialist feminists viewed the home as a potential site for the emancipation of married women, who were free to run the home as they saw fit, while materialist feminists underlined the lesser value assigned to housework, thereby obscuring women’s economic contribution and undermining their role in society.
Ida Kumiko 伊田久美子, “‘Baton o watasu’ to iu koto. Marukusu shugi feminizumu kara ‘ohitorisama’ e” 「バトンを渡す」ということ―マルクス主義フェミニズムから「おひとりさま」へ [“Passing the Baton”: from materialist feminism to the book The Solitude of Old Age], Gendai shisō 現代思想, vol. 17, no. 39 (December 2011): 89-92.
Meiji joseishi 明治女性史 by Murakami Nobuhiko村上信彦, published between 1970 and 1973.
Produced in 1982 by the Society for Research on Women’s History (Joseishi sōgō kenkyūkai), the five-volume Nihon joseishi 日本女性史, published by Tokyo University, remains a key text.
Published in 1972, Sandakan hachiban shōkan サンダカン八番娼館 by Yamazaki Tomoko 山崎朋子 was one of the first books to discuss early twentieth-century prostitution in South-East Asia and Japanese military prostitution during the war (1931-1945).
Ehara Yumiko, “Le développement théorique”, 27-30.
Joan W.Scott, “Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis”, The American Historical Review, vol. 91, no. 5 (December 1986): 1053-75.
Ibid, 1067 and 1069.
Bereni et al, Introduction aux études de genre, 16-17.
Anthropological and sociological studies highlighting the socially constructed nature of gender roles already existed. The best known are by Margaret Mead (1901-1978), Gayle Rubin (b. 1949), Ann Oakley (b. 1944) and Simone de Beauvoir’s (1908-1986) The Second Sex. Research by psychologists and psychiatrists such as John Money (1921-2006) and Robert Stoller (1925-1992) also defined gender as distinct from sex. However, these studies limited themselves to positing a difference between physical sex (biologically determined) and social sex (gender).
In contrast to women’s studies, gender reinforced the barrier between the militant feminist sphere and the Japanese scholarly sphere, since the former saw gender simply as an additional tool to analyse traditional disciplines (founded on male knowledge) and not as a feminist challenge to the production of knowledge by men.
Germer, “Feminist History in Japan”, 7.
Eto Mikiko, “‘Gender Problems in Japanese Politics’: A Dispute over a Socio-Cultural Change Towards Increasing Equality”, Japanese Journal of Political Science, no. 17, vol. 3 (2016): 367-68.
See for example: Société franco-japonaise des études sur les femmes, Actes des Recherches collectives franco-japonaises.
Ehara Yumiko, “Le développement théorique”, 42.
Research on women’s history (joseishi 女性史) in particular continued; the divide between women’s studies and gender studies in Japan has persisted due to the expansion of the former.
The publication of a special issue of the Asahi Shimbun in 2002 illustrates the visibility achieved by gender studies.
See http://jp-gender.jp/wp/ (accessed July 2018).
See http://www2.igs.ocha.ac.jp/en/ (accessed July 2018).
Osawa Mari, “Government Approaches to Gender Equality in the Mid-1990s”, Social Science Japan Journal, no. 1, vol. 3 (2000): 4-5.
The term “gender” first entered the political nomenclature in 1996 in a report titled “Creating New Values for the 21st Century: A vision of gender equality” (Danjo kyōdō sankaku bijon – nijūisseiki no arata na kachi no sōzō 男女共同参画ビジョン―21世紀の新たな価値の創造). Japan moved from a strategy focused on eradicating blatant discrimination between men and women to one that highlights the link between the dominant position of men and discriminations of a subtler, less visible nature.
Ehara Yumiko, “Le développement théorique”, 42.
There are several different means of transcribing the word “and” in Japanese: a dot, a slash, ando アンド (a transliteration of “and”), to と (the Japanese word for “and”), and even using the logogram &.
The order of the terms varies from gay and lesbian studies to lesbian and gay studies, in Japanese as in other languages.
LGBT studies appeared at North American universities in the 1970s, beginning in 1972 with the first gay and lesbian programme offered at Sacramento State University in California, but spread throughout Europe later, for reasons specific to each country. In Japan, LGBT studies was able to develop once gender studies had become institutionalised in the 1990s and following a revival of research on sexuality, the introduction of English-language LGBT scholarship and the growth of certain Japanese LGBT groups.
The stimulus provided by gender studies should not obscure the fact that research on sexuality had long existed in Japan. Sexology and gynaecology became scientific fields between the late 19th century and the early 20th century.
As was already the case in psychiatry, researchers once again challenged the normal/pathological dichotomy used to define sexual behaviour and identities. This reflection owes much to the work of Georges Canguilhem and Michel Foucault.
This new generation of researchers is trained in the use of gender tools.
Takemura Kazuko, “Feminist Studies/Activities in Japan: Present and Future”, Lectora, no. 16 (2010): 13-33, available to download at http://revistes.iec.cat/index.php/lectora/article/viewFile/54722/54919 (accessed June 2018).
Ibid. 15-16.
In the 2000s Ueno Chizuko took back the homophobic views expressed in her 1986 book Onna to iu kairaku 女という快楽 [The Pleasure of Womanhood], published by Keisō shobō.
Narita Ryūichi, “The Overflourishing of Sexuality in 1920s Japan”, in Gender and Japanese History. Volume 1. Religion and Customs/the Body and Sexuality, ed. Wakita Haruko, Ueno Chizuko & Anne Bouchy (Osaka: Osaka University Press, 1999), 345-70.
Sabine Frühstück, “Genders and Sexualities”, in A Companion to the Anthropology of Japan, ed. Jennifer Robertson (Oxford: Blackwell, 2008), 167-81.
This militancy can be seen in the way the word is transcribed in Japanese: rezubian レズビアン as opposed to resubianレスビアン. This difference is linked to a question of identity: the term resubian, borrowed from French, belongs to a literary context and is widely used in dictionaries. The term rezubian, borrowed from American English in the 1960s, reflects a feminist lesbianism and is more assertive.
The influence of radical lesbian feminism, which in the 1970s began to reflect on female homosexuality and its political counterpart, lesbianism, must also be considered. Japanese lesbians – a marginalised minority within feminist movements – were unable to bring about a questioning of heteronormativity within the academic world, despite this having taken place in the United States. Lesbian movements rapidly disassociated themselves from the feminist movements of the 1970s and 1980s. These feminist movements then reconsidered their lesbian counterparts in the 1990s, notably during the heated debates between Japanese women and Asian women on the wartime comfort women system.
Mark McLelland, “The Role of the ‘Tojisha’ in Current Debates about Sexual Minority Rights in Japan”, Japanese Studies, no. 29, vol. 2 (2009): 193-207.
Fushimi Noriaki 伏見憲明, Puraibēto gei raifu – posuto ren.aironプライベート・ゲイ・ライフ―ポスト恋愛論 (Tokyo: Gakuyō shobō 学陽書房, 1991).
Suganuma Katsuhiko, “Enduring Voices: Fushimi Noriaki and Kakefuda Hiroko’s Continuing Relevance to Japanese Lesbian and Gay Studies and Activism”, Intersections: Gender, History and Culture in the Asian Context, no.14 (November 2006), available at http://intersections.anu.edu.au/issue14/suganuma.htm (accessed June 2018).
In particular Leo Bersani, David M. Halperin, Judith Butler, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick and Teresa De Lauretis.
Academic works tracing the history of homosexuality already existed but did not cover post-war Japan.
Hirosawa Yumi 広沢有美, ed., Onna o ai suru onna no monogatari 女を愛する女の物語, Bessatsu Takarajima 別冊宝島 [Takarajima Special Issue], May 1987.
This special issue was edited by Sawabe Hitomi under her pen name Hirosawa Yumi.
Kakefuda Hiroko 掛札悠子, “Rezubian” de aru to iu koto レズビアンであるということ (Toyko: Kawade shobō shinsha 河出書房新社, 1992).
Izumo Marō 出雲まろう, Manaita no ue no koi まな板のうえの恋 (Tokyo: JICC shuppankyoku JICC出版局, 1993). Translated by Claire Maree as Love Upon the Chopping Board (Melbourne: Spinifex Press, 2000).
Sasano Michiru 笹野みちる, Coming out! (Tokyo: Gentōsha 幻冬舎, 1995).
Itō Satoru伊藤悟, Dōseiaisha toshite ikiru 同性愛者として生きる (Tokyo: Akashi shobō 明石書房, 1998).
Ikeda Kumiko 池田久美子, Sensei no rezubian sengen – Tsunagaru tame no kamuauto 先生のレズビアン宣言 つながるためのカムアウト (Kyoto: Kamogawa shuppan かもがわ出版, 1999).
Itō Satoru & Yanase Ryuta, eds., Coming Out in Japan (Melbourne: TransPacific Press, 2001).
Sawabe Hitomi 沢部仁美, Yuriko, dasuvidāniya 百合子 ダスヴェイダーニヤ [Dasvidaniya Yuriko] (Tokyo: Bungei shunjū 文藝春秋, 1990).
Special issue of Hihyō kūkan 批評空間, Tokushū, shūkyō to shūkyō hihan. Sekkusu/jendā 特集=宗教と宗教批判 セックス/ジェンダー [Religion and Criticism of Religion – Sex and Gender], no. 8, vol. 2 (January 1996). The contents are available in the archives of the website: http://www36.atwiki.jp/aabiblio/pages/64.html#id_f5c68938 (accessed July 2018).
Yuriika ユリイカ [Eureka], Kuia rīdingu クィア・リーディング [Queer Rereading], vol. 28, no. 13 (November 1996).
Gendai shisō 現代思想, Sōtokushū Lezubian/gei stadīzu 総特集 レズビアン/ゲイ・スタディーズ (May 1997).
Various authors, Jendā ga wakaru ジェンダーがわかる, Asahi Shimbun Extra Report and Analysis Special Number, AERA Mook, no. 78, 2002.
Gendai shisō 現代思想, Tokushū LGBT nihon to sekai no riaru 特集 LGBT日本と世界のリアル (October 2015).
A special issue of the journal Kaihō shakaigaku kenkyū 解放社会学研究 [Liberation Sociology Research] was also published entitled Tokushū Rezubian/gei sutadīzu pēpābakku 特集 レズビアン/ゲイ・スタディーズ ペーパーバック, no. 17 (2003).
Keith Vincent ヴィンセント・キース, Kazama Takashi 風間孝 and Kawaguchi Kazuya 河口和也, Gei sutadīzu ゲイ・スタディーズ (Tokyo: Seidosha 青土社, 1997).
Tazaki Hideaki 田崎英明, Jendā/sekushuariti ジェンダー/セクシュアリティ (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten 岩波書店, 2000).
Saitō Jun’ichi 斉藤純一, Shinmitsuken no poritikkusu 親密圏のポリティックス (Kyoto: Nakanishiya shuppan ナカニシヤ出版, 2003).
Examples include Mark McLelland, Romit Dasgupta, Sharon Chalmers, Sabine Frühstück, J. Keith Vincent and James Welker.
Scholars like Ogino Miho and Takemura Kazuko, who have translated and analysed key works by Butler and Scott, did not hesitate to work on English texts.
In 2002 the newspaper Asahi listed at least 120 universities offering gender studies classes.
Suganuma Katsuhiko, “Enduring Voices”.
In the 1990s gay, transvestite, intersex and occasionally lesbian characters and individuals appeared on television and sometimes in films. Their romantic relationships (and thus homosexuality) were portrayed in a more or less realistic manner.
Mark McLelland, Male Homosexuality in Modern Japan: Cultural Myths and Social Realities (London: Routledge Curzon, 2000), 130-33.
M. Gregory Pflugfelder, Cartographies of Desire: Male-Male Sexuality in Japanese Discourse, 1600-1950 (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 1999), 20
Kazama Takashi 風間孝 and Kawaguchi Kazuya 河口和也, Dōseiai to iseiai 同性愛と異性愛 [Homosexuality and Heterosexuality] (Tokyo: Iwanami shinsho 岩波新書, 2010), 6-36.
Erick Laurent, Les Chrysanthèmes roses. Homosexualités masculines dans le Japon contemporain [Pink Chrysanthemums. Male Homosexuality in Contemporary Japan] (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2011), 155-56 and 161-62.
Ibid. 160.
Questioning male homosexuality before its female counterpart nonetheless remains an androcentric act.
Erick Laurent, “Sexuality and Human Rights: An Asian Perspective”, in Sexuality and Human Rights, ed. Helmut Graupner & Phillip Tahmindjis (New York: Haworth Press, 2005), 163-225.
Early on, the group OCCUR, for example, fought for an overhauling of homophobic terms. From 1991 to 1997, it also waged a successful court battle against Tokyo’s Fuchū youth hostel for having barred homosexual guests.
The legal text is available in Japanese at http://law.e-gov.go.jp/htmldata/H15/H15HO111.html (accessed July 2018).
On 26 March 2009 the Ministry of Justice issued an opinion on recognising same-sex marriages registered overseas. Fukushima Mizuho (then head of the Social Democratic Party of Japan) lobbied heavily for this recognition.
Ikeda Kumiko 池田久美子, Okabe Yoshihiro おかべよしひろ, Kimura Kazunori 木村一紀, Kuroiwa Ryūtarō 黒岩竜太郎, Takatori Shōji 高取昌二, Dohi Itsuki 土肥いつき, Miyazaki Rumiko 宮崎留美子 and Alexander Ronni, Sekushuaru mainoriti, dōseiai, seidōitsusei shōgai, intāsekkusu no tōjisha ga kataru ningen no tayō na sei セクシュアルマイノリティ、同性愛、性同一性障害、インターセックスの当事者が語る人間の多様な性 (Tokyo: Akashi shoten 明石書店, 2003, republished in 2006).
Sugiyama Takashi 杉山貴士, Kikitai shiritai seiteki mainoriti, tsunagari aeru shakai no tameni 聞きたい知りたい性的マイノリティ つながりあえる社会のために (Osaka: Nihon kikanshi shuppan sentā 日本機関紙出版センター, 2008).
Susumu Ryū 超竜, Niji-iro no hinkon, LGBT sabaibaru! Reinbōkarā dewa nuritsubusenai, “ue” to “kawaki” 虹色の貧困 LGBTサバイバル!レインボーカラーでは塗りつぶせない「飢え」と「渇き」 (Tokyo: Sairyūsha 彩流社, 2010).
Akasugi Yasunobu 赤杉康伸, Tsuchiya Yuki 土屋ゆき and Tsutsui Makiko 筒井真樹子, Dōsei pātonā, Dōseikon, domesutikku pātonāshippu-hō o shiru tameni, 同性パートナー、同性婚・DP法を知るために (Tokyo: Shakai hihyōsha 社会批評社, 2004).
Sugiura Ikuko 杉浦郁子, Nomiya Aki 野宮亜紀and Ōe Chizuka 大江千束, Pātonāshippu: seikatsu to seido, kekkon, jijitsukon, dōseikon, パートナーシップ・生活と制度―結婚、事実婚、同性婚 (Tokyo: Ryokufū shuppan 緑風出版, 2007).
Nagayasu Shibun 永易至文, Dōsei pātonā seikatsu tokuhon, dōkyo zeikin hoken kara kaigo shibetsu sōzoku made 同性パートナー生活読本 同居・税金・保険から介護・死別・相続まで (Tokyo: Ryokufū shuppan, 2009).
The term queer, originally meaning strange, was reclaimed in the late 1980s by gay activists in the United States, who reversed the stigma attached to it and instead used the word to describe the entire spectrum of sexual minorities (gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transsexuals, and intersexual and transgender individuals), as well as all those who do not wish to be reduced to a fixed category.
Bereni et al, Introduction aux études de genre, 49-53.
Queer theory has had less impact in the United States than in Europe, where it has established itself via radical left-wing movements not affiliated to the traditional parties.
The term queer is often added to the acronym LGBTQ, thereby designating all non-normative sexualities and any person who does not identify with the categories in use.
A feminist lesbian theoretician and professor of historical consciousness, Teresa de Lauretis is notable for her 1987 work Technologies of Gender: Essays on Theory, Film, and Fiction (Bloomington: Indiana University Press).
Judith Butler, Gender Trouble (Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2006), ix.
ジュディース・バトラー Judith Butler, Jendā toraburu feminizumu to aidentiti no kakuran ジェンダートラブル フェミニズムとアイデンティティの攪乱 [Gender Trouble, Feminism and the Subversion of Identity] (Tokyo: Seidosha 青土社, 1999).
Kawahara Yukari 川原ゆかり, “Wakamono bunka to sekushuariti, karuchuraru sutadīzu o megutte” 若者文化とセクシュアリティ カルチュラルスタディーズをめぐって [Youth Culture and Sexuality: a cultural studies perspective], Jendā kenkyū: Ochanomizu joshi daigaku jendā kenkyū sentā nenpō ジェンダー研究: お茶の水女子大学ジェンダー研究センター年報 (gender studies journal published by the Institute for Gender Studies at Ochanomizu University), vol. 2 (March 1999): 113. Available at: http://www.igs.ocha.ac.jp/igs/IGS_publication/journal/01/01_09.pdf (accessed August 2018).
Foucault remains a key author within gender studies thanks to his three-volume History of Sexuality, not only for his deconstruction of sex/sexuality but also for his reflection on the context (or “episteme”) of knowledge formation, an area in which gender, LGBT and queer studies are also active.
Takemura, “Feminist Studies/Activities in Japan, 5-6.
Ibid. 5.
Jendā ga wakaru ジェンダーがわかる, Asahi Shimbun Extra Report and Analysis Special Number, AERA Mook, no. 78, 2002.
For example, a queer reinterpretation of the poet Masaoka Shiki 正岡子規 (1867-1902) in a paper by Keith J. Vincent.
Keith J. Vincent, “Queering Friendship: Takemura Kazuko”, a paper presented on 20 April 2013 at Emory University during a conference entitled “Sex, Gender, and Society: Rethinking Japanese Feminism”, full text available at http://worldwide-wan.blogspot.fr/2013/05/queering-friendship-takemura-kazuko-by.html (accessed August 2018).
Kawaguchi Kazuya 河口和也, Kuia sutadīzu クィア・スタディーズ ([Queer Studies] (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 2003).
Newsletter no. 9 of the Centre for Gender Studies at the International Christian University (ICU), available at http://subsite.icu.ac.jp/cgs/docs/20080415_NL009.pdf (accessed July 2018), 7.
See https://ci.nii.ac.jp/ncid/AA12364316 (accessed August 2018).
For example, the classes taught by Ogino Miho at Dōshisha University, Kawaguchi Kazuya at Shūdō University in Hiroshima, and those dispensed by the International Christian University (which has a department of LGBT Studies) and Ochanomizu University.
Interview with Ogino Miho conducted on 18 February 2013 at Dōshisha University in Kyoto.
Men’s studies’ groups have appeared, bolstered by the reflections on gender, for example the Men’s Lib Research Group and Men’s Centre in 1995, and Men’s Lib Tokyo in 1996. The pioneering work Introduction to Men’s Studies, by Ito Kimio 伊藤公雄 (Danseigaku nyūmon 男性学入門, Tokyo: Sakuhinsha, 1996), was later followed by a multi-volume History of Masculinity (Danseishi 男性史, Tokyo: Nihon keizai hyōronsha, 2006), edited by Abe Tsunehisa 阿部恒久, Amano Masako 天野正子 and Obinata Sumio 大日方純夫.
These studies echo societal changes relating to fatherhood and the status of men. They represent an outgrowth of male feminist activist movements, such as the Men’s Group for Rethinking Childcare (Otoko no kosodate o kangaeru kai 男の子育てを考える会), founded in 1978, and Men Opposed to Prostitution in Asia (Ajia no baibaishun ni hantai suru otoko-tachi no kai アジアの売買春に反対する男たちの会), founded in 1988.
Le Doeuff Michèle, Le Sexe du savoir (Paris: Flammarion, 2000), 130-133. Translated into English by Kathryn Hamer and Lorraine Code as The Sex of Knowing (New York and London: Routledge, 2003).
Jendā ga wakaru, 132-41.
Intersex refers to a genetic variation, such as people with the sex chromosome anomalies XXX, XYY and XO, and affects one in 2000 births (based on the criteria used to define sex) (Bereni et al, Introduction aux études de genre, 34-39).
For example, scholars have rediscovered the variety of homosexual practices and the entire range of non-normative sexualities through studies of the family, prostitution, the organisation of the warrior nobility and monastic life, notably during the Edo period.
The work of Chino Kaori, a key figure in art history and feminism, has led scholars to examine the representation of gender identities, particularly in scrolls and illustrations for literary works like the Heiji monogatari, the Ise monogatari and in paintings by Kanō Motonobu.
Works like The Tale of Genji and The Changelings (Torikaebaya monogatari), or by authors like Natsume Sōseki and Mishima Yukio, are often cited, but many texts from the Meiji and Taishō periods are currently receiving a queer re-reading.
Kimura, Jendā to kyōiku, 4.
Le Doeuff, Le Sexe du savoir, 7-18.
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