Category: feminism

A new digital-only special issue from U.S.-Japan Women’s Journal is now available free to readers on Project MUSE. 

“Celebrating 60+ Issues of U.S.-Japan Women’s Journal” centers on three themes that often appear in the journal: mobility, storytelling, and activism. The journal is the world’s oldest periodical devoted to the study of gender and Japan and was founded in 1988 by Japanese feminists who were educated in the United States.

The issue brings together seven previously published articles of significance, which:

• Profiles women from diverse backgrounds who worked abroad during different historical moments and changed how people in Japan, the United States, and France regarded each other 
• Explores how cancer disrupts women’s life courses and relationships, including the first English translation of Ogino Anna’s quasi-autobiographical short story, “Nue / 鵺”
• Analyzes the prevalent images of sweets and desserts in shōjo manga in how they symbolize power relationships and essentialize girls
• Investigates the online feminist movement #KuToo, which disclosed exploitative workplace and political cultures and empowered women to try to change them

“All of these seven articles explain that, due to laws, social conventions, business practices, and other factors, women have faced different choices in work and family and different access to education, jobs, and politics than people of other genders. They show how women have coped with public and personal traumas, initiated movements for change and equality, and formed communities. They account for diversity among Japanese women and dispel stereotypes. They capture accounts omitted from historical records,” writes Alisa Freedman in the special issue’s introduction.

Alisa Freedman served as the the journal’s editor-in-chief from 2016-2022, is a professor of Japanese literature, cultural studies, and gender at the University of Oregon, and author of several books. She dedicates the commemorative issue to the journals’ previous editors: Drs. Yoko Kawashima, Noriko Mizuta, Sally A. Hastings, and Jan Bardsley.

Read the commemorative issue free on Project MUSE here.