3B
Wednesday, March 14, 2018 // The Statement 

Critical Questions: Who gets to 

say what feminism is?

W

ho gets to define feminism?

With 
contemporary 

feminism 
going 
global 

from its origins as an originally 
1960’s American movement, the way 
various groups absorb — or reject — 
feminism in their own cultures is an 
intriguing subject.

The topic crossed my mind when 

I was attending a career seminar for 
students interested in working in 
Japan. Five of us sat in a small room 
in the Michigan League, listening to 
an agent from a recruiting company 
explain the job search process in Japan.

After the seminar was done, the 

agent asked if we had any questions. 
One female student raised her hand 
and asked how working conditions 
were 
for 
women 
in 
domestic 

Japanese companies versus Japanese 
subsidiaries of foreign companies. The 
agent calmly answered the latter was 
better for women.

I was shocked by the casualness 

of the whole exchange. In the agent 
and student’s voices, there was an 
assumption that the geezer male 
executives in domestic companies 
wouldn’t do anything for women. 
There was also a tone of defeatism. 
To the female attendees, it was an 
immovable fact of life that working as 
a woman in Japan will be subpar when 
compared to men, but it couldn’t be 
helped (or as we like to say in Japan, 
shikata ga nai).

And their attitude is understandable. 

Only 12.1 percent of women in Japan 
are in managerial roles as of the 
2016-17 fiscal year, a far cry from the 
government’s stated objective of 30 
percent by 2020, which they since 
abandoned in 2015. Women are still 
expected to cut their careers short 
when they start having children. The 
Supreme Court of Japan decided in 
2015 that married couples cannot 
legally have separate last names, 
and not to mention the notorious 
groping and molestation on public 
transportation, which in turn is 
fetishized in adult media.

(This isn’t to say Japan is some sort 

of hellish dystopia for women. Though 
it may be lacking when compared to 
Europe and the United States, it still 
fares better than most other countries. 
But 
it’s 
also 
understandable 
that 

Japanese international students, upon 
experiencing the superior conditions 
in the U.S. and especially in liberal Ann 
Arbor, can’t go back to the world they 
knew before.)

I just listed facts lamenting the 

lack of progress for women in Japan, 

but if someone else were to say that 
to me, I would be defensive about it. 
It’s similar to how if some foreigner 
criticized the U.S.’s atrocious record on 
environmental causes or role as world 
police; I know we’re doing terribly and I 
know the criticism wasn’t personal, but 
no one wants to believe their neighbors 
are bad people.

“We live in different cultures,” I’d 

say. “We have our own way of dealing 
with internal issues.” 

This defensiveness, I feel, is an 

obstacle for feminism going forward 
globally.

When Black women became tired of 

middle-class white feminism and the 
male-dominated civil rights movement, 
they created Black and intersectional 
feminism, with the notion that sexism, 
racism, class oppression and gender 
identity are linked together. But can we 
reproduce that on a global scale?

Take female genital mutilation as 

an example. Though women (and men, 
including myself) in the West think 
it’s a horrible and inhumane idea, 
the practitioners may be wondering 

why college-educated white women 
feel entitled to decide what they 
want to do with their child. Indeed, 
some anthropologists have criticized 
Western opposition to FGM as cultural 
imperialism and the imposition of 
Judeo-Christian morals.

Another example would be the 

treatment of women in Islam. Certain 
sections of Islamic texts can be read 
as oppressive to women in a Western 
context: For instance, a section in the 
Quran says that a woman’s testimony 
in court is equal to half of that of a 
man. Many Muslim-majority countries 
follow this custom in some or most 
legal cases. The Quran also explicitly 
states there are only two genders 
in this world, in direct contrast to 
progressive Western ideals.

It is understandable why many 

liberals and feminists are silent on this 
issue; they know Islamophobes and far-
right elements have used this argument 
to 
sow 
division 
in 
multicultural 

societies. But philosophically speaking, 
it does beg the question of why moral 
relativism overrides universal human 

rights in certain areas but not others.

If feminism were to become a truly 

universal movement penetrating people 
of all nations, genders and classes, it 
would need to be able to resolve this 
internal conflict. For feminism is about 
giving all women the freedom to choose, 
but if a woman chooses to live under 
what we in the West call “oppression,” 
would it be acceptable?

Philosopher John Stuart Mill wrote 

in “The Subjection of Women” in 1869 
that men have successfully conditioned 
women’s minds to view oppression and 
subjugation as a form of benevolent 
paternalism. But who are we in the 
West to tell women in other cultures 
that their choice is locked under 
certain invisible constraints set by 
their patriarchs?

As numerous feminist scholars have 

argued over this and haven’t produced 
a universally accepted answer, and 
I am not a woman, I cannot claim to 
answer it.

Who defines feminism? It’s a food 

for thought during Women’s History 
Month.

BY ISHI MORI, COLUMNIST

Matt Vailliencourt/Daily

A sign as seen at the second annual Women’s March on the Diag in January.

