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.