Bad Girl of Japan (Book Review Sample)

Book Review "Bad girl of Japan”
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Bad Girls of Japan
‘Bad Girl of Japan" is a collection of different stories about women and how they are portrayed in Japan at different generation and different places. From the title of the book, "bad" means the act of defying the notion of feminine conduct while "girl" is used to refer to female empowerment. The book was published in 2005 in hardcover and paperback in 2007.The editors of the book are Jan Bardsley and Laura Miller. Laura Miller works at Loyola University as an associate professor of anthropology while Bardsley is also an associate professor in the sector of Japanese humanities at the University of North Carolina. Bardsley and Miller have a collection of tales of bad- girls from Filipinas to school girls, from geisha to fashionistas and from crones to idols. In their descriptions, the editors frame the bad girls in a manner that that reflects the historical and contemporary issues of gender, race, sexuality modernity, and class. In the book, a girl who is deemed to be a bad girl in one era turns out to be a model of womanhood in another era.
The book begins with an essay about women of Japanese folklore who were demonic. They include carnivores’ mountain witch, the Yamamba and the jilted lover who turned into a giant monster snake in the Dojoji myth. Other essays in the book include Meiji schoolgirls, Koga, geisha and shopping mavens like the Afore mentioned Abe Sada (who had erotic escapades that were over-hyped in films such as In the Realm of the Senses) as well as Nakamura Usagi ( who was a brand addict)and Yoshiya Nabuko ( the one whose flower tales helped in establishing the narrative style in Shojo).
In short the book is about women in the Japanese culture and history and how their behaviors have been in the modern and contemporary Japan. The book reads like an alternate cultural history that has been informed by different academic discipline and focuses. It is written in short essays, and due to that fact each writer is forced to point out the most essential features in the topic that they have written in a way that is efficient to allow the readers understand his point of view. The book is also designed in a way that it upsets the common ideas of the Japanese culture, and none of the essays makes culture essential by overgeneralization.
In the book, the author explains that there are differences among bad girls and not all bad girls are equal. When a woman is called her behavior or characteristic either as "bad" or "evil”, is very important to men, it makes them feel more masculine. This is because it places the women in a position that is harmless especially when in a relationship that is male dominated. This ploy is used with an intention of weakening the power of women. So that they can always be voiceless in a society that is male dominated. From the authors view, bad girls are seen to be bad because they are a threat to the male dominated society. For example in "bad girls confined: Okuni, Geisha and the negotiation of female performance space" which is among the stories of the bad girls in Japan, gives an explanation why the geisha girls are viewed to be bad in the West and Japan. It explains how bad the women are. Foreman bases his argument in the interaction between a geisha and the Westerners and how the performance arts evolved ('Bad Girls Of Japan' 2006). In his explanation, the Foreman says that geisha women are the women who study Japanese classical music and are dancers. They dance and perform music during parties so that they can get money to pay for their lessons in art; they elaborate stage performance and are officially registered. Geisha women spend their entire life in artistic career instead of getting married and giving birth. There lifestyle is against the female virtues, and this is encouraged by a society that is male dominated. This chapter is important in understanding geisha especially after the distortions that occur in Memoirs of a Geisha movie (James and Mulloy 2005).
The book has contributed significantly in genders studies in relation to Japan, although there are some omissions that are considered as significant. The authors of bad girls in Japan do not explain how the badness that is usually in bad girls helps in gender distinctions or assist in developing gender relations, although the editors have noted it a point that they will consider. For example in "Branded bad girls go shopping" Hiroko Hirakawa and Bradley write about a bad girl who is a brand addict by the name Nakamura Usagi. In the story, it is explained how she lavished all her money in brand shopping after she earned a fortune and became famous through novel writing. Nakamura penetrates the social structure together with the functions of the brand product that are within it, notwithstanding the fact that she is a brand addict. In her view, one feels superior when he buys and wears brand products in the gendered capitalist world. She is deemed to be bad because of this point on brand products (Miller and Bardsley 2005).
The author when explaining about Nakamura, he says that Nakamura believes that wealth and successful careers are among the identity of a heterosexual masculine identity but for heterosexual women, this is not the case. She also believes that a woman is guaranteed of male suitors if she is pretty and not because of having a successful career and therefore she won’t satisfy her feminine identity. Nakamura spends the fortune that she learns on her favorite male host, on buying brand goods and on cosmetic surgery so that she can quench her heterosexual feminine identity. The author portrays Nakamura as a woman who knows what she wants in a gendered capitalist society that compels women to choose either heterosexual relationship of economic power that satisfy feminine identity (Miller and Bardsley 2005).
The book provides a fascinating insight on how Japanese women are imagined and presented. It shows how b...