Embodiment and Its Violence in Kawakami Mieko’s Chichi to ran: Menstruation, Beauty Ideals, and Mothering

Authors

  • Juliana Buriticá Alzate International Christian University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5195/jll.2020.96

Abstract

This article offers a close reading of Kawakami Mieko’s Chichi to ran (Breasts and eggs, 2007/2008) and explores how the author problematizes agency vis-à-vis cultural and economical mechanisms that control the female body and fix gender roles in a male-dominated, neo-liberal society through an analysis of the portrayal of menstruation, reproduction and beauty ideals from a feminist perspective. Menstruation, beauty practices, reproduction and mothering, are collective experiences that have too often remained invisible. Kawakami puts them in the spotlight, invests body experiences with a voice, and tells a relevant story not only to Japan, but also to the world, making this novella one of the strongest contemporary feminist portrayals of embodiment, reproduction and agency.

Author Biography

Juliana Buriticá Alzate, International Christian University

Juliana Buriticá Alzate (jburitica@icu.ac.jp) is an Assistant Professor at the Center for Gender Studies at International Christian University (ICU). She completed her Ph.D. dissertation, Representations of the Female Body in Japanese Literature by Women Writers at ICU in 2017, and has published articles on the representation of menstruation in advertisements for feminine hygiene products, and also on the intersections between feminism and disability studies. Her current research brings together queer and feminist theory to explore representations of families, parenting and related embodied experiences in fiction by Japanese women authors. 

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Published

2020-09-25

Issue

Vol. 54 No. 2 (2020): Japanese Language and Literature

Section

SPECIAL SECTION LITERATURE

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