A/Void Pregnancy? Yagi Emi’s Kūshin techō and Fake Pregnancy as a Means of Exploring Women’s Struggles
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5195/jll.2024.321Keywords:
Yagi Emi, Japanese Women's Literature, Women's writing, Ecriture feminine, Diary of a Void, Maternal BodiesAbstract
Kūshin techō (Diary of a void), Yagi Emi’s brilliant debut in the Japanese literary scene, was published in 2020 and proceeded to win the 36 th Osamu Dazai Prize. With its provocative tones, the novel addresses maternal issues during a very crucial moment for literature. Indeed, contemporary women’s writing from all over the world is growing more and more engaged with issues such as illness, disease, healthcare, medical practice, and clinical institutions, as well as with the topic of “care,” usually depicted as a women’s responsibility. In this paper, I argue that, through the parody of the Maternal and Child Health Handbook, Yagi Emi advances a critique of the condition of Japanese women in contemporary Japan. More specifically, the use of the fake pregnancy and the diary as a narrative strategy serve as a means to explore contradictions and gender gaps women face during pregnancy, in the workplace and at home, such as sekuhara (sexual harassment) and matahara (maternal harassment), social pressure, prejudice and stigma, and economic inequality. At the same time, I argue that the absence of a male partner throughout the narrative reveals the prejudice and stigma surrounding unmarried pregnant women in Japan, and on the other hand, it makes it possible to read Kūshin techō as an example of Hélène Cixous’ écriture feminine.
References
Ben-Ari, Eyal. “At the Interstices: Drinking, Management, and Temporary Groups in a Local Japanese Organization,” Social Analysis: The International Journal of Social and Cultural Practice, 26 (1989): 46-64.
Castro-Vázquez, Genaro. Intimacy and Reproduction in Contemporary Japan. London and New York, Routledge, 2017.
Chamberlain, Prudence. “Affective Temporality: Towards a fourth wave,” Gender and Education 28.3 (2016): 458-464.
Cixous, Hélène. “The Laugh of the Medusa,” Signs 1.4 (1976), 875-893.
Cixous, Hélène. “Coming to Writing,” Coming to Writing and Other Essays, ed. by Deborah Jenson, trans. by Sarah Cornell and others, 1-58. Harvard, Harvard University Press, 1991.
Eckert, Stine, and Linda Steiner. “Feminist Uses of Social Media: Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest, and Instagram.” Defining identity and the changing scope of culture in the digital age, ed. by A. Novak & I. J. El-Burki, 210-230. Hershey, IGI Global, 2016.
Ezawa Aya. Single Mothers in Contemporary Japan. Motherhood, Class, and Reproductive Practice. Lanham, Lexington Books, 2016.
Foucault, Michel. “Technologies of the Self.” Technologies of the Self. A Seminar with Michel Foucault, ed. by Luther H. Martin, Huck Gutman, Patrick H. Hutton, 16-49. London: Travistock Publications, 1988.
Fukuma Yuko. “Fighting Back Against Serving Tea.” Voices From the Japanese Women’s Movement, ed. by Ampo-Japan Quarterly Review, 194-195. London and New York, Routledge, 1996.
Ikeda Shingou, “The Factors of Japanese Female Workers’ Job Quitting for Childbirth/Childrearing,” The XVIII ISA World Congress of Sociology RC30 Sociology of Work, (2014): 1-15 https://www.jil.go.jp/institute/kokusai/documents/2014_s-ikeda.pdf.
Japan Cabinet Office, Kyodo-Sankaku n. 122, May 2019, URL: https://www.gender.go.jp/public/kyodosankaku/2019/201905/pdf/201905.pdf (20/02/2022)
Johnson, Frank A. Dependency and Japanese Socialization: Psychoanalytic and Anthropoligical Investigations into Amae. New York: New York University Press, 1992.
Martin, Emily. The Woman in the Body: A Cultural Analysis of Reproduction. Boston, Beacon Press, 200.
Mithani, Forum. “(De)Constructing Nostalgic Myths of the Mother in Japanese Drama Woman,” International Journal of TV Serial Narratives, 2 (2019): 71-82.
Motohashi Rie 元橋利恵. Bosei no yokuaku to teikō. Kea no riron o tōshite kangaeru senryakuteki bosei shūgi. Kyoto, Kōyō shobō, 2021.
Nakamura Yoshihide, “Maternal and Child Health Handbook in Japan.” JMAJ 53.4 (2010): 1-7.
National Institute of Population and Social Security Research, Sixteenth Japanese National Fertility Survey. English URL: https://www.ipss.go.jp/ps-doukou/e/doukou16/Nfs16G_PressRelease_eng.pdf. Accessed February 20th, 2023.
Nemoto Kumiko (2019). “Why women won’t wed”. In Beyond the Gender Gap in Japan, edited by Gill Steel, Ann Arbour: University of Michigan Press, pp. 67-82
Ochiai Emiko and Masako Kamimura, “The Modern Family and Japanese Culture: Exploring the Japanese Mother-Child Relationship.” Review of Japanese Culture and Society, 3.1 (1989): 7-15.
Ogasawara Yuko. Office Ladies and Salared Men. Power, Gender and Work in Japanese Companies. Berkley: University of California Press, 1998.
Ohinata Masami. “The Mystique of Motherhood: A Key to Understaing Social Change and Family Problems in Japan,” Jaanese Women. New Feminist Perspectives on the Past, Present, and Future, ed. by Kumiko Fujimura-Fanselow and Atsuko Kameda, 199-211. New York, The Feminist Press at The City University of New York, 1995.
Osawa Mari. “Twelve Million Full-Time Housewives: The Gender Consequences of Japan’s Postwar Social Contract,” Social Contracst Under Stress, ed. by Olivier Zunz, Leonard Schoppa, and Nobuhiro Hiwatari, 255-277. New York: Russel Sage Foundation, 2002.
Rodak, Lidia. “Sisterhood and the 4th wave of feminism: An analysis of circles of women in Poland,” Oñati Socio-Legal Series 10.1S (2020): 116S-134S.
Ryan, Kyla. “Maternity Harassment in Japan. Ambitious Japanese Women Struggle to Balance Family and Career,” in The Diplomat https://thediplomat.com/2015/02/maternity-harassment-in-japan/. Accessed February 27th, 2023.
Seaman, Amanda. Writing Pregnancy in Low Fertility Japan. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2017.
Tachibanaki Toshiaki. The New Paradox for Japanese Women: Greater Choice, Greater Inequality, trans. Mary E. Foster, Tokyo, The International House of Tokyo, 2010.
Takahashi Kenjiro, and Natsumi Nakai, Suguru Takizawa, Sawa Okabayashi, Yoshinobu Matsunaga. “Towards Equality: Paternity leave still a tricky issue in Japan’s staid mindset”. The Asahi Shimbun, June 28th, 2021. https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14379538. Accessed March 26th, 2023.
Tsujimoto Hiroko. “Paternity leave in Japan: no time for baby steps. ‘Work-style’ reform key to reversing the country’s low birthrate”. Nikkei Asia, November 14th, 2020. https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Comment/Paternity-leave-in-Japan-No-time-for-baby-steps. Accessed March 26th, 2023.
Wingfield-Hayes, Rupert, “Japan: The worst developed country for working mothers?,” in BBC News, . Accessed March 25th, 2023.
Yagi, Emi. Diary of a Void, trans.by David Boyd and Lucy North. London: Harvill Secker, 2022.
Yoshino Ayako. “How was it in Mummy’s Tummy? Japanese Pregnancy Literature.” Women’s Studies International Forum, 31.6 (2008), 438-491. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.wsif.2008.09.003
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2024 Anna Specchio

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- The Author retains copyright in the Work, where the term “Work” shall include all digital objects that may result in subsequent electronic publication or distribution.
- Upon acceptance of the Work, the author shall grant to the Publisher the right of first publication of the Work.
- The Author shall grant to the Publisher and its agents the nonexclusive perpetual right and license to publish, archive, and make accessible the Work in whole or in part in all forms of media now or hereafter known under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Licenseor its equivalent, which, for the avoidance of doubt, allows others to copy, distribute, and transmit the Work under the following conditions:
- Attribution—other users must attribute the Work in the manner specified by the author as indicated on the journal Web site;
- The Author is able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the nonexclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the Work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), as long as there is provided in the document an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post online a pre-publication manuscript (but not the Publisher’s final formatted PDF version of the Work) in institutional repositories or on their Websites prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work. Any such posting made before acceptance and publication of the Work shall be updated upon publication to include a reference to the Publisher-assigned DOI (Digital Object Identifier) and a link to the online abstract for the final published Work in the Journal.
- Upon Publisher’s request, the Author agrees to furnish promptly to Publisher, at the Author’s own expense, written evidence of the permissions, licenses, and consents for use of third-party material included within the Work, except as determined by Publisher to be covered by the principles of Fair Use.
- The Author represents and warrants that:
- the Work is the Author’s original work;
- the Author has not transferred, and will not transfer, exclusive rights in the Work to any third party;
- the Work is not pending review or under consideration by another publisher;
- the Work has not previously been published;
- the Work contains no misrepresentation or infringement of the Work or property of other authors or third parties; and
- the Work contains no libel, invasion of privacy, or other unlawful matter.
- The Author agrees to indemnify and hold Publisher harmless from Author’s breach of the representations and warranties contained in Paragraph 6 above, as well as any claim or proceeding relating to Publisher’s use and publication of any content contained in the Work, including third-party content.
- The Author agrees to digitally sign the Publisher’s final formatted PDF version of the Work.