A Different Voice in Hapanese Culture: The Shôjo (girl) Phenomenon

I went to this talk on October 14th, 2009 at Vanderbilt Hall, 40 Washington Square South.. It was titled, A Different Voice in Hapanese Culture: The Shôjo (girl) Phenomenon. The talk was presented by Professor Michiko Mae, Professor of Japanese Studies at the University of Dusseldorf. Professor Mae is an expert on transcultural gender studies and world wide women's movements. The talk was organized by Carol Gilligan, NYU Professor of Humanities and Applied Psychology, Steinhardt.

The talk was about the increasing of popular Japanese magazines (ex. Anime) for girls, that introduced a new type of literature that was, on the surface, seen as a romantic and fantasy work of literature. However, it was actually a cultural self construct labeled Shôjo. Shôjo actually gave school age girls the opportunity to express their ideas about resistance to social constructs (gender based sterotypes) and to political decisions. It also became a very important and essential social networking tool amongst girls. It was an outlet for girls to explore any and all aspects of gender and gender sterotypes. Common examples are of either females behaving in typically male stereotyped roles (a brave knight saving a damsel in distress). These 'typical' roles are many times reversed in these stories, as well as many instances of lesbian relationships.

Although much of the content of this talk was new to me, there was a basic underlying theme in the talk about the Shôjo. This was the idea of speaking out against stereotypes, and having a persons ideas heard/read whether they follow the ideas of the norm or not. This reminded me of all of the different pieces of literature there is in New York. Walking down any street to get to class, there are magazine stands containing free magazines that discuss every topic possible. I always wondered why people would put in the effort to create magazine after magazine when they were giving it away from me, and why they were getting out of it. My theory is that the path is not their main concern, but rather getting their voices out there and to reach even a single person with their thoughts is their motivation.

During the talk, one specific event struck me as connected to the themes of our course. During the historical background of the magazines and the Shôjo, the social network met resistance during WWII. The government became much more restrictive, and they began to censor these magazines threatening editors not to print the resistance ideas in their magazines. The Shôjo were naturally angry and felt the government was being unjust, but what were they supposed to do if editors were being threatened? One editor, very creative, decided to follow the laws of the government and not print any article that was now restricted, but he created an editorial/reader section, where the Shôjo would be able to write their stories and express their ideas.

Although the topic of the talk was not a great interest of mine, it was encouraging to learn of yet another instance where people have met unjust resistance and found a way around it, particularly in a non-violent way.