일본 현대시와 페미니즘

Abstract

Feminism is a sexual revolution to resist premodern patriarchal society and androcentrism, which, since the 1970s, has become a global cultural (social) phenomenon. In Japan, it began with the recognition of women’s suffrage just after the Second World War, then underwent the student movement of the late 1960s as Zenkyotou and Woman-live, and now seeks the realization of female and male equality. Apart from these series of political and social trends, after the Meiji period a literature of modern women based on individualistic ideology appeared. The feminism literature of Japan comprehensively shows not only the works of women writers but also key terms of feminism such as sex, sexuality, and gender from male perspective. This writing, first of all, analyzes works of Simazaki-toson and Hagiwara-sakutaro and their male perspective. However, so-called masculine writing ultimately adheres to a binomial viewpoint of masculinity and femininity premised on a gender gap rather than the equality of sexes. Therefore, this study focuses on an analysis of feminist works of woman poets. First, it looks at Yosano-akiko of the Meiji period, who recognized her physical attraction as sexuality from the perspective of women, but emphasized the need of ecriture-féminine, which had been suppressed before the modern era. Meanwhile, since the 1960s, while feminism was becoming a global cultural (social) phenomenon, the core of Japan’s feminism poetry can be found in women poet’s performances after the Second World War. In particular, this study pays attention to the works of Ibaragi-noriko, Sinkawa-kazue, and Isigaki-rin from the early generation of post-war woman poets. In their works, they solve the negative image created by a woman’s biological disadvantages and stress the appropriateness of women’s social activities. In the process, they resist the conventional names of daughter, wife, and mother and reveal their intention to escape from their homes. This emphasis on gender contrasts with pre-Second World War poetry relatively focused on the expression of sexuality, and since the 1970s to today remains a remarkable tendency of Japanese woman poets. Finally, Ito-hiromi, who appeared in the 1980s, is a radical feminist poet who describes shocking material such as sex, masturbation, excretion, and birth with a straight-talking attitude. Eventually, the ultimate goal of Japan’s feminist poetry is to artistically gaze at “the process of all production changes surrounding femininity” through various verbal expressions of body and languages.