I have no idea how I even ended up with a copy of this book, but it was great!
Its a collection of essays by feminist women who are academics in several different fields all exploring categories of women and girls who have been dubbed bad by society at large during various points in Japans history to determine what their badness says about the society at that time, the changes taking place, and the ways in which women engaged with these things. The subjects they covered are some bad girls of Japanese folklore, Geisha, degenerate school girls of the Meiji period, writer Yoshiya Nobuko, murderer Abe Sada, explicitly pornographic Ladies Comics, women obsessed with high-end luxury goods, girls using purikura to mock and defy gender expectations, ganguro, Filipinas in Japan, and performance artist Norico. Its a range of seemingly unconnected subjects, but when the author of each essay pinpoint the elements of each of these subjects that make them bad, you see patterns emerge. The introduction at the beginning written by the editors does a really good job of summing up those patterns (bad girls: visible, make money, push girlish behaviors to the extreme, have out-of-control bodies, do what they want, and influence good girls). But even without the introduction, you could pick out those patterns, since the authors do a good job of making their analyses clear.
What I liked about the book: With one exception, its really easy to read. Although the book is plainly written by a bunch of academics, its not inaccessible to the general public. Which is good, because the subject matter is really interesting! I especially enjoyed the essays on Geisha which emphasized the women as extremely devoted artists, while debunking a lot of misinformation (as well as detailing how such misunderstandings came about in the first place and what purposes such stereotypes served for the larger culture). The essay on Yoshiya Nobuko, who was a famous out lesbian living with a partner since the 1920s was also very good, and Im disappointed that her books havent been translated into English.
I also really appreciated how all of the authors (as well as the editors) emphasized womens agency and subjectivity. They never took it so far as to glamorize or idealize the bad girls forms of resistance (Abe Sada killed a man, after all), but they always insisted on focusing on the women as active agents negotiating their own places within their social contexts.
What I didnt like: The last essay was very difficult for me to read. It was written in a more jargon-y, super academic manner, which is a style I just do not care for (it gives me PTSD flashbacks to grad school). But in the end it doesnt matter since the book was so good overall.
A good read if you like bad girls (and who doesnt?)!
Its a collection of essays by feminist women who are academics in several different fields all exploring categories of women and girls who have been dubbed bad by society at large during various points in Japans history to determine what their badness says about the society at that time, the changes taking place, and the ways in which women engaged with these things. The subjects they covered are some bad girls of Japanese folklore, Geisha, degenerate school girls of the Meiji period, writer Yoshiya Nobuko, murderer Abe Sada, explicitly pornographic Ladies Comics, women obsessed with high-end luxury goods, girls using purikura to mock and defy gender expectations, ganguro, Filipinas in Japan, and performance artist Norico. Its a range of seemingly unconnected subjects, but when the author of each essay pinpoint the elements of each of these subjects that make them bad, you see patterns emerge. The introduction at the beginning written by the editors does a really good job of summing up those patterns (bad girls: visible, make money, push girlish behaviors to the extreme, have out-of-control bodies, do what they want, and influence good girls). But even without the introduction, you could pick out those patterns, since the authors do a good job of making their analyses clear.
What I liked about the book: With one exception, its really easy to read. Although the book is plainly written by a bunch of academics, its not inaccessible to the general public. Which is good, because the subject matter is really interesting! I especially enjoyed the essays on Geisha which emphasized the women as extremely devoted artists, while debunking a lot of misinformation (as well as detailing how such misunderstandings came about in the first place and what purposes such stereotypes served for the larger culture). The essay on Yoshiya Nobuko, who was a famous out lesbian living with a partner since the 1920s was also very good, and Im disappointed that her books havent been translated into English.
I also really appreciated how all of the authors (as well as the editors) emphasized womens agency and subjectivity. They never took it so far as to glamorize or idealize the bad girls forms of resistance (Abe Sada killed a man, after all), but they always insisted on focusing on the women as active agents negotiating their own places within their social contexts.
What I didnt like: The last essay was very difficult for me to read. It was written in a more jargon-y, super academic manner, which is a style I just do not care for (it gives me PTSD flashbacks to grad school). But in the end it doesnt matter since the book was so good overall.
A good read if you like bad girls (and who doesnt?)!
