[author’s notes: written in December 2022 for my dissertation piece which i would like to very humbly mention received a first. i really enjoy analysing East Asian media and it’s an area i’ve had a lot of interest in since i was a child (not just anime, i promise). some of the films referenced can be watched online for free; i believe ‘Love & Pop’ is available on Dailymotion if you want to ‘watch along’. i also highly recommend reading/watching any and all of the works mentioned if you get chance. thanks again for wanting to read this and i hope you find it interesting!]
a woman of value: how is the female body represented in pre-modern and contemporary east asian art & media?
Gender roles within society have always been a thoroughly researched and hotly debated topic, spanning from overcoming patriarchal influence to the modern-day resurfacing of traditionalist values. With international communication becoming an everyday occurrence due to the rise of global social platforms and appreciation of cultural media, it is now easier than ever to observe and research how contemporary Western and Eastern media are influencing each other on an incredible scale, creating a symbiotic relationship from which each takes aspects of the other’s culture and introduces them to their own, including art, politics, and traditions. This ever-evolving aspect is particularly prevalent in post-war East Asian media - namely cinema and literature - and a particular area that I have been interested in exploring is the representation and politicisation of the female body, increasingly so as attitudes to femininity and ‘the female role in society’ are developed with each generation. This paper aims to explore the relationship between female bodies and societal attitudes to them within art and media produced between the late 17th century and the present day - primarily with a focus on contemporary sources - whilst referencing common stereotypes that may or may not be built upon or subverted in the chosen media. As my personal and professional interest lies within Japanese culture, most of the media examined within this paper will have originated in Japan with their societal norms applied to the background of the media; however, the South Korean and Chinese cultures overlap very heavily with Japan, and thus I will also be exploring a select few pieces of media from East Asian countries other than Japan that I feel are relevant to my research.
Before delving into research and criticism of contemporary literature and film, it is important to understand the cultural backgrounds from where these pieces of media originated. Japan typically takes a conservative approach to most gender-based politics, with even the most recent of United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)’s Gender Inequality Index (GII) scores for the country sitting at 0.083, ranking Japan 22nd out of 170 countries in 2021 (UNDP, 2022). Japan’s current political philosophy draws from aspects of Confucianism, first introduced from China in the late Kawakama period (Asahi Shimbun, 1994), and this ideology has been widely criticised for its patriarchal influence regarding a woman’s role in society; ideas including chastity, being kept indoors separately from men, and that to be a virtuous Confucian wife a woman should be silent, hard-working and compliant (Zhao, 80CE) have been dissected and argued against by scholars who feel these values are reduced down to “...[assigning] three roles to a Chinese woman: the sexual object and possession of the man, the child-bearing tool to carry on her husband’s family name, and the servant to the whole family” (Gao, 2003). Japan took on some of these aspects, believing that the ideal personification of a woman - known as yamato nadeshiko - included being poised, honest, demure and faithful. The kanji for yamato nadeshiko includes characters referring to an outdated name for Japan, and characters that represent a fringed, pink flower known as dianthus plumarius, which then also became a way to refer to a loveable child (Wiktionary, 2010). This perception of women has carried on into the modern day, with the typical stereotype of Japanese women being petite and submissive; inferior beings who depend on “[strong] men to protect [the fragile woman], even from mice and spiders” (Giard, 2019). This stereotype is indeed perpetuated by both men and women alike, but not always for the same reasons. The traits of “petite” and “demure” can be linked to youth and inexperience, which could account for the common attraction to young-looking women or even schoolgirls. This presents its own host of issues; is the modern mother, for example, not considered attractive any more? Is there a cut-off point after which a woman loses her value - a value based on her beauty and very little else?
Beauty standards in modern Japan appear to be influenced by historical women, such as pale skin being valued; as an old Japanese proverb states, “white skin covers seven flaws”. This implies that a woman could be composed of many undesirable traits or features, but her fair skin would compensate well enough for all of those features to be ignored. White skin is also considered to represent an “authentic Japaneseness” to a woman’s face (Ashikari, 2005), a value that is as present in the 21st century as it was in the past. Makeup brands continue to sell whitening products and creams alongside their double-eyelid tape and excessively detailed false lashes, which presents a contrast in itself, as Asian beauty ideals often prioritise Western features (such as large eyes, and no monolids) whilst retaining the stark characteristics of old Japanese values like incredibly pale skin (Chen, Lian, Lorenzana & Shahzad, 2020). This conflicting list of desired traits also extends to the female body: whilst a small, thin body with child-like features has been the relatively problematic “male gaze ideal” for young Japanese women, there are also increasing trends pointing towards a curvier figure, albeit only in “the right places'' such as wider hips and thighs or larger breasts. An image of a Japanese fashion magazine posted to social media in 2014 (fig. 1) sparked wider debate on men’s preferences for female bodies, with the article shared featuring “our ideal girl” weighing just 38.5kg at 152cm - with a Body Mass Index (BMI) of just 16.6, this is a composition that would place her at the “severely underweight” end of the BMI chart. Various commenters weighed in on this article, with comments stating that a woman of this size “would look like a skeletal structure diagram” or that “[she] would starve to death”; other slightly less tactful users left preferences such as “as long as she has a slim waist I don’t really care how many centimeters it is” (Japan Today, 2014). It is important to note that these are the views of a select few men and are not representative of the general male population; however, based on social media usage generally skewing towards a younger userbase, it can be assumed that these represent at least some of the preferences held by young Japanese men, especially given that the article seems to be aimed at men and describes the woman given as “our ideal girl”, thus referring to men collectively. It should also be noted that the age range aimed at cannot really be determined given the language used; the title wording could be referring to a woman as a girl in keeping with the desire for youth, or it could be literal and represent an ideal teenage girl (although this then raises another problem of what demographic an ideal teenage girl is being aimed at: other teenagers or older men?). All of these standards, from fair skin to slim bodies, are still very prevalent in 21st century media and present a wider range of debate as to who they are “for”: the woman herself, for her own health and bodily satisfaction, or the men of Japanese society.
Fig. 1: An article in an unknown Japanese magazine titled これがオレらの理想女子/Kore ga orera no risōjoshi (translation: “this is our ideal girl”), Japan Today, 2014.
One of the earliest known depictions of female bodies in Japanese art was the surge of shunga, a traditional ukiyo-e style of erotic art typically painted on woodblocks. With shunga being heavily influenced by Chinese medical diagrams that circulated in Japan’s Muromachi era, spanning from around 1330 to 1575, it follows that the majority of artworks were produced between 1600 and 1800, in the Edo period (Hayakawa et al., 2000). Whilst the majority of characters depicted in shunga art were of relatable status to those consuming it - usually townsfolk, merchants, farmers and others of similar social status - courtesans were often featured, who could be described as the celebrities of that particular time period. Courtesans were seen as desired and glamorous, and idolised by men and women alike; by men typically for their eroticisation, and by women for their beauty and how wanted they were by others (Screech, 2009). Oiran were a particular subset of courtesans that referred to those of the ‘upper class’ of sex work; typically these women had knowledge of the traditional arts and a refined selection of entertainment skills that meant they had their own choice of customers. A further category of oiran known as tayū were at the top of the courtesan heirarchy and did not engage sexually with customers at all, instead being able to focus their time on culture and arts due to their status. This further paints a picture of misogyny in Edo period Japan; the fact that women were often reduced to ‘less beautiful, cultured, or skilled’ and were designated the ‘lower’ role of ‘common prostitute’ based on often unchangeable aspects of themselves pushes the narrative of assigning ‘worth’ to women. This meant that women deemed ‘less valuable’ would be unable to reach the idolised, glamourised status that women represented in shunga often held, therefore reducing their representation within art due to misogynistic standards of beauty (Davies, 2021, p. 36).
An example of this categorisation of women is also prevalent in the fabrics worn within shunga - whilst an oiran would be pictured wearing a red, gold and green kimono (with the colours representing beauty, prestige and good fortune respectively) as shown in fig. 2, a ‘lower class’ woman would be drawn in unremarkable fabrics and colours (fig. 3). The usage of the colour red is especially significant here; red kimono would often be dyed with safflower which was costly in the Edo period, and thus was reserved for only the most extravagant of garments (fig. 4). With red traditionally representing youth, beauty and glamour, it is easy to see why oiran attire favoured it - however, when the vibrant dye inevitably faded to a paler red, this was representative of all-consuming yet fleeting love; a colour theory that is incredibly applicable to its courtesan wearers (Bussell, 2020).
Fig. 4: Kimono for a young woman, 1800 - 1840, maker unknown.
It was also not uncommon to find male-on-male or female-on-female art within the shunga field; perceptions of sexuality differed greatly during the Edo period, and did not align with more conservative Western views, instead focusing on providing variety within their imagery to appeal to a wider audience. This could infer that the production of shunga was indeed primarily pornographic, intended for use by samurai who were separated from families, merchants who were always travelling, and housewives who were forced to live separately from their feudal lord husbands due to the sankin-kōtai policy implemented in 1635, which required said feudal lords to spend their time living between their home area and the capital of Edo. The availability and consumption of female-on-female shunga, however, paled in comparison to male-on-male art, which provides a stark contrast to contemporary tastes in erotica; ‘lesbian’ continues to be one of the highest-ranking worldwide pornography category searches. This potentially could be attributed to ‘usage’ of shunga by men who were away from home and only surrounded by other men; this in turn could make them seek out shunga that fulfilled homoerotic fantasies of those they were surrounded by, whereas housewives and typical female consumers would want to view art that reminded them of their husbands - this is also backed up by the fact that in the late Edo era, men rather drastically outnumbered women, with the average population having 1.5 million more men than women in any given year (Honjo, 1927). However, this then infers that women were not as objectified when placed into same-sex sexual relationships, in comparison to how they were viewed while working as a courtesan or as an object of desire for men. This potentially means that women (and in turn, their bodies) were desired far more when perceived as “available”; despite very few average male citizens being able to afford a courtesan, the fantasy of a sexual encounter with a woman of this status was considered somewhat more achievable if sexual preference was in their favour. Having said this, it is important to consider that modern Western attitudes of sexuality and gender preference did not apply in these times; when this particular issue is approached from a modern-day perspective, it is easier to come to the conclusion that sexuality could have factored into the lesser production of female-on-female shunga, whereas it was likely not even considered.
An example of female “value” in contemporary media is the Japanese movie Air Doll (2009), directed by Kore-eda Hirokazu. Dolls designed for the primary purpose of sex are becoming an increasingly popular product in Japan, where there is somewhat less stigma to owning one than in the West, and where there is a thriving production industry; dolls are typically made with typically attractive features but can also be customisable dependent on the customer’s preferences and desires, including unrealistic proportions or designs based on fantasy (Döring et al., 2020). Despite their function, they are also generally referred to as love dolls, a term possibly derived from studies that show that love doll owners do indeed feel that their dolls are “...endowed with mind or heart” (Aoki & Kimura, 2021). Japan’s declining fertility rate can be directly partially attributed to ownership of love dolls, a number that started to gradually rise after a period of financial and economic instability in the 1990s (Nast, 2016). Financial trauma, high unemployment rates and lower motivation to seek out potential partners led to the rise of a new generation of hikikomori: a term loosely meaning “to be pulled inwards” or “to be confined”, used to refer to young Japanese men (characterised as “modern-day hermits” (Teo, 2012)) who would not leave their homes for extended periods of time and tended to spend their time socialising on the Internet instead. With hikikomori becoming an increasingly common and accepted group, the practice of owning a sex doll for company or pleasure stretched to businessmen, who - on the opposite side of the economic instability - found themselves working too hard to have time for a physical relationship. Relationships with love dolls would vary from purely intimate to complete artificial relationships, with select cases even showing “marriages” to silicone dolls or virtual representations of these characters (Ikuno, 2022), despite marriages to inanimate objects not being legally recognised in Japan (or any other country, for that matter). This shows that these men greatly value their relationships with these dolls - but why? Air Doll presents an example of a lonely Japanese man (named Hideo) who treats his love doll like a real partner, going as far as to talk to her before work and tuck her into bed to avoid the cold (Air Doll, 2009, 00:04:49 - 00:06:08). However, this relationship is strained when the doll (named Nozomi) becomes animate and discovers her original packaging in the wardrobe, revealing that she is simply an object designed for pleasure - and a “cheap, old model” at that (Air Doll, 2009, 00:36:49 - 00:38:09). This indirectly parallels the “worth” of women in society, who often have a value placed on them based on physical attributes like beauty, skills, or how adept they are at being a mother or wife. The fact that a woman’s body can be reduced to even just a specific body part (usually genitalia) for the sole use of a man’s sexual pleasure points to a worrying rise in very literal objectification. With a doll, men do not have to worry about reciprocation during intimacy, and they do not have to worry about ensuring that the woman is satisfied in other aspects of their relationship. As Hideo points out to Nozomi when she confronts him about her being a substitute for his ex-girlfriend who shares the same name, body type, and other attributes: he states that her having found a heart is “annoying”, and when she reacts to this, he clarifies that “it’s not you that’s annoying, it’s humans who are” (Air Doll, 2009, 1:15:35 - 1:18:00). Again, this presents the problem of women being perceived as annoying for simply having emotions or needs; the stereotype of women being demure and compliant referenced earlier is again heavily present here, as Hideo remarks about wishing she’d just become a doll again, referencing the male desire to have a submissive woman. The “value” of Nozomi depreciates when it is revealed that she is animate; a direct parallel of modern misogynistic attitudes and wanting women to remain quiet, docile, and reliant on the husband, with Hideo’s particular preference confirmed himself in that he wants Nozomi to remain as a pleasure object rather than a tangible person.
At the end of the film, Nozomi inquires at the factory of origin about where the dolls of her model come from, and where they go if they cannot die. She is told that they simply are taken out with the garbage (Air Doll, 2009, 01:26:33 - 01:27:13) - a “Chekhov’s gun” trope being employed in this scene, given that the ending of the movie sees Nozomi reopening a scissor wound used to deflate herself and ultimately leaving her artificial body to go to landfill with the garbage (Air Doll, 2009, 01:40:31). With this disturbing notion of women being seen as disposable once they have fulfilled a certain role dictated by another, research on love doll usage points to increased violence against women and objectification in society; new generations of young women will be exposed to a consumer culture dedicated to making “perfectly beautiful, eternally youthful, and completely submissive” caricatures of women intended for disposal once they have been used or destroyed via usage (Döring et al., 2020). When said dolls are designed to look pitiable, vapid and pathetic to add to their aura of submissiveness (Giard, 2019), it is hard to imagine that this desire stemming from lonely men would not also reflect onto real-life women. Despite the doll being a materialised human form, the relationships that are formed with them are very real (Aoki & Kimura, 2021), meaning that love doll users are typically not incapable of showing love; instead, it points to problems further on in their lives when users attempt to engage in a relationship with an actual woman and they are not the perfected, idealised woman that the man has come to expect from love dolls, resulting in dissatisfaction, physical and sexual violence, and further embedding of core misogynistic views and values.
Mieko Kawakami’s 2019 novel Breasts and Eggs received both widespread acclaim and criticism for its portrayal of women; with topics such as bodily functions discussed in blunt detail fairly frequently, reviews varied, with notable politician Shintaro Ishihara noting that he “did not understand the concept of breasts as a metaphor” (Ishihara, 2008). It can be argued that in a novel as candid and raw as Breasts and Eggs, breasts themselves are not metaphorical but literal; there does not always need to be a euphemistic underpinning in order to talk about female bodies. The first section of the novel tells the story of a mother named Makiko, travelling to Tokyo from Osaka for a breast augmentation and accompanied by her 12-year-old daughter Midoriko. Narrated by Makiko’s sister Natsuko, Kawakami allows the reader an insight into someone removed from the situation of chasing beauty ideals or being dissatisfied with one’s body; in the midst of being talked through breast augmentation brochures, Natsuko internally remarks on how she feels pity for her sister, stating that it feels like “...when you stop a safe distance away from someone who can’t seem to help but talk and talk, whether or not anyone is there to listen” (Breasts and Eggs, 2019, pg. 42-43). Hearing about her sister’s surgery therefore causes Natsuko to reflect on her own perception of her body, stating that as a young girl she’d always desired a body that “fit the mold”; a body that “...provokes sexual fantasy. A source of desire…I expected my body would have some sort of value” (Breasts and Eggs, 2019, pg. 55). Her desired traits for her body being for the purpose of sexual attraction are unlikely to be for her own sense of autonomy and female sexuality; instead, this is attributed to a girl being told from a young age that her worth was based solely on her body and how it looked. This references the idea of worth attributed to female bodies in as direct terms as possible; that Natsuko was idealising a body considered “valuable” to others in society is a clear result of patriarchal values, ones that have trickled down from ancient Japan as explored previously.
The 1998 film Love & Pop by director and writer Hideaki Anno, based on the 1996 novel Topaz II by Ryu Murakami, features slightly more dated perspectives on Japanese girlhood. Love & Pop depicts a group of young teenage schoolgirls who begin to participate in enjo-kōsai, known as “compensated dating”, a practice wherein older businessmen pay young girls for their company, whether that be sexual, physical (i.e. pretending to have a relationship with them in public), or ‘merely’ emotional, such as having someone to talk to if they are lonely. The cinematography in the film is unique, in that it was filmed exclusively on handheld digital cameras from various unusual angles and with little to no steadying of the shots. This itself represents the turbulence of female girlhood that the group of schoolgirls featured are shown to go through, and adds to the presence of uncomfortable yet very real situations that modern Japanese teenage girls experience. In the beginning of the movie, two of the girls are approached by a man in an underpass wanting to pay them to go for a meal with him. He barters on their price when the girls are not thrilled with his initial offering of 5,000 yen, already directly putting a price on their company himself with no second thought. The girls finally agree, and a shot of the girls’ legwarmer-clad calves under the table (fig. 5) is strategically placed when the man asks them which grade they are in, and they reply “11th [grade]” (Love & Pop, 1998, 00:09:45 - 00:10:10). This stark reminder of their young age by directly showing the parts of their school uniform often sexualised the most is uncomfortable for viewers; however the man continues on without a second guess, even going as far to comment on how they’re only “a year older than [his] daughter” and describe her academic achievements. This disturbing comment implies that the man is completely cognitively dissociated from the situation; the fact that he mentions his similarly-aged daughter at all to two schoolgirls who he is pursuing for company (irrespective of whether just platonic or not) points to perhaps a deeper-rooted issue regarding male protectiveness and paternity. Given Japan’s relatively conservative society, it can be assumed that this man would not agree with his own daughter being put in the same position that he has put these two girls - essentially selling their company for a free meal and 7,000 yen - and yet the way that he talks and the “sales pitch” he gives to the girls in the underpass heavily implies that this is not the first time he has engaged with enjo-kōsai.
Fig. 5: Love & Pop, 2009, Hideaki A., 00:09:45.
The man continues to seek out these transactional relationships whilst removing himself from thinking about his daughter doing something similar, which perhaps points to the sense of ownership over the woman that is present in many male-female dynamics - father and daughter (paternal), husband and wife (marital), customer and sex worker (transactional). The man is establishing “ownership” over the schoolgirls by paying them for their time, therefore inadvertently binding them into a contract of sorts wherein they are forced to fulfil the roles that they have been placed in before the transaction is complete; their desire to fulfil the role is considered irrelevant, although it can be placed somewhere between “active” (wanting to fulfil their role for the money the man is paying them, and enjoying the time) and “passive” (agreeing to fulfil the role but somewhat reluctantly; wishing the time went quicker, concerned about the man’s reaction to anything they say or ending the meal too soon, etc.). When such an activity is normalised within a group of young girls as shown in the movie, it follows that they would become complacent with their “services” and internally reduce themselves down to the role that they play for predatory men; an uncomfortable thought when considering the turbulent ideas of self-esteem that teenage girls already hold, and one that would be bound to affect their development later in life.
The Vegetarian, a 2018 novel by Kan Hang, explores female presentations of sexuality in euphemistic terms and the decisions that one woman makes to take control of her own body and self. The novel plays on themes of isolation, eroticism, and defiance, featuring a protagonist in Yeong-hye, a “woman of few words” as proclaimed by Mr. Cheong, her husband (The Vegetarian, 2018, pg. 4) and the narrator of the first third of the book. Such a blunt, character-establishing comment from the one presumed to be closest to her so early on in the book serves as grounding for the conflict between socially acceptable and naturally primitive selves; Yeong-hye is known for being quiet vocally, but her actions speak so much louder, a trait that is important in a character that could be described as the object of the book rather than the protagonist, if not for the wildly misogynistic implications and dismissal of her defiance and determination that the term serves. Yeong-hye’s body is a key component of the book, more so than her personality; its form is subject to multiple long observative descriptions by Mr. Cheong, and the text is peppered with italicised paragraphs implied to be Yeong-hye narrating her unsettling dreams of gore and violence. In her second narrated dream after turning vegetarian, she remarks that “...[I] can only trust my breasts now. I like my breasts, nothing can be killed by them. Hand, foot, tongue, gaze, all weapons from which nothing is safe. But not my breasts. With my round breasts, I’m okay” (The Vegetarian, 2018, pg. 33). Yeong-hye’s decision to stop eating meat against everyone else’s wishes is the first component in her desire for bodily autonomy; the vegetarianism in this novel serves as a euphemism for agency over her life, and her body as a tool of resistance. With this statement, she is taking ownership over parts of herself most commonly sexualised and readministering a new purpose to them: one of softness, docility, rather than the feral-sounding ways she considers that the rest of her body can hurt others, and by removing the ability for hurt - to stop eating meat, to not touch meat, with meat serving as both a literal concept and a euphemism for contact with other humans - she is assigning this placidity to the rest of herself, understanding that she has the capability for self-control, for autonomy and to choose how she is perceived, and the ability to know herself as a person.
As noted previously, and despite it being the titular theme of the novel, the vegetarianism is but a surface-level euphemism of her bodily autonomy - this parallel with actual vegetarianism is present as early as page 17, when Yeong-hye refuses to have sex with her husband as he “smells of meat”; this does not deter him, as later on he details how “having his needs unmet” leads to him choosing to rape her, an act during which “...she put up a surprisingly strong resistance…spitting out vulgar curses all the while” (The Vegetarian, 2018, pg. 30). If consumption of meat is considered to be euphemistic for physical relationships, her desire to not consume or be consumed is again another act of defiance in wanting control over her own life. Mr. Cheong’s relationship with his wife is so tainted after her choice to become vegetarianism that he simply starts to view her as an object, as “a stranger…a sister…or even a maid, someone who puts food on the table and keeps the house in good order” (The Vegetarian, 2018, pg. 30). This reduction of self in how he views her is reflective of wider misogynistic views in society; that women are useless if not to satisfy sexual needs, that a woman’s “job” is to cook and clean, and that if either one of those roles are not fulfilled her value as a woman depreciates. This creates a contrast with Air Doll (2009), wherein Nozomi is more desired as a lifeless sex object than a physical being so that Hideo does not have to deal with another set of human emotions; Mr. Cheong in The Vegetarian seems to prefer his wife to remain “functional” (i.e. doing chores) all the while detesting her for not providing him with sex, and it should be noted that he does not try to stop her from keeping the house clean as it means that she still has some value to him, even if not sexually. The acts that the husband expects from Yeong-hye aligns with the three values of an ideal woman in Confucianism as explored earlier - in reductionist terms, those are: sexual fulfilment, a child-bearing tool for the husband’s family name, and a servant (Gao, 2003) - and provides more evidence that the outdated ideals of old age East Asia are still heavily prevalent in modern society.
The idea that a woman needs to fulfil a duty in order to be valued is present in all of the media studied - from ‘compensated dating’ emotionally in exchange for money in Love & Pop (1998) to purely sexual needs in Air Doll (2009), and from the housewife role in The Vegetarian (2018) contrasting with the woman’s sense of self-worth after becoming a mother in Breasts and Eggs (2019) - and points to a larger-scale misogynistic issue that is undeniably present in modern East Asian society. The media chosen that focus on a woman serving a purpose or fulfilling a role (Air Doll (2009), Love & Pop (1998)) were directed by men, whilst the media that emphasises a woman’s value outside of her body, beauty, or “usefulness” were written by female authors (The Vegetarian (2018), Breasts and Eggs (2019)), reinforcing the idea that these works of fiction are still grounded in truth and that modern women can understand the reality of their own objectification and worth. Whether writing about it candidly through the lens of strong-willed female characters or misogynistic male narrators, the statement is clear: the modern woman is subject to objectification and assigned value based on her body and role in society - viewpoints as archaic as 80BCE - and as media, politics, and our environments evolve, one can hope that we begin to finally see changes in how women, their bodies, and their senses of self are perceived.
Bibliography
Aoki, B.Y. and Kimura, T. (2021), Sexuality and affection in the time of Technological Innovation: Artificial Partners in the Japanese context, MDPI. Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute. Available at: https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/12/5/296 (Accessed: December 15, 2022).
Asahi Shimbun (1994), 朝日日本歴史人物事典, Nihon Rekishi Jinbutsu jiten. Tōkyō: Asahi Shimbunsha.
Ashikari, M. (2005), Cultivating Japanese Whiteness: The ‘Whitening’ Cosmetics Boom and the Japanese Identity. Journal of Material Culture, 10(1), pp. 73-91.
Bussell, P. (2020), The kimono and the Colour Red • V&A Blog, V&A Blog. Available at: https://www.vam.ac.uk/blog/projects/the-kimono-and-the-colour-red (Accessed: November 11, 2022).
Chen, T., Lian, K., Lorenzana, D., Shahzad, N., and Wong, R. (2020), Occidentalisation of Beauty Standards: Eurocentrism in Asia. Across The Spectrum of Socioeconomics, 1(2). Available at: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4325856.
Chōbunsai, E., 鳥文斎栄之 (late 1780s), An oiran of the Yoshiwara and her customer (Shunga). Philadelphia Museum of Art. Available at: https://philamuseum.org/collection/object/262672 (Accessed: November 11, 2022).
Davies, J.N. (2021), Picturing the floating world: Ukiyo-e in context. Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press.
Döring, N., Mohseni, M.R. and Walter, R. (2020), Design, use, and effects of sex dolls and Sex Robots: Scoping review, Journal of medical Internet research. U.S. National Library of Medicine. Available at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7426804/ (Accessed: December 15, 2022).
Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, T. (2019), Eastern Hemisphere, Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica, inc. Available at: https://www.britannica.com/place/Eastern-Hemisphere (Accessed: November 9, 2022).
Gao, X. (2003), Women Existing for Men: Confucianism and Social Injustice against Women in China. Race, Gender & Class, 10(3), pp. 114–125. Available at: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41675091.
Giard, A. (2019), The stereotype of the woman-object in Japan: Playing with dolls, playing the failed man. Hermès, La Revue, 83(1), pp. 196-198. Available at: https://www.cairn-int.info/journal--2019-1-page-196.html.
Han, K. (2007), translated by Smith, D. (2018). The Vegetarian. London: Granta.
Hayakawa, M., Fritze, S. and Suojoki, S. (2000), Kielletyt Kuvat: Vanhaa Eroottista Taidetta japanista = förbjudna bilder: Gammal erotisk konst från Japan = forbidden images: Erotic art from Japan's Edo Period. Helsinki, Finland: Helsingin kaupungin taidemuseo.
Honjo, E., (1927), POPULATION PROBLEMS IN THE TOKUGAWA ERA. 2nd ed., Kyoto: The Department of Economics in the Imperial University of Kyoto, pp. 42–63.
Ikuno, Y. (2022), What happened to the Japanese man who 'married' virtual character Hatsune Miku?, The Mainichi. Available at: https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20220111/p2a/00m/0li/028000c (Accessed: December 15, 2022).
Ishihara, S., 石原 慎太郎 (2008), Akutagawa Prize - Overview of the selection review - 138th | All of the Akutagawa Prize, 芥川賞-選評の概要-第138回｜芥川賞のすべて・のようなもの. Akutagawashō - senpyō no gaiyō - dai 138 kai | Akutagawashō no subete no yōna mono. Available at: https://prizesworld.com/akutagawa/senpyo/senpyo138.htm#selector114IS (Accessed: November 10, 2022).
Japan Today (2014), これがオレらの理想女子/Kore ga orera no risōjoshi, Man's image of ideal female body is shockingly skinny even by Japanese standards. Japan Times. Available at: https://japantoday.com/category/features/lifestyle/mans-image-of-ideal-female-body-is-shockingly-skinny-even-by-japanese-standards (Accessed: November 24, 2022).
Kitagawa, U., 喜多川歌麿 (1802), Woman combing hair with lover (Shunga). Philadelphia Museum of Art. Available at: https://philamuseum.org/collection/object/262644 (Accessed: November 12, 2022).
Love & Pop (1998). Directed by: A. Hideaki. [DVD] Japan: Toei Company.
Maker unknown (1800 - 1840), Kimono for a young woman, Kimono | Unknown | V&A Explore The Collections. Victoria & Albert Museum, London. Available at: https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O19014/kimono-unknown/ (Accessed: November 11, 2022).
Nast, H. (2016), Into the arms of dolls: Japan’s declining fertility rates, the 1990s financial crisis and the (maternal) comforts of the posthuman. Social & Cultural Geography. 18. 1-28. 10.1080/14649365.2016.1228112. Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/309413181_Into_the_arms_of_dolls_Japan's_declining_fertility_rates_the_1990s_financial_crisis_and_the_maternal_comforts_of_the_posthuman
Screech, T. (2009), Sex and the floating world: Erotic images in Japan, 1700-1820. London: Reaktion Books.
Teo, A. (2012), Modern-day hermits: The story of hikikomori in Japan and beyond, Modern-day hermits: The story of hikikomori in Japan and beyond | YouTube. University of Michigan Center for Japanese Studies. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70bv5gaN4LI&ab_channel=UniversityofMichiganCenterforJapaneseStudies (Accessed: December 14, 2022).
United Nations Development Programme (2022), Human development summary capturing achievements in the HDI and complementary metrics that estimate gender gaps, inequality, planetary pressures and poverty - Japan. rep. United Nations Development Programme. Available at: https://hdr.undp.org/data-center/specific-country-data#/countries/JPN (Accessed: November 15, 2022).
Zhao, B., 班昭 (80CE), translated by Swann N.L. (1932), “女誡, Nǚ jiè,” in Pan Chao: Foremost woman scholar of China. New York: Century Co., London, pp. 82-90.
大和撫子, yameto nadeshiko (2010), 大和撫子 - Wiktionary. Available at: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/大和撫子#Japanese (Accessed: November 16, 2022).