Wen Yuan Yongping
Chizuko Ueno's book "Feminism from Scratch" I think should be called "feminism in everyday life", because unlike previous books on feminism, this is a light-hearted and humorous "dialogue" book, and the whole book is more like a "generational conversation" across ages.
Chizuru Ueno was born in 1948, as a representative of Japanese feminism, her 2019 University of Tokyo entrance speech "What awaits you is a society that can't be rewarded even if you work hard" caused a hot discussion, which attracted the attention of many Chinese women. The book is a subject-themed interview, with Ueno as the interviewee and Ms. Nagako Taba, who was born in 1978, exactly 30 years apart, which can be said to be a conversation across generations.
Feminism from Scratch
Their dialogue starts from Ms. Tianfang's private life (relationship with her mother), the atmosphere of the conversation is relaxed and pleasant, although they talk about major issues related to women's ambitions, but their way of entering is relaxed and kind, more like an appointment "private chat", the topic covers many aspects of contemporary women, such as work, marriage, childcare, sexual harassment, women's rights, mother-daughter relationships in the original family and other aspects of the issue.
All along, feminism or feminism has always given people a feeling of being condescending and extremely depressed, and there seems to be an atmosphere similar to the "class struggle style" of raising faces and vowing to fight with the male power. Although this atmosphere is based on women's determination and urgency to change their own survival dilemma, it inevitably gives people a sense of oppression and alienation, feeling that there is only "that kind" feminism: the senior knowledge women in the academy are determined to fight for "feminism", and many ordinary women feel that feminism is far away from themselves, thus appearing to be irrelevant and indifferent.
In fact, the essence of feminism is to fight for equal rights for ordinary women. That said, we do need a book that guides us in practicing feminism in our daily lives. It can be said that feminism needs both macro rational arguments, arguments, and concepts, and we need to understand the connotation and history of feminism, and at the same time, we need to have a personal feeling, in various forms of comprehensive participation in daily life, and to think about daily work, marriage, and childcare from a feminist perspective.
Women, from their own realization of history
At the beginning of the book, Ms. Ueno and Ms. Taba begin the dialogue of the whole book from their personal personal experience. It is from the tension of the mother-daughter relationship that the two women begin to peel back the cocoon of contemporary women's problems.
In Ms. Tianfang's original family, her mother manipulated her a lot, "to get married", "to have children", "to learn a craft", presumably this is also an important problem faced by many women in contemporary China, whether it is China or Japan, the mother in the east Asian system, due to the social influence of her own growth years, led to the "discipline" and even manipulation of her daughter.
"Individual resentment and healing of one's mother must be resolved on one's own, but beyond that, without dissecting and understanding the context of the times and the social structure, one cannot interrupt the chain of violence and interference that spread from mother to daughter."
In fact, like Ms. Tianfang, many young women in China have been plagued by the problem of mother-daughter relationship, and the mother's binding and coercion hurt their daughters while constantly "overstepping their authority", thus forming a vicious circle of mother and daughter for several generations. The daughter will start from the individual and think that her mother is an "outlier" and "only her own mother is like this, while other people's mothers are not like this", thus deepening the misunderstanding of the mother and widening the gap between mother and daughter.
Ms. Ueno very wisely pointed out that if the mother in the family can get a normal evaluation and corresponding remuneration, and form a relationship from it... It is more helpful for women to alleviate their own existence and identity anxiety. In an era when women could only rely on men to provide economic and parenting value, women, including mothers, could only sadly misplace hopes and values on their children, thus forming a distorted parent-child and mother-daughter relationship.
Through the case analysis of Ms. Tianfang, Ms. Ueno explained the reasons why women of the "mother" generation had many stereotypes, deduced why the "mother" had stubborn ideas, and then became a "poisonous mother", and then clarified the basic idea that what seems to be an individual female problem is actually a universal problem of the entire era.
When we extend the tentacles of thought inward to a broader social field, we will also find our "mother" as an individual "result" of "contemporary" women's development, and then reflect on the overall female situation of our own era, and regard it as a facet and process of overall social development. "Personal is political", which seems to be some of the encounters of individuals, actually has profound political and social reasons behind them.
How to practice feminism in daily life
The "personal is political" view is more conducive to women's separation from their own suffering, thus forming a feminist collective initiative, such as the formation of a mother's congress for some child-rearing problems in Japan; the import of polio vaccines; and the improvement of the childcare system, which are all major movements to promote social progress and liberate women, which are of far-reaching significance. It can be said that these measures guarantee the legitimate rights and interests of women from the level of daily life, and can liberate women themselves to a certain extent and to a certain extent.
Chizuru Ueno tries to place feminism in the context of her personal life, telling us that feminism is not only about women, but also about the daily life of everyone. Chapter Two: "How Have Women Ever Fought?" How do we fight in the future? In the third chapter, "Serious thinking about marriage, love, and parenting," the conversation between the two people goes deep into the specific and nuanced details of daily life. He put forward the practical feminist concept of "changing society from the family".
In daily life, the first thing that should be guarded against is the vision of male society, realizing that what the so-called "good woman" preaches is nothing more than a social deception, and becoming a "complete person" should become the first problem before all women. Instead of being the standard answer to the "good woman," recognize the social complicity of the moral cage of the "good woman" at the institutional level. In this way, women's own desires and interests are squarely faced, and they are separated from being kidnapped, and then urge themselves to become a complete and independent personality in the general sense. In addition, we are actively striving for equal rights between men and women in our daily lives.
"Are you a feminist?"
It's not those who stand up and claim to be feminists who are qualified to be women's rights fighters. In fact, in everyday life, all of us women can start from scratch, start with a small thing, and make ourselves feminists.
For example, in love, de-masculine aesthetics, enhance the sense of independence and assertion of the self, let free judgment win their own rational decisions, so as to make choices that are beneficial to themselves, such as: fighting for equal rights in parenting; striving for reasonable and equal rights in the division of labor in marriage and family; actively "dematerializing" women; opposing sexual harassment in the workplace; opposing objectification of women... Enhancing the sense of reflection and fighting for the legitimate rights and interests of women in bits and pieces are the essence of feminism in daily life.
Feminist "battlefield shifts from the non-everyday to the everyday". Different from the tasks of the early feminist foundation period (such as "The Mystery of Women", "The Second Sex", etc.), the current feminism pays more attention to micro issues, such as how to win the reasonable sexual status and value of women in the scene of marriage and love, which should be said to be a more universal adaptability problem.
From this point of view, Ueno's point of view is that women must have the courage to "start a real duel." Through action, even if there are various crises or dangers in the marriage, we must also take a try, that is, to take the initiative to go deep into the deepest level of male concepts to change.
"To denounce a husband is to denounce a patriarchal society." This statement may seem a bit extreme, but in fact it can make people laugh. Indeed, if you do not "denounce" your husband, you are actually declaring defeat at the beginning.
From this point of view, we agree with Ms. Ueno's view that "personal is political", but we do not advocate that women excessively magnify their "coerced and repressed" situation, and calmly and do not follow the trend to return to the specific problems they face. Such a rational, orderly, and relaxed environment for free debate is the best.
It is the colorful women that make feminism grand, as Ms. Ueno said: "Feminism is to make women accept and fall in love with women's identity."