Recently, red-haired Japanese scholar Chizuko Ueno took her "feminist" label by storm, cramming the list of pressing issues at the start of 2023 with a topic that left half of the population on the line.
In Ueno's labels, "celibate godmother" and "non-marital" are better known and more misunderstood for their brutality and provocation of mainstream choices. However, Ms. Ueno, 75, is far more comfortable with her marriage choices than those who dwell on the issue.
She is a spiritual role model, inspired not only by modern women, but also by men's perception of themselves, and she represents values that are "wrestling with mainstream social values" and are not regulated by traditional social frameworks.
"Among feminists, there are married, unmarried, and child-prone, not to say that feminists who do not marry are greater, as if feminism is divided into three, six and nine, I think this is a kind of dogmatism. Feminism in my mind is the idea of pursuing freedom, as long as you live freely, you can do anything. Chizuko Ueno said.
That's right. Ueno is not against marriage, she just "just happens" not to be married.
Her seemingly easy freedom is actually the result of years of wrestling with mainstream values. Ueno confessed in "Starting at the Limit", "I also went through a life full of shame and failure." Another earlier book, "Feminism from Zero", talks about issues in daily life such as mother-daughter relationship, sex, work, marriage, and parenting, and proposes that feminism is not only about women, but also about everyone's daily life.
2022 is known as the "Year of Chizuko Ueno" by the publishing industry, and the Chinese editions of books are diverse and rich
Chizuko Ueno added, "I still believe that it is better to talk about love than not to talk about it. Because in the playground of love, people are able to learn deeply about themselves and others. Being in love helps us understand our desires, jealousy, manipulativeness, egoism, tolerance and detachment. ”
To the disappointment of the people waiting for her to scold marriage and scold men, Ms. Ueno is just not interested in marriage, she is still interested in men.
In the recently watched women's memoir "Somewhere Towards the End", 89-year-old legendary British female editor Diana Athill (Diana Athill) also talks in a sincere and calm tone about several relationships in her life and even "non-mainstream" male and female relationships when she recalls her life of "unmarried and infertile".
This well-educated, literary-loving, and lifelong genius writer woman decided early on that marriage was not for her and had no regrets about not having children, but she never turned down romantic relationships, and even started a wonderful, satisfying relationship with Sam from Granada in her 60s without causing problems for each other.
She boldly admits that the relationship nourishes herself.
"Sam's main attraction to me is that he wants me. It was really exhilarating that someone was so eager to have sex with me when I was no longer looking forward to sex, and it made me seem to have a new life, and this gift is not light. At the same time, I was curious about him, and his background, his entire life course, was so different from mine, all of which made him seem interesting even when he was dull. ”
Diana Asir once wondered in her later years whether it was a pity not to have children, and the answer was: no regrets.
Compared with the two intellectual women who made the choice of "falling in love, but not marrying" after thinking, most women chose both, but the order and meaning may not be as they imagined.
The topical HBO TV series "My Genius Girlfriend", originally written by Italian female writer Elena Ferrante's "Neapolitan Quadrilogy", with its true chilling description, forced female readers around the world to follow the two protagonists Lenon and Lila to re-examine their growth, education, love, marriage, childbirth, mother-daughter relationship.
The latest season of "My Genius Girlfriend" has a Douban score of 9.5
Knowing that even genius girlfriends are desperately trapped in these things is somewhat comforting for most people who are not geniuses.
The only destination for traditional Neapolitan women, including the heroine's mother's generation, is housewives. Illiterate or with little education, they lose themselves little by little under patriarchy, husbandhood and uncommon domestic violence, and eventually become accomplices of men, trying to get their daughters to repeat their old ways.
Lila and Lenon grew up in the 50s and 60s, jumped out of that ruined Naples through education, marriage and career, gradually took the choice back into their own hands, wrestled with mainstream values, bravely became participants in the era, and eventually became part of the era.
Many people, after reading it, are indignant at the love speculator "Nino", believing that his betrayal of the two heroines (this list can also add his wife and other lovers) caused their misfortune.
However, a life that even Nino does not have may be even less worth living.
Lila, who dropped out of school early and married a woman, is terrified by her fiery love on a summer beach. She told Lenon that she didn't understand what it was like to be someone else's girlfriend until she became someone else's wife.
To this end, Lila gave up Mrs. Kuo's life without hesitation, regardless of the blackmail and violence of her husband and family, she wanted to practice their love with Nino. When love is disillusioned, she strides forward, neither regretting that love failed to bring marriage, but also saying goodbye to marriage without love.
And Lenon, when a love stretches out her hand, she always bravely and generously catches it.
She has been in love since middle school. When her love for Nino ends in unrequited love, Antonio brings her reliable companionship and a passionate experience that is respectful enough; In Pisa, Franco, a rich child and left-wing progressive youth, takes her to broaden her horizons, which is the equal love of a new age man to a new age woman; The intellectual Pietro and his family gave Lenon the option of "breaking away from the common people."
Nino reappears with a love that has awakened after dormancy, and Lenon plunges in regardless of the cost. Nino brings sweetness and pain, as well as a daughter who has been raised by her alone for the most part.
Each of Lenon's books was written in pain, from writing what Franco called "little love with nothing important" to an open creator. She managed to get out of run-down Naples and returned there calmly.
The "Neapolitan Tetralogy" includes four plot-related novels such as "My Genius Girlfriend", "The Story of a New Name", "Left, Left" and "The Missing Child", and millions of readers resonate with the extremely real and poignant friendship of women.
Feminists are self-liberators, liberating both women and men.
In a world where class, color, ethnicity, race, and religion can all become estranged, the only thing that can be seen is the common humanity strengthened in communication, exchange, and integration.
As two camps that are almost equal in number, it is more necessary for men and women to try to leave marriage and childbearing to individual choices, and to strengthen understanding of each other as the direction of joint efforts.
Be more in love and be a good feminist.
Editor—Fran
Written by Liu Li
Image—Web