The first time I heard the name Chizuru Ueno was in 2019. At that time, Chizuru Ueno said the sentence "Efforts may not be useful" at the entrance ceremony of the University of Tokyo in Heisei 31. Many media published this sentence as the title of articles, and the public also talked about it. If it were in other schools, or in another situation, this sentence might not have such a big impact, but at the entrance ceremony of the University of Tokyo, the highest institution in the hearts of Japanese people, it was a bit unsettling. When I saw the live video later, the teachers sitting behind Chizuru Ueno did look bad. Maybe many of them regretted letting this teacher give the entrance speech (most of those teachers were men, and I don’t know why they suddenly chose Teacher Ueno to deliver the entrance speech. But judging from the faces of those behind her, it seemed that they did not expect what she said).
However, it was precisely because of such an impact that I only knew Teacher Ueno and became aware of feminism, and began to pay attention and listen to what she said. From this, I also began to see feminism from scratch. And this book by Chizuru Ueno-sensei.
After watching the speech, I felt that the hot search title at that time was a bit taken out of context. It only captured the words of Mr. Ueno in front of it, "Suppress desires before promoting," which attracted everyone's attention, and the rest of the content was not introduced much.
But in fact, the following content is the focus of the teacher's introduction. She mentioned that we should face up to social problems, face and solve them bravely, and also corrected some " stereotypes " of feminism.
From the works I read later, I can feel that her understanding of "feminism" is very comprehensive (maybe because she has a doctorate in sociology). She knows the richness and differences of social culture and ideas, and also realizes that the existing terms are easily misunderstood. She proposed that "feminism is the pursuit of the idea that the weak can also be respected." From this From a certain perspective, "feminism" should probably be changed to "rebirthism for the weak." However, Chizuru Ueno did not propose a change in terminology. Instead, in subsequent articles, she focused more on researching and introducing such problems in society. It may be that she herself does not have a very clear framework system to provide solutions for the time being (European and American scholars seem to often do this).
After that, out of anxiety about my own predicament and being touched by the relevant information, I read "Feminism from Zero" written by her and Nagako Tamafusa. This book really made me love it so much that I couldn't help but keep reading. What particularly impressed me was some of the psychological descriptions of the relationship between mother and daughter, father and daughter, and husband and wife. This book solves some of the confusion, pain and confusion about the original family. It allowed me to quickly establish a preliminary understanding of feminism, and it also gave me a better understanding of myself.
So, when a new feminist book written by Mr. Ueno appeared, I couldn't help but read it quickly.
After reading it, I feel that the book "How Girls Live" further introduces Mr. Ueno's findings in his research. From school in the first chapter, to family and marriage work after graduation in the second and third chapters, to the final overall social level. The overall idea is clear, the content expressed is also very attractive, and the questions asked by readers are relatively representative units.
However, there will be some problems with this. For example, the text of the book is relatively large (but this seems to be the case for Japanese books). Because it is in the form of a dialogue, I may not be able to quickly frame the knowledge points of this book when I read it at one time (it may be the inertial thinking of science students, I really want to be able to find the knowledge points of this book as soon as I flip through the book).
But despite this, I felt okay when I read it, and I also found that there was a lot of information that could be annotated, which was worth reading (and refining the views to highlight this matter, I suggest the publisher do this when reprinting).
For example, in terms of student council presidents, why does the proportion of boys begin to increase in middle and high school? Because at this time, most women have begun to be required by social culture to withdraw from leadership training and competition (women who do not compete with men and create a sense of oppression can be "marriageable") - and abilities must be honed and cultivated in specific positions or positions.
This is also true in society. According to Japan's current election law, due to economic and selection system constraints, it is difficult for women to receive support or enter the list of elected candidates, and it is also difficult for women to get exercise. In this case, the author hopes that women can realize this, change their minds, and participate more in various actions in political and cultural life (such as the revision of relevant bills, etc.).
Because, "No matter how much you don't care, social reality will not let go of your gender, making it impossible for you to turn a blind eye and treat it as if it never existed."
This sentence really gave me some enlightenment. As he said later, the environment will continue to provide us with feedback. If we do not change the environment, then eventually we ourselves will change accordingly.
