Cultivating Femininity

Cultivating Femininity PDF Author: Rebecca Corbett
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 082487207X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 205

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Book Description
The overwhelming majority of tea practitioners in contemporary Japan are women, but there has been little discussion on their historical role in tea culture (chanoyu). In Cultivating Femininity, Rebecca Corbett writes women back into this history and shows how tea practice for women was understood, articulated, and promoted in the Edo (1603–1868) and Meiji (1868–1912) periods. Viewing chanoyu from the lens of feminist and gender theory, she sheds new light on tea’s undeniable influence on the formation of modern understandings of femininity in Japan. Corbett overturns the iemoto tea school’s carefully constructed orthodox narrative by employing underused primary sources and closely examining existing tea histories. She incorporates Pierre Bourdieu’s theories of social and cultural capital and Norbert Elias’s “civilizing process” to explore the economic and social incentives for women taking part in chanoyu. Although the iemoto system sought to increase its control over every aspect of tea, including book production, eighteenth- and nineteenth-century popular texts aimed specifically at women evidence the spread of tea culture beyond parameters set by the schools. The expansion of chanoyu to new social groups cascaded from commoner men to elite then commoner women. Shifting the focus away from male tea masters complicates the history of tea in Japan and shows how women of different social backgrounds worked within and without traditionally accepted paradigms of tea practice. The direct socioeconomic impact of the spread of tea is ultimately revealed in subsequent advances in women’s labor opportunities and an increase in female social mobility. Through their participation in chanoyu, commoner women were able to blur and lessen the status gap between themselves and women of aristocratic and samurai status. Cultivating Femininity offers a new perspective on the prevalence of tea practice among women in modern Japan. It presents a fresh, much-needed approach, one that will be appreciated by students and scholars of Japanese history, gender, and culture, as well as by tea practitioners.

Cultivating Femininity

Cultivating Femininity PDF Author: Rebecca Corbett
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 082487840X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 205

Get Book

Book Description
The overwhelming majority of tea practitioners in contemporary Japan are women, but there has been little discussion on their historical role in tea culture (chanoyu). In Cultivating Femininity, Rebecca Corbett writes women back into this history and shows how tea practice for women was understood, articulated, and promoted in the Edo (1603–1868) and Meiji (1868–1912) periods. Viewing chanoyu from the lens of feminist and gender theory, she sheds new light on tea’s undeniable influence on the formation of modern understandings of femininity in Japan. Corbett overturns the iemoto tea school’s carefully constructed orthodox narrative by employing underused primary sources and closely examining existing tea histories. She incorporates Pierre Bourdieu’s theories of social and cultural capital and Norbert Elias’s “civilizing process” to explore the economic and social incentives for women taking part in chanoyu. Although the iemoto system sought to increase its control over every aspect of tea, including book production, eighteenth- and nineteenth-century popular texts aimed specifically at women evidence the spread of tea culture beyond parameters set by the schools. The expansion of chanoyu to new social groups cascaded from commoner men to elite then commoner women. Shifting the focus away from male tea masters complicates the history of tea in Japan and shows how women of different social backgrounds worked within and without traditionally accepted paradigms of tea practice. The direct socioeconomic impact of the spread of tea is ultimately revealed in subsequent advances in women’s labor opportunities and an increase in female social mobility. Through their participation in chanoyu, commoner women were able to blur and lessen the status gap between themselves and women of aristocratic and samurai status. Cultivating Femininity offers a new perspective on the prevalence of tea practice among women in modern Japan. It presents a fresh, much-needed approach, one that will be appreciated by students and scholars of Japanese history, gender, and culture, as well as by tea practitioners. An electronic version of this book is freely available thanks to the support of libraries working with Knowledge Unlatched, a collaborative initiative designed to make high-quality books open access for the public good. The open-access version of this book is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), which means that the work may be freely downloaded and shared for non-commercial purposes, provided credit is given to the author. Derivative works and commercial uses require permission from the publisher.

Cold War Encounters in US-Occupied Okinawa

Cold War Encounters in US-Occupied Okinawa PDF Author: Mire Koikari
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316352226
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 249

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Book Description
In this innovative and engaging study, Mire Koikari recasts the US occupation of Okinawa as a startling example of Cold War cultural interaction in which women's grassroots activities involving homes and homemaking played a pivotal role in reshaping the contours of US and Japanese imperialisms. Drawing on insights from studies of gender, Asia, America and postcolonialism, Koikari analyzes how the occupation sparked domestic education movements in Okinawa, mobilizing an assortment of women - home economists, military wives, club women, university students and homemakers - from the US, Okinawa and mainland Japan. These women went on to pursue a series of activities to promote 'modern domesticity' and build 'multicultural friendship' amidst intense militarization on the islands. As these women took their commitment to domesticity and multiculturalism onto the larger terrain of the Pacific, they came to articulate the complex intertwinement of gender, race, domesticity, empire and transnationality that existed during the Cold War.

The Feminine Mystique

The Feminine Mystique PDF Author: Betty Friedan
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393322572
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 587

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Book Description
The book that changed the consciousness of a country—and the world. Landmark, groundbreaking, classic—these adjectives barely describe the earthshaking and long-lasting effects of Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique. This is the book that defined "the problem that has no name," that launched the Second Wave of the feminist movement, and has been awakening women and men with its insights into social relations, which still remain fresh, ever since. A national bestseller, with over 1 million copies sold.

Feminizing Theory

Feminizing Theory PDF Author: Rhea Ashley Hoskin
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000436853
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 168

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Book Description
The term "femme" originates from 1940s Western working-class lesbian bar culture, wherein femme referred to a feminine lesbian who was typically in a relationship with a butch lesbian. Expanding from this original meaning, femme has since emerged as a form of femininity reclaimed by queer and culturally marginalized folks. Importantly, femme has also evolved into a theoretical framework. Femme theory argues that "femme" constitutes a missing piece in queer and feminist discourses of femininity. Attending to this gap, femme theory centres queer femininities as a means of pushing against the deeply embedded masculinist orientation of queer and gender theory. Thus, femme theory offers tools to shift the way researchers and readers understand femininity as well as systems of gender and power more broadly. This book is an introduction to femme theory, showcasing how femme can be used as a theoretical framework across a variety of contexts and disciplines, such as Film & Media Studies, Psychology, Sociology, or Critical Disability Studies; from countries, including Canada, China, Guyana and the USA. Femme theory asks readers to reconsider how femininity is conceptualized, revealing some of the many taken for granted assumptions that are embedded within cultural discourses of gender, sexuality, and power. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Lesbian Studies.

Gathering for Tea in Modern Japan

Gathering for Tea in Modern Japan PDF Author: Taka Oshikiri
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350143782
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 171

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Book Description
By examining chanoyu - the custom of consuming matcha tea - in the Meiji period, Gathering for Tea in Modern Japan investigates the interactions between intellectual and cultural legacies of the Tokugawa period and the incoming influences of Western ideas, material cultures and institutions. It explores the construction of Japan's modern cultural identity, highlighting the development of new social classes, and the transformation of cultural practices and production-consumption networks of the modern era. Taka Oshikri uses a wealth of Japanese source material - including diaries, newspaper, journal articles, maps, exhibition catalogues and official records – to explore the intricate relationships between the practice and practitioners of different social groups such as the old aristocracy, the emerging industrial elite, the local elite and government officials. She argues that the fabrication of a cultural identity during modernisation was influenced by various interest groups, such as the private commercial sector and foreign ambassadors. Although much is written on the practice of chanoyu in the pre-Tokugawa period and present-day Japan, there are few historical studies focusing on the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Gathering for Tea in Modern Japan thus makes a significant contribution to its field, and will be of great value to students and scholars of modern Japanese social and cultural history.

Tao Tantric Arts for Women

Tao Tantric Arts for Women PDF Author: Minke de Vos
Publisher: Destiny Books
ISBN: 9781620555163
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Awaken sexual energy for radiant love and empowerment, healing of emotional trauma and chronic conditions, and celebration of each stage of a woman’s life • Reveals how to channel sexual energy to experience the 3 kinds of female orgasm, clear trauma, and heal issues related to PMS, menopause, and libido • Details how to perform breast self-massage, jade egg yoga, yoni articulation, and Universal Healing Tao work such as the Inner Smile and Ovarian Breathing • Includes solo and partner practices for conscious energy exchange, intimacy building, unconditional love, and activating your multi-orgasmic potential Through the Taoist tantric arts, women can experience the full flowering of their sexual energy. Rooted in Chinese energy medicine, Universal Healing Tao practices, and ancient Taoist traditions from the Yellow Emperor and his three female advisors, these practices honor and celebrate each stage of a woman’s life and allow women to awaken their genuine feminine sexuality--receptive, soft, sensitive, intuitive, and creative--rather than the masculine approach that focuses on strength, endurance, and control. In this comprehensive guide to Taoist tantric arts for women, author Minke de Vos reveals how to channel natural sexual energy to evolve the Divine within and heal deep-rooted negative emotions and traumas related to sexuality. She explores techniques from the Universal Healing Tao system, such as the Inner Smile and Ovarian Breathing, to cleanse the uterus of negative emotions and fill your creative center with compassionate vibrations. She offers sexual energy practices to prevent chronic conditions like cancer, depression, and osteoporosis and heal issues related to PMS, menopause, and libido. She explains how to experience the three different kinds of female orgasm and provides detailed, illustrated instructions for exercises such as breast self-massage for emotional transformation and jade-egg yoni yoga to strengthen the pelvic floor and stimulate inner flexing and articulation. She offers evocative meditations to connect with the Goddess within and embrace the innate sexiness at each stage of life. Including solo and partner practices for conscious energy exchange and intimacy building, Minke de Vos’s detailed guide to cultivating female sexual energy allows you to ease the passage through the menstrual cycle, pregnancy, and menopause; harmonize your relationships; and merge your inner male and female energies into wholeness.

Strong Women, Soft Hearts

Strong Women, Soft Hearts PDF Author: Paula Rinehart
Publisher: HarperChristian + ORM
ISBN: 1418518921
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 259

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Book Description
Recently updated with an expanded study guide, Strong Women, Soft Hearts has quickly become an important study for women of all ages. Through inspiring real-life testimonies, Paula Rinehart writes as both a kindred spirit and a compassionate counselor to women feeling robbed of their passions and trapped by life's disappointing realities. Women who long to be released from the burden of hard choices and perpetually empty souls will be empowered to rediscover dreams long lost and refocus energy misguided. Strong Women, Soft Hearts cries out for women to embrace passion and approach life as something to be lived, not merely survived.

Feminism/Femininity in Chinese Literature

Feminism/Femininity in Chinese Literature PDF Author:
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004333983
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 219

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Book Description
The present volume of Critical Studies is a collection of selected essays on the topic of feminism and femininity in Chinese literature. Although feminism has been a hot topic in Chinese literary circles in recent years, this remarkable collection represents one of the first of its kind to be published in English. The essays have been written by well-known scholars and feminists including Kang-I Sun Chang of Yale University, and Li Ziyun, a writer and feminist in Shanghai, China. The essays are inter- and multi-disciplinary, covering several historical periods in poetry and fiction (from the Ming-Qing periods to the twentieth century). In particular, the development of women’s writing in the New Period (post-1976) is examined in depth. The articles thus offer the reader a composite and broad perspective of feminism and the treatment of the female in Chinese literature. As this remarkable new collection attests, the voices of women in China have begun calling out loudly, in ways that challenge prevalent views about the Chinese female persona.

Female Masculinity

Female Masculinity PDF Author: Judith Halberstam
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 9780822322436
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 348

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Book Description
Masculinity without men. In Female Masculinity Judith Halberstam takes aim at the protected status of male masculinity and shows that female masculinity has offered a distinct alternative to it for well over two hundred years. Providing the first full-length study on this subject, Halberstam catalogs the diversity of gender expressions among masculine women from nineteenth-century pre-lesbian practices to contemporary drag king performances. Through detailed textual readings as well as empirical research, Halberstam uncovers a hidden history of female masculinities while arguing for a more nuanced understanding of gender categories that would incorporate rather than pathologize them. She rereads Anne Lister's diaries and Radclyffe Hall's The Well of Loneliness as foundational assertions of female masculine identity. She considers the enigma of the stone butch and the politics surrounding butch/femme roles within lesbian communities. She also explores issues of transsexuality among "transgender dykes"--lesbians who pass as men--and female-to-male transsexuals who may find the label of "lesbian" a temporary refuge. Halberstam also tackles such topics as women and boxing, butches in Hollywood and independent cinema, and the phenomenon of male impersonators. Female Masculinity signals a new understanding of masculine behaviors and identities, and a new direction in interdisciplinary queer scholarship. Illustrated with nearly forty photographs, including portraits, film stills, and drag king performance shots, this book provides an extensive record of the wide range of female masculinities. And as Halberstam clearly demonstrates, female masculinity is not some bad imitation of virility, but a lively and dramatic staging of hybrid and minority genders.