Tag Archives: Women of Japan

Laurie and Debbie: Published in the Fat Studies Journal

Laurie and Debbie say:

We are delighted to announce the publication of our article, “The trajectory of fat liberation: Where did we start? Where are we now?” in the journal Fat Studies. We were invited to contribute to a special issue, “Representing fatness through critical and artistic practice,” edited by Lori Don Levan and published by the Taylor & Francis Group. We worked really hard on the article; we had many conversations with each other and gave it great thought, and we’re really proud of the finished product.

Lori Don Levan’s partner in the editing process was Stefanie Snider, and we are greatly appreciative of the time, effort, and energy they put into walking us through the process and helping to make the article as good as it can be.

The article is a hybrid of our personal experiences creating Women En Large (and later Familiar Men and Laurie’s portrait suite Women of Japan), our knowledge of the history of fat liberation, research done specifically for the article, and personal correspondence from people we know. To explain that, we started by putting the article (and ourselves) in context for a variety of potential readers:

In 1994, Laurie Toby Edison and Debbie Notkin self-published Women En Large: Images of Fat Nudes, with Laurie’s photographs and text by Debbie. Working on that project embedded them deeply in the fat activist community, primarily but not only in the San Francisco Bay Area, at a time when the fat acceptance movement was taking shape. Some 27 years later, Women En Large, having been an independent press best-seller, is still in print. In this hybrid of first-hand participant observation, academic research, and popular culture analysis, the authors refer to themselves by their first names, to mark their closeness to the material.

We started working on this article in March of 2021; in the intervening almost-year, we went through peer review (which elicited some very useful comments and improvements). At the line-editing stage, Debbie made a deep dive into correct reference formatting and other fine style points.

We framed the article somewhat chronologically, with a brief history of fat activism in the context of the civil rights struggle and other anti-oppression movements of the time:

[F]at oppression of white people, at its worst, is in no way as virulent or as dangerous as the white supremacist war on Black, Indigenous and Brown people, which can be exacerbated for fat Black, Indigenous and Brown bodies. One way to frame this exacerbation is through intersectionality. This term, initially articulated by Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989 to specifically describe the experience of Black women, is now used to analyze multiple simultaneous oppressions. While fat oppression is not comparable in intensity to structural and individual racism, intersectionality indicates that all oppressions take place alongside one another, and all resistance movements must contend with tension between primacy and coalition.

Ongoing marginalization, oppression, and silencing of any group happens simultaneously with increased resistance to invisibility. Generations and “waves” of feminism, anti-racism, disability rights all happen while crackdowns continue and often flourish.

Fat activism is unique among the uprisings and increased awareness of the 1960s and 1970s, because it has no obvious historic precursor. Specific policing of the size of women’s bodies is as old as male supremacy. Being lower in the class hierarchy leads to disproportionate oppression (being a poor person of color has an intersectional multiplier effect). Body image standards also fluctuate depending directly on whether women as a group are vocally asserting rights that the power structure will not concede. Women have been fighting their status for centuries. The beginning of an actual politics of fat, originally in the context of oppression of women, can be traced to the formation of the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance (NAAFA, 1969) and the more radical Fat Underground (1973)

We look at what happened once fat activism started to flourish in that period, and how we got involved. We take note of the backlash. One person whose writing we drew on was Susie Orbach, famously the author of the 1978 Fat Is a Feminist Issue. Here’s something she said on that book’s 30th anniversary:

… we never saw the backlash coming, or the ingenious forms it would take, from the now rather innocent (“Because you’re worth it”) to the downright nefarious practices of industries that were growing rich on the making of body insecurity. And that was way before social media and the beauty bloggers with their, yes, millions of followers, would begin to reap money as daily beauty labor …. Beauty work became relentless and, with it, the ubiquity of … judgments and failures which, once internalized, destabilized girls’ relationship to their bodies and – as if that wasn’t enough – created an insecurity that hurt their minds.

We spend some time (as so many examinations of fat oppression and fat liberation must) on the health issues and the intransigent attitudes of the medical profession to what should be incontrovertible evidence that fat is not, per se, unhealthy.

And we close with a brief analysis of the role of contemporary social media in body image (the Facebook scandals on this topic broke when the article was too far along to update in the space we had).

We were especially pleased to quote Lizzo, on Tiktok:

So next time you want to come to somebody and judge them whether they eat kale smoothies or eat McDonald’s or work out, or not work out, how ‘bout you look at your own fucking self and your own god-damn body because health is not only determined by what you do on the outside but also by what you do on the inside, and a lot of you all need to do a *bleep* cleanse for your insides. Namaste. Have a great day.

In short, we’re really pleased to have been invited to participate, we’re really proud of the final result, and we hope you’ll read the whole thing. And let us know what you think!

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Follow Debbie on Twitter.

Follow Laurie’s Pandemic Shadows photos on Instagram.

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Photos of the week: Hanashiro Ikuko

Laurie says:

These are portraits of Okinawan artist and activist Hanashiro Ikuko from Women of Japan. Her writings on the project are below her portraits.
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The Experience of Looking at Myself in the Photograph as an Object

I have recalled something after spending time with Laurie, and having been the object of her camera.

In 1972, Okinawa completed “returning to the mainland.” I was in elementary school. My memory of my elementary school has been dyed with the color of the “activity to return” issue, the U.S. military base.

I was living in Koza-city (now Okinawa-city), which is surrounded by the U.S. military base. The schools were closed when the teachers went on strike to oppose the U.S. military. The people who were working for the military just before the return of Okinawa to the mainland had to find new lives.

Teachers, sometimes passionately and sometimes impassively, talked about the needlessness of the U.S. military in front of many children who had U.S. soldier parents or parents who were working for the military. They had us make the Rising Sun, the national flag of Japan, in arts and crafts class, and had us wave the flags we made during the demonstration to return Okinawa to Japan.

When we marched on the streets, the seniors were shouting “Return Okinawa!”
“Return Okinawa?” … from who to whom? Isn’t Okinawa already here?

After the demonstration, I asked one of the seniors who was marching on the streets, “To whom is Okinawa to be returned?”
“Japan.”
“Then are we going to be Japanese?”
“Yeah.”
“Because we are Okinawan now?”
“ There is no Okinawan.”
“…Hmm, then how can we become Japanese?”
“ By completing the return.”
“So we become Japanese after the return?”
“Then who will be making us Japanese?”

Since Laurie and I ate a meal and talked together, and since she pointed her camera at me, I have recalled things I had forgotten.

The question: who made me Japanese?

The presence of my vague self, living in an undefinable, ambiguous area.

Also, the sense that it is nice existing in ambiguity.

A year after the return, I went to a school in Osaka. I couldn’t share a common memory of early childhood with my classmate, We couldn’t have a natural conversation on the subject of sweets or a price, because I had used dollars. (Actually, I had used cents more, as I was a child.) I ate Campbell’s canned soup almost every day, as my mom was a lazy cook. My friend seemed to think the canned soup that was made in a foreign country was luxurious and cool.

For about eight years or so, after the return, I cheered the U.S.A. at the Olympics. I noticed this the first time when my dormitory roommate pointed it out.
Laurie and I talked about gender, our cats, the era, the ethnic sense of value, and those matters that flow in a conversation. It was very delightful. She patiently listened to my poor English. Also, she laughed with me many times.

he has the power to pull out potential by pointing her camera. As Laurie left Okinawa, I was able to see my past from a new point of view.

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写真に撮られた自分を見るという経験

ローリーと過ごして、あるいは被写体となってから、思い出したことがあった。

１９７２年、沖縄は「本土復帰」「日本復帰」をした。私は小学生だった。

小学生の頃の思い出の多くは、復帰運動・米軍基地問題という色で染まっている。

その頃住んでいたのが、コザ市（現沖縄市）で米軍基地に囲まれた地域だったのも一因はあると思う。

教員による反米軍基地ストライキによる休校。

復帰直前の軍で働く方々のリストラ。

米兵を父親に持つ子供も多く、軍で働いている親を持つ家庭の多い地域で、教員達は熱く、あるいは平然と米軍の不要性を話す。

図画工作の時間に日の丸を作らされ、それを復帰運動デモの時にふらされた。

デモ行進しているお兄さん達は「沖縄返せ」と言っていた。

「沖縄を返せ？」・・・誰から誰へ？　ここは沖縄なのに？

デモの後、行進していたお兄さんに尋ねた。

沖縄は誰に返されるの？ー日本ーじゃぁさ、私たちは日本人になるの？ーそうー今は沖縄人だから？ー沖縄人っていないー？？？ふぅん、どうやって日本人になるの？ー復帰してー復帰したら日本人になるわけ？ーそうーじゃぁさ、何人から日本人になるの？ーーーーーーーー

ローリーと食事や話をしたり、カメラを向けられてから、長い間忘れていたことを思い出した。

それは私（達）は何から日本人になったのか、という問を。

ハッキリさせきれない、曖昧な地域に住んでいた、アヤフヤな自分がいたことを。

そして、その曖昧さもいいのだという感覚も。

復帰の翌年、私は大阪の学校へ進学した。クラスメイトと幼少の記憶が共有できなかった。

ドルー子どもだからセントですがーを使っていたから。

（お菓子や物価などの話題で話しが合わない）

母の手抜き料理で、ほぼ毎日キャンベルのスープを食べていたから。

（友人は外国製のスープ缶は贅沢でカッコイイものと思っていたらしい）

復帰後数年、多分８年とかそれくらいは、私はオリンピックでアメリカを応援していた。

（寮のルームメイトに指摘されて気がついた）

（日本人になるには？）不思議な猶予期間があった。

ローリーとはジェンダー問題やネコ、時代や民族の価値観、またそれらがうつろうことを話した。とても楽しかった。

私のつたない英語を辛抱強く聞いてくれた。そして彼女はよく笑ってくれた。

彼女はカメラをむけることで、潜在的なことを引き出す力がある。

ローリーが沖縄を離れたてから、私は新たな視点で自分の過去を見ることが出来た。

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Follow Debbie on Twitter.

Follow Laurie’s new Pandemic Shadows photos on Instagram.

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