‘Men and women are not on good terms in Japanese society. They don’t getalong,’ she said, toying with her coffee cup. ‘There is too much gender-specificrole division. Men are almost like slaves in the corporate world and Japanesewomen are contained within the household. Their lives are disconnected. That isone of the sources of this boiling rage.’ Writing fiction, she explained, allowedher to explore this deep well of anger, often unexpressed in a society that prizedsmooth surface relations. ‘Writers try to cluster into words the things that lieburied in society, unconscious things. That is our duty.’
She was mindful that fiction could affect the world outside its pages.‘Writers have to be powerful. But I also live in the real world, and sometimes Ifind the power of fiction frightening. After my bookOutappeared – and this isscary to talk about – but I think there have been more cases of wives killing theirhusbands. And there may be people who found new ways of doing thingsbecause of what’s written in my book.’ Not long before we met, a case had cometo court in which Kaori Mihashi, a fashionable 32-year-old, had killed herabusive husband, a Morgan Stanley employee, with a wine bottle. Like Yayoi inKirino’s novel, she had cut him into pieces and distributed the sections amongdifferent locations. The luxury apartment where the murder took place was twominutes from my house.If Kirino worried that she might have unwittingly inspired violence, as wellas depicting it, she also thought she had performed a service by giving voice towomen’s rage. ‘AfterOut, male readers can expect anything from me. I think Ihave educated them,’ she said, looking coyly at the table. ‘I was on a radioprogramme with a male personality once, and during the show he wouldn’t uttera single word to me. Towards the end, he asked: “What do you think ofmurdering somebody?” So I said: “It’s not a good thing to kill a person.” And hesaid: “Oh, that’s good. I’m really relieved to hear that.”’•••Japan is often portrayed in the west as a society of powerful men and timid,subservient women. It generally scores poorly in international comparisons thatseek to quantify equality of opportunity. According to a 2010 global study onwomen’s economic opportunity by the Economist Intelligence Unit, Japan came32nd in the world with a score of 68.2 out of a possible 100. It was above allother Asian nations, apart from Hong Kong, but below Scandinavian countries,which scored in the high 80s, as well as the United States, at 76.7. Japan scoredreasonably well in the legal and social status categories. Women’s rights are,after all, protected in the post-war constitution. Article 14 outlaws discriminationbased on sex and Article 24 states:Marriage shall be based only on the mutual consent of both sexes and it shall bemaintained through mutual cooperation with the equal rights of husband and wife as abasis. With regard to choice of spouse, property rights, inheritance, choice ofdomicile, divorce and other matters pertaining to marriage and the family, laws shallbe enacted from the standpoint of individual dignity and the essential equality of thesexes.
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Term
Spring
Professor
Sanders
Tags
japan
