Embodiment and Its Violence in Kawakami Mieko’s Chichi to ran: Menstruation, Beauty Ideals, and Mothering

Abstract

This article offers a close reading of Kawakami Mieko’s Chichi to ran (Breasts and eggs, 2007/2008) and explores how the author problematizes agency vis-à-vis cultural and economical mechanisms that control the female body and fix gender roles in a male-dominated, neo-liberal society through an analysis of the portrayal of menstruation, reproduction and beauty ideals from a feminist perspective. Menstruation, beauty practices, reproduction and mothering, are collective experiences that have too often remained invisible. Kawakami puts them in the spotlight, invests body experiences with a voice, and tells a relevant story not only to Japan, but also to the world, making this novella one of the strongest contemporary feminist portrayals of embodiment, reproduction and agency.