Posted by Dan (24.59.72.128) on March 29, 2004 at 02:46:16:
In Reply to: Re: Ukiyoe and Women posted by Samuel Anderson on March 25, 2004 at 05:57:20:
Samuel,
To say "man" and "woman" is already to discriminate. The human language itself is based on discrimination. Without discriminating, the world is a single undivided, amorphous being.
Be that as it may, I'll assume that you mean "discriminate" in the sense of "unfair to women". You might mean that in a number of senses, and I would agree that a number of them are right. As I said in my reply to you, the "ideal woman" as moral paradigm in the Confucian readers for women derived from a basic (male) distrust in women. You might look for translations of writings by Kaibara Ekken explicitly on this subject. Confucianism is not, and has never been, female friendly.
Nevertheless, my argument is that Kuniyoshi was not interested so much in the moral aspect that raised up self-sacrificing women as ideals for all women, but rather in the strong woman type for its own sake. If you look through his series on women in the back of K: The Warrior Prints, you will find that he depicted a wide variety of female heroes, including thieves, murders and other "immoral" characters. In fact, there was something of a fascination with this type of woman in 19th century literature as well, so Kuniyoshi should perhaps not be singled out. This view of women is very different from the 18th century, and so it is noteworthy.
It is not noteworthy because it does not discriminate. It discriminates, but in a different way.