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This, argues Hasegawa, has caused “the establishment of immature and
distorted gender relations”. 138 Through a feeling of insecurity due to the
devastating (and emasculating) after-effects of World War II, the Japanese
male, “needing protection, seeks a mother figure” who is at the same time
“a girl whose sexuality is yet to emerge and who responds passively to his
overtures”. 139 This means that women often “find themselves forced into
performing the contradictory roles of [both] mother and young girl in
personal relationships”. 140
Each of these roles, I would argue, is similar in that they place women
in a submissive position, as the virtuous, angelic nurturer and the
subordinate, obedient provider of pleasure, which is somewhat reminiscent
of the dichotomous perception of Woman in “repressed” patriarchal
*
Victorian Western societies.
As Ilya Garger has noted, if “you’ve spent a day in Japan, you’ve
witnessed the hegemony of kawaii”. 141
There is a sense in the inter-textual
relationships between the Cute and the image of Woman that this
hegemonic control represents a form of patriarchal oppression.
* I say “repressed”, within inverted commas, as whether or not Victorian societies were actually
repressed is a whole new argument (and thesis in itself). The point I am making is that these
perceptions of Woman are similar.
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