Helen Hardacre provides new insights into the spiritual and cultural dimensions of abortion debates around the world in this careful examination of mizuko kuyo—a Japanese religious ritual for aborted fetuses. Popularized during the 1970s; when religious entrepreneurs published frightening accounts of fetal wrath and spirit attacks; mizuko kuyo offers ritual atonement for women who; sometimes decades previously; chose to have abortions. As she explores the complex issues that surround this practice; Hardacre takes into account the history of Japanese attitudes toward abortion; the development of abortion rituals; the marketing of religion; and the nature of power relations in intercourse; contraception; and abortion.Although abortion in Japan is accepted and legal and was commonly used as birth control in the early postwar period; entrepreneurs used images from fetal photography to mount a surprisingly successful tabloid campaign to promote mizuko kuyo. Enthusiastically adopted by some religionists as an economic strategy; it was soundly rejected by others on doctrinal; humanistic; and feminist grounds.In four field studies in different parts of the country; Helen Hardacre observed contemporary examples of mizuko kuyo as it is practiced in Buddhism; Shinto; and the new religions. She also analyzed historical texts and contemporary personal accounts of abortion by women and their male partners and conducted interviews with practitioners to explore how a commercialized ritual form like mizuko kuyo can be marketed through popular culture and manipulated by the same forces at work in the selling of any commodity. Her conclusions reflect upon the deep current of misogyny and sexism running through these rites and through feto-centric discourse in general.
#1000031 in Books 1996-12-02Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 .92 x 6.24 x 9.40l; #File Name: 0520073797300 pages
Review
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. Amazing book describing Japanese Meiji era middle class males' obsession with New York turning to the reality of servitude.By Customer"Mitziko Sawada's transnational; cross-cultural migrant study reminds us how important a carefully researched historical analysis can be in generating new lines of thinking. This ground-breaking book offers many provocative insights and sensitive thumbnail portraits of a pioneer generation of hi-imin (elite non-immigrants or non-laborer visitors such as students; professionals; and merchants) Japanese men who came to New York City during the decades surrounding the turn of the twentieth century. By focusing on these striving Meiji-era Tokyojin (people from Tokyo) males smitten with tobei netsu (crossing-to-America fever); Sawada has made a significant contribution to bridging East Asian and Asian American history. At the same time; she has written a history resonant with post-1965 middle-class migrants."In this history; New York City is the imagined masculinized destination of personal; cultural; and political economic desire. Using a variety of Japanese language sources; especially success literature; novels; magazines; and guidebooks; Sawada contextualizes this New York fever within the Meiji patriarchal transformation of rural social relations into the Tokyo-centered; corporate hierarchies devoted to capitalist competition. New York became the romanticized promised land of various male escapes -- from limited educational access; individual conformity to the family and state; social inequities; strained gender roles; ad infinitum. The actual experience of living and working in New York City; of course; proved to be a rude awakening. Most men ended up working as servants; found little time to study; and encountered racism. Those who stayed constituted the beginnings of a small but important Japanese New Yorker community." John Kuo Wei Tchen; Journal of Asian American Studies 1.3 (1998) 311-315
