This essay will analyse the role of gender in Toddler-Hunter (1961) by Taeko Kōno and Spirited Away (2001) directed by Hayao Miyazaki. Gender as opposed to sex, is the differentiation between male and female in terms of social factors, and it plays a key part in both texts studied. Toddler-Hunter and Spirited Away raise ideas of gender norms to highlight the stark contrast between male and female roles in post-war and modern society in Japan. The texts also tackle some of these stereotypes in different manners, as a way of declaring that they ought to be abolished. Toddler-Hunter, through the view of a feminist writer, makes a firm statement against Japanese societal expectations of how women should act. Spirited Away is subtler but nonetheless through a female protagonist exemplifies female empowerment and confronts traditional views. With these ideas in mind, the essay will begin by exploring how the difference between male and female labour is shown in the two texts. Linking to this, the essay will examine the way Toddler-Hunter outlines norms of the status and characteristics of women, and how Spirited Away, questioning these, illustrates complex power relations between the two genders. The exploration of motherhood, a duty associated with women, will be expanded on, and there will also be a discussion on how women are portrayed negatively if they do not fit certain expectations like that. There will be analysis of secondary criticism throughout and the conclusion will reinstate the discussed ideas and reemphasise the main argument.
The disparity between male and female employment is apparent in both Toddler-Hunter and Spirited Away. In Toddler-Hunter, the difference between male and female job opportunities is clearly seen in the first conversation the protagonist Akiko has with her partner Sasaki. Sasaki makes a comment that Akiko has ‘got a good deal’ because she is ‘not having to work nine to five’ (Kōno 1997:313) unlike him. Although he seems to imply that it is a good thing, it can also be read as sarcasm, bearing in mind that women did not have equal employment rights until 1985. It can be deduced that Sasaki is an engineer, since he dealt with worked in the ‘Engineering Section’, a stark contrast to Akiko who, despite having ‘impressive’
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achievements from music college, ‘her prospects weren’t improving’ (Kōno 1997:316) as an opera singer so had to quit to work part-time as a translator. She conveys the frustration she has with only earning from part-time work, saying her pay was ‘a pittance’ (Kōno 1997:318). There is also an idea raised that women only work in the ‘female sphere’. Akiko recalls the story Sasaki told her, where he helped a woman in labour, and how he talks about struggling to find a midwife but eventually finding an old woman to help, remarking that it was ‘good to get the umbilical cord cut by someone who knows what they’re doing’ (Kōno 1997:323). In contrast he expresses his disgust for birth water, saying that he ‘sluiced it down a drain right there on the corner’, because he was not going to carry ‘a tub of water like that any farther’ (Kōno 1997:323) than necessary. In this way, the scene highlights that society deems women to be more suitable than men to handle childbirth. Similarly, in Spirited Away, the heroine Chihiro first seeks a job with Yamaji, who stokes the fires in the boiler room, but after struggling to carry heavy coal, is told that ‘there is no work’ for her there and that she should ‘try somewhere else’ (Spirited Away 2001). She thus turns to Yubāba, who employs her as a worker in the bath house, where most of the female workers are the cleaners and the male staff deal with administration. However when signing the contract, Yubāba comments that Chihiro is ‘quite a fancy name’ (Spirited Away 2001), and provides her with a new name, Sen. In this way Chihiro is now defined and controlled by the institution and is no longer an individual woman. The scholar Mary C. Brinton argues that women played an integral role in the Japanese Economic Miracle, not as direct actors in the economy, but as a source of ‘cheap and flexible labour’ and as ‘nurturers of male labour’ (Lam 1993:513). From the texts and considering this theory, it is clear that women are assumed to be inapt for labour which demands physical strength and are more suited to jobs in social care, and also lose a sense of identity as they are mere workers for the patriarchy. However, this idea may be challenged by the fact that Yubāba is female but runs the bath house business and is the one who ‘rules this world’ (Spirited Away 2001). Here is an example of a woman with a strong presence, contesting the typical image of male bosses and rulers. In such ways, a point is made that there is a struggle for women to escape traditional stereotypes and reach equal employment opportunities.
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Toddler-Hunter and Spirited Away also draw attention to the status and norms of how men and women should act in society. Akiko makes it clear that she ‘couldn’t abide little girls’ (Kōno 1997:313), whereas she ‘found little boys extremely appealing’ (Kōno 1997:314). This preference of boys over girls does reflect a Confucian ideal of male superiority seen in East Asian culture. French writer Simone de Beauvoir’s argues that, ‘one is not born, but becomes a woman’ (Beauvoir 1973:301), as society moulds the expectations for the ideal woman. Thus Akiko’s dislike for girls can also be seen as Kōno's contempt for this notion, how girls are brought up to fit certain standards. Akiko ‘could not bear to remember that she herself had once been a little girl’ (Kōno 1997:313) and she felt ‘as if she were under a curse’ (Kōno 1997:314). The use of the word ‘curse’ suggests that Kōno finds gender roles imposed by society as evil and oppressive. The idea of the man being the breadwinner and rational one, and the woman being the house wife and in touch with her feelings is also seen in the text. It is clear, that although Sasaki and Akiko are not married, if they were, the former would be the predominant earner of the household, seeing as the latter only works part-time. When Sasaki sends Akiko a telegram saying that he is delayed, Akiko is described to have ‘forced a bitter smile’ and thought that ‘a woman is supposed to weep at a time like this…not smile’ (Kōno 1997:322). In such ways, the dichotomy between masculinity and femininity is evident. Challenging these kinds of stereotypes, Spirited Away, like most Ghibli films, has a young girl (shōjyo) as its protagonist. Unlike many Western children’s animation, Chihiro does not play the role of a passive damsel in distress who needs to be rescued by a man, although it may seem like so as Haku the dragon advises her on how to save her parents. On the contrary, she is the courageous heroine who rescues Haku from Yubāba's control. Indeed, as scholar Jodi Chiang argues, Haku is more powerful than Chihiro in terms of his status and physical abilities. Haku is Yubāba's closest servant and addressed honorifically as ‘sama’ by workers such as Chihiro, and Haku can also metamorphosise whereas Chihiro is only a human. Chiang also stresses how Haku can fly with his own powers, but this can be contested by the fact that the image of Chihiro using Haku to fly is a symbol of female empowerment. As seen in other Ghibli works such as Kiki’s Delivery Service, the act of flying by controlling an object is a way of exemplifying female
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strength and liberation from the shackles of the patriarchy. The two texts therefore show that there are such things as masculinity and femininity, but also that these ideas can be subverted.
Motherhood is a key topic explored in the two texts. The idea that being a mother is a social norm of being a woman is seen in the opening paragraph of Toddler-Hunter, where it states that Akiko would have a child aged between three and ten, if she ‘like most women, had married and had babies’ (Kōno 1997:313). Rebecca Copeland describes motherhood as ‘an institution within which women are defined and given value’ (Copeland 1992:101), and this view is apparent in the theory of ryōsai kenbo (good wife, wise mother), where women are expected to be skilled and loving housewives and mothers to raise strong children (mostly sons). The phrase was introduced in the late Meiji Period with the rise of nationalism and was heavily emphasised during World War II. It continued to be used in post-war period media, especially in the New Life Campaign in the 1950s. The character of Akiko goes completely against ryōsai kenbo. For her, ‘maternal love was a totally alien emotion’ (Kōno 1997:325), and it was something she 'scarcely possessed' (Kōno 1997:313). She displays utter repulsion against the idea of ‘being tied down by a long commitment’ and in fact would want ‘someone else to take care of’ her child if she had one (Kōno 1997:325). Linking to this theme of commitment, Akiko’s lack of emotional attachment to Sasaki is apparent, as Sasaki was ‘aware of how little she was committed to him’ and ‘the one thing that kept them together was their compatible sexual tastes’ (Kōno 1997:322). Sasaki had ‘typical requirements’ for his ideal marriage, and Akiko ‘didn’t have these qualities, nor did she care to develop them’ (Kōno 1997:322). These are all direct challenges towards the whole concept of ryōsai kenbo, as Akiko is not following conventional duties of being a caring wife and mother. She envied men ‘who could avoid paternal tasks so easily’ (Kōno 1997:325), which also exemplifies the heavier weighting of motherhood than fatherhood in society. This is seen in Spirited Away, with Yubāba as a single mother, raising an extremely spoilt baby, Boh. Despite showing little interest in anything but gold and profit making, Yubāba has a weak spot for her son, often calling him ‘my baby’ and ‘sweetie’ (Spirited Away 2001). This suggests that maternal love is seen as an overpowering emotion for women. It is interesting however that when Zenība, his aunt, appears, Boh addresses her as ‘bāba’ and she responds by saying, “oh dear, you can’t even tell the difference
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between me and your own mother” (Spirited Away 2001), and the whole time Boh is with Chihiro, Yubāba fails to realise that the Boh she is with is in fact an imposter. The way Yubāba is a working mother may come into play in this – when Boh asks to play with Yubāba, she refuses by saying she still has ‘work to do’ (Spirited Away 2001). This hints that she perhaps struggles to balance work and motherhood effectively. Overall motherhood is depicted as something which society sees as the most important duty for women, more than having a career or personhood.
The negative portrayal of women is seen, depicting certain characters as evil and inhumane, because they do not conform to societal standards of gender. The very character of Akiko is the epitome of everything society disagrees with. As Copeland (1992) rightly puts it, Akiko ‘despises that which society adores’ (102), referring to little girls. She is repulsed by a girl’s ‘pallid complexion’ and ‘rubbery flesh’ (Kōno 1997:314), yet the ‘infinitely wholesome world’ little boys had with their scruffy and dirty habits ‘restored and purified her’(Kōno 1997:332). Her rejection of being a mother also contradicts the norm. Hence, because of these reasons, Akiko is presented as an abnormal, perverted beast who lusts over young boys. Julia Bullock (2010) remarks that in 1960s Japan, ‘there was no recognition that women might legitimately have sexual desires that were independent of motherly instincts’ (22), but Kōno overturns this and makes a strong point that women can also be sexual fiends and have sexual gratification from abnormal fantasies. It is interesting how she controls her graphic sexual fantasy of a young boy being killed by his father. Whilst it is the father who inflicts the damage, there is a
‘woman’s voice’ (Kōno 1997:326) who is the de facto controller of his actions. The idea of female control is also seen in Spirited Away, with Yubāba as a dominating witch who has Haku following her every command after implanting a parasite into him and Kamaji describes her twin Zenība as 'one scary sorceress’ (Spirited Away 2001) when Chihiro asks about her. The depiction of such women with power as evil witches is not anything new, but Chiang (2015) asserts that it is a ‘mechanism of social control to discourage aspirations to power and seemingly-masculine behaviour’ (2015:25), in the modern world of growing female influence in the workplace. This is a plausible interpretation when considering Yubāba as the main antagonist of the story, but it is questionable whether this is true in the case of Zenība, who says herself that she and Yubāba are 'identical twins, yet exact opposites’ (Spirited Away 2001).
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She is the more powerful and more feared sister but still shows kindness to Chihiro and even allows No-face to work with her and gives him a place to stay. Miyazaki in fact shows that women in power can seem evil and witch-like as they are intruders in a traditionally male sphere, but in fact are positive actors. Hence in both texts there are evil female characters to prove the point that society dismisses women who are not following convention or are too powerful because they pose a threat to the patriarchy.
The essay has analysed the role of gender in Toddler-Hunter and Spirited Away, demonstrating that they highlight the conventional images of men and women and also challenge several of them. Both Toddler-Hunter and Spirited Away emphasise the restriction women have in terms of employment, because of society’s view that a woman’s strength and abilities lie with caring for others, especially men and children. Women are expected to uphold certain qualities, such as being delicate, emotional, pure and most of all, good wives and mothers. These characteristics are virtually all opposed by Akiko, with her refusal for marriage and motherhood, along with her extreme sexual taste and Chihiro is an active protagonist who, despite her inferiority to many of the characters in the story, still comes out as the successful heroine. On the other hand, Yubāba is the antagonist who is presented as a literal witch because of her masculine authority and Akiko is a metaphorical monster as a result of being out of sync with society. Although secondary criticism by Chiang questions Miyazaki’s intentions behind the portrayal of the witch characters, both her and Copeland support the thesis that gender has a significant role in the two texts and that the characters in the stories are used to overturn the norms. Ultimately, Toddler-Hunter and Spirited Away exemplify that social gender norms must be erased.