‘Butter': The foodie feminist bestseller skewering sexism in Japan
The sensationalized media coverage at the time largely focused on Kijima's appearance, speculating how someone described as homely and unattractive could be considered a femme fatale. Many credited her romantic success to her homemaking prowess - notably in the kitchen. 'When the case broke, the Japanese media mainly remembered that the suspect liked to cook and took classes ... to 'please men',' Yuzuki told AFP in an interview. 'That deeply disturbed me.'
In 'Butter', a journalist likewise disquieted by the portrayal of a Kijima-like character (renamed Kajii) writes to the jailed suspect, hoping to secure an exclusive interview by appealing to her gourmet tastes. Via a letter soliciting the beef stew recipe that Kajii reportedly fed her final victim, the pair begin an intimate and life-changing relationship.
This proves a vehicle for Yuzuki to chew over the roots of misogyny in Japan, where traditional male and female roles still dominate and women are held to impossible beauty standards. In politics and boardrooms for example, women remain rare. Japan ranks 118 out of 146 in the World Economic Forum's 2025 Gender Gap Report. 'Japan is a deeply patriarchal country. Very often, it is the father who occupies the central position within the family unit. This is the basis for laws even,' Yuzuki said.
'Fatphobia'
Food - particularly butter, that artery-blocking symbol of pleasure and excess - forms the molten core of the story. Through sumptuous descriptions of butter-rich ramen and lavishly buttered rice, Yuzuki explores the tension between indulging appetites and the self-denial required to fulfil the societal pressure on women to stay thin. 'There is an incredible amount of adverts for weight loss, cosmetic surgery and diets. This country is obsessed with fatphobia,' Yuzuki said.
It is also tough for women in Japan, where the #MeToo movement never really took off, to speak out about discrimination and sexual assault. Shiori Ito, a journalist who took the rare step of publicly accusing a prominent Japanese TV reporter of rape - a charge he denies - is a case in point. Ito's documentary 'Black Box Diaries', which was nominated for an Oscar, was not released in Japan because it used material recorded clandestinely or intended for judicial use only.
'In other countries, especially the United States, from the beginning of #MeToo, many well-known journalists have seriously investigated these cases, and it is because this information was made public officially that the victims were able to be protected,' Yuzuki said. But in Japan, 'women who have had the courage to speak out are reduced to the role of activists and consumed by the media within that framework,' she said.
Another example is Masahiro Nakai, a boyband member and a star TV presenter accused of sexual assault. He initially disputed the facts and then apologised. The scandal shone a spotlight on the toxic culture of young women being pressed into attending dinners and drinking parties with powerful figures. 'What strikes me is this uninterrupted chain of sexual violence, and especially that these are crimes committed within one organisation, covered up by another organisation... that of the media,' Yuzuki said. Yuzuki is convinced that change can only come from outside. 'When foreigners take up a topic, especially the English-language media, it completely changes the way it is perceived in Japan,' she said. 'If the European media' continue to be interested in these issues, then 'the situation could perhaps change a little.'--AFP
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Kuwait Times
2 days ago
- Kuwait Times
National Ballet of Japan to make UK debut
Dancers from the National Ballet of Japan (from left) Risako Ikeda, Shunsuke MIzui, Yui Yonezawa and Shun Izawa pose on stage with the company's artistic director Miyako Yoshida (center), during a preview rehearsal of the ballet "Giselle" at the Royal Opera House, in central London.--AFP photos The National Ballet of Japan makes its debut at the London Royal Opera House on Thursday, pirouetting into a void left when Russia's Bolshoi Ballet was cancelled over the war in Ukraine. In 2022, the Opera House called off the internationally renowned Moscow-based company's tour and proposed instead to open up their prestigious stage to the Japanese dancers. Founded in 1997, Japan's resident ballet company will perform in London for the first time from Thursday to Sunday. It will perform a production of Giselle, a classic romantic ballet which first premiered in 1841. The production is led by artistic director of the National Ballet of Japan Miyako Yoshida, 59, who was the first Japanese principal dancer at the British ballet institution between 1995 and 2010. Eleven Japanese dancers, including three principal dancers, now perform at the Royal Opera House and make up around 10 percent of the company. Returning to the prestigious stage was not only 'a dream coming true,' but also a lot of 'pressure', Yoshida told AFP. When the Bolshoi's tour was cancelled, director of the Royal Ballet Kevin O'Hare approached his ex-classmate Yoshida to discuss bringing her company to London as a replacement. Japanese ballet dancer Yui Yonezawa as Giselle (left) and Japanese ballet dancer Shun Izawa as Albrecht (right), both from the National Ballet of Japan, perform on stage. Japanese ballet dancer Yui Yonezawa as Giselle (right) and Japanese ballet dancer Shun Izawa as Albrecht (left), both from the National Ballet of Japan, perform on stage. Japanese ballet dancers Risako Ikeda (left) and Shunsuke MIzui (right), both from the National Ballet of Japan, perform on stage. Dancer from the National Ballet of Japan Yui Yonezawa speaks with members of the press during a preview rehearsal of the ballet "Giselle". Aiming for accessibility The ex-ballerina 'never imagined' it would happen 'this quickly', and recalled that scheduling and funding issues had slowed the plans. The chance to perform came 'too soon,' she said. She admitted that the Japanese company, which even though it boasts its capacity to dance a wide repertoire, was perhaps not quite ready to replace one of the oldest and most prestigious ballet companies in the world. The young company put on productions in the US in 2008, and at the Bolshoi Theatre the following year, but this is the first time it will perform a classic Western ballet in Europe. 'I tried to make it easier to understand,' said Yoshida, explaining that 'young people' would not be interested in the ballet 'if it was very old-fashioned'. She wanted to capture the essence of the romantic ballet, which tells a story of forbidden love. Supported by choreographer Alistair Marriott, Yoshida hoped the production would distinguish itself with its pared-back simplicity. For Yoshida, the five London performances aim to 'make the National Ballet of Japan known around the world' and enable its 75 dancers to evolve with other companies from Europe and beyond. 'I want to make the company known worldwide,' she said.--AFP
Kuwait Times
2 days ago
- Kuwait Times
Houthi cargo ship attacks amount to war crimes: HRW
HODEIDA: People displaced by conflict gather to top up their jerrycans with water drawn from a well at a makeshift camp in Hays, south of Hodeida in eastern Yemen.— AFP BEIRUT: Human Rights Watch on Wednesday condemned Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels for deadly attacks that sank two commercial vessels this month, calling them violations of the laws of war. The Houthis struck the Magic Seas and Eternity C cargo ships in the Red Sea, part of a campaign against maritime traffic they accuse of having links to Zionist entity, launched over the Gaza war. Fifteen people—including four confirmed dead—remain missing after the July 7 attack on the Eternity C. The Yemeni rebels claimed to have 'rescued' an unspecified number of crew, whose whereabouts are still unknown. The attacks were 'violations of the laws of war amounting to war crimes', Human Rights Watch said in a statement, adding it found 'no evidence that the ships were military targets'. 'They deliberately attacked commercial vessels that could clearly be identified as civilian,' the New York-based group said, adding that 'detaining rescued crew members is also prohibited'. Rebel leader Abdel Malek Al-Houthi justified the attacks, saying both ships belonged to companies serving Zionist ports. But HRW said the ships had no connection to Zionist entity and were not heading there. The Magic Seas was en route to Turkey from China carrying fertiliser and steel billets when it was attacked on July 6. The Eternity C was heading to Saudi Arabia from Somalia after delivering humanitarian aid for the United Nations World Food Programme. 'The Houthis have sought to justify unlawful attacks by pointing to Israeli violations against Palestinians,' said Niku Jafarnia, HRW's Yemen and Bahrain researcher. 'The Houthis should end all attacks on ships not taking part in the conflict and immediately release the crew members in their custody,' she added. Since November 2023, the rebels have carried out more than 100 attacks on vessels in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, according to the Joint Maritime Information Centre, run by a Western naval coalition. HRW said it had previously found those actions to be war crimes.– AFP It also warned of environmental risks, citing findings by Wim Zwijnenburg of Dutch peace organization PAX. Zwijnenburg said satellite imagery showed large oil slicks trailing from the sites where both vessels sank, threatening wildlife in a protected nature reserve off Eritrea's coast. Oil was also reportedly washing ashore near a fishing community, he was quoted as saying. – AFP
Kuwait Times
2 days ago
- Kuwait Times
Versailles orchestra plays New York in ‘Affair of the Poisons'
Acrobatics, fortune tellers, opulent gowns and palace intrigue: the New York debut of the Versailles Royal Opera Orchestra was a performance befitting the era it recalls. Monday's immersive show 'Versailles in Printemps: The Affair of the Poisons' centered on France's 17th-century period of excess and seediness that its creator, Andrew Ousley, told AFP has parallels to the present day. At the evening staged in Manhattan's new Printemps luxury emporium, guests and performers alike donned velvet waistcoats, silky corsets, feathered headdresses and powdered makeup. Core to the performance's tale was the discovery of arsenic, Ousley said -- the first 'untraceable, untastable poison.' 'Everybody was just poisoning everybody.' And at the web's center? A midwife and fortune teller named La Voisin, he said, a 'shadowy-like person who basically would peddle poison, peddle solutions, peddle snake oil.' 'She was the nexus,' Ousley continued, in a scheme that 'extended up to Louis XIV, his favorite mistresses' -- inner circles rife with backstabbing and murder plots. The poisoning scandal resulted in a tribunal that resulted in dozens of death sentences -- until the king called it off when it 'got a little too close to home,' Ousley said with a smile. 'To me, it speaks to the present moment -- that this rot can fester underneath luxury and wealth when it's divorced from empathy, from humanity.' Along with a program of classical music, the performance included elaborately costumed dancers, including one who tip-toed atop a line of wine bottles in sparkling platform heels. The drag opera artist Creatine Price was the celebrant of the evening's so-called 'Black Mass,' and told AFP that the night was 'a beautiful way to sort of incorporate the ridiculousness, the campness, the farce of Versailles with a modern edge.' Drag is 'resistance,' she said, adding that her act is 'the essence of speaking truth to power, because it really flies in the face of everything in the opera that is standard, whether it's about gender or voice type.' An artist performs during a show called "Versailles in Printemps: The Affair of the Poisons." at the Printemps store in Lower Manhattan, New York City. Madame Athenais de Montespan played by Erin Dillon performs. Madame Athenais de Montespan played by Erin Dillon performs. Madame Athenais de Montespan played by Erin Dillon performs. An artist rides an escalator at a show called "Versailles in Printemps: The Affair of the Poisons." at the Printemps store. An artist performs during a show called "Versailles in Printemps: The Affair of the Poisons." at the Printemps store. Versailles Royal Opera Orchestra performs during a show called "Versailles in Printemps: The Affair of the Poisons." at the Printemps store. Period instruments The Versailles Royal Opera Orchestra formed in 2019, and its first stateside tour is underway: the series of shows kicked off at Festival Napa Valley in California before heading to New York. On Wednesday it will play another, more traditional show at L'Alliance New York, a French cultural center in Manhattan. The orchestra aims to champion repertoire primarily from the 17th and 18th centuries, and plays on period instruments. 'Playing a historical instrument really gives me a feeling of being in contact with the era in which the music was composed,' said Alexandre Fauroux, who plays the natural horn, a predecessor to the French horn distinguished by its lack of valves. Ousley runs the organization Death of Classical, an arts non-profit that puts on classical shows in unexpected places, including the catacombs of Brooklyn's Green-Wood Cemetery and crypts in Manhattan. Monday's spectacle included over-the-top performance, but Ousley emphasized that the evening was ultimately a celebration of classical artists. 'These are players who play with such energy, to me it's more like a rock band than an orchestra,' he said. And the mission of putting on such shows is about something bigger, Ousley said: 'How do you fight against the darkness that seems to be winning in the world?' 'When you can sit and feel, with a group of strangers, something that you know you feel together -- that's why I work, because of that shared connection, experience and transcendence.'--AFP
