Gender Norms

Starting from the Limit is a correspondence dialogue between Japanese feminist scholar Chizuko Ueno and former AV actress and writer Suzumi Suzuki. Two generations of women engage in candid dialogue on topics including body, sexuality, work, love, and mother-daughter relationships, presenting the collision and conversation between feminist thought and the lived reality of young women.

Kim Ji-young, Born 1982 is a novel by Korean author Cho Nam-joo, telling the life story of an ordinary Korean woman Kim Ji-young from birth to motherhood. This work reveals deep-rooted gender discrimination in Korean society through understated narrative, sparking widespread discussion about women's situations in Korea and throughout East Asia.

Convenience Store Woman is an Akutagawa Prize-winning novel by Japanese author Sayaka Murata. The protagonist, Keiko Furukura, is a 36-year-old woman who has worked at the same convenience store for 18 years and has no interest in society's expectations for women—marriage, children, a 'real' career. With dark humor, the novel sharply questions society's definition of 'normal' and its oppression of women who don't conform.

Women's Poverty is a documentary collection by NHK's 'Women's Poverty' reporting team, revealing the structural causes of women's poverty in Japanese society through in-depth interviews with impoverished Japanese women. This work breaks the myth that 'women's poverty is a personal problem,' showing how gender discrimination, non-regular employment, and gaps in social security together create women's economic hardship.

Misogyny is a major work by Japanese sociologist and feminist scholar Chizuko Ueno. The book deeply analyzes the pervasive phenomenon of misogyny in Japanese society, revealing how it exists in various hidden forms within families, workplaces, romantic relationships, and even within women's own consciousness. It is essential reading for understanding the mechanisms of misogyny in East Asian patriarchal societies.

This groundbreaking book introduces the concept of 'emotional labor' through an examination of how service workers, particularly flight attendants, are required to manage their emotions as part of their job. Hochschild explores how capitalism commercializes human feelings and the gendered implications of emotional work in the modern economy.