Marketing the Menacing Fetus in Japan

Marketing the Menacing Fetus in Japan
Author :
Publisher : Univ of California Press
Total Pages : 340
Release :
ISBN-10 : 0520922042
ISBN-13 : 9780520922044
Rating : 4/5 (42 Downloads)

Book Synopsis Marketing the Menacing Fetus in Japan by : Helen Hardacre

Download or read book Marketing the Menacing Fetus in Japan written by Helen Hardacre and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2023-09-01 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.


Marketing the Menacing Fetus in Japan Related Books

Marketing the Menacing Fetus in Japan
Language: en
Pages: 332
Authors: Helen Hardacre
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 1997 - Publisher: Univ of California Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

"A remarkably original contribution to the anthropology of reproduction, Marketing the Menacing Fetus in Japan provides broad and deep insights into the culture
Marketing the Menacing Fetus in Japan
Language: en
Pages: 335
Authors: Helen Hardacre
Categories: Religion
Type: BOOK - Published: 2023-09-01 - Publisher: Univ of California Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Helen Hardacre provides new insights into the spiritual and cultural dimensions of abortion debates around the world in this careful examination of mizuko kuyo�
Colonizing Sex
Language: en
Pages: 279
Authors: Sabine Frühstück
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 2003-10-07 - Publisher: Univ of California Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Table of contents
A History of Japan
Language: en
Pages: 724
Authors: Conrad Totman
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 2014-09-11 - Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This is an updated edition of Conrad Totman's authoritative history of Japan from c.8000 BC to the present day. The first edition was widely praised for combini
Contemporary Buddhist Ethics
Language: en
Pages: 226
Authors: Damien Keown
Categories: Social Science
Type: BOOK - Published: 2013-01-11 - Publisher: Routledge

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This innovative volume brings together the views of leading scholars on a range of controversial subjects including human rights, animal rights, ecology, aborti