Alternative male sexualities in the fiction of post-war Japanese female writers: Possibly feminist feminist possibilities (Mori Mari, Yoshimoto Banana, Matsuura Rieko)

This dissertation examines the treatment of alternative male sexuality in the fiction of postwar Japanese female writers. Working from Edwin Ardener's Wild Zone theory, the dissertation proposes that the female writers it discusses imagine in the alternative male sexuality on their pages an ideal subjectivity. The nature of that subjectivity is shown to be based on an understanding of the concurrent feminist ideology. The dissertation, then, seeks to forge a link between alternative male sexuality in women's fiction and the feminist theory prevalent at the time of writing.; The first chapter aligns treatment of masculinity in, Mori Mari's stories of the 60s and 70s with liberal feminism. Liberal feminism sought equal opportunity for women within an existing social structure. Mari's feminized homosexual characters serve as role models for women in the incorporation into their personalities of traits deemed necessary for success but considered masculine by culture at large in that time period. Their portrayal also effectively unmasks the fictional nature of the concurrent narrative on women, a narrative which served to keep the female body in a position of inferiority. The assertive non-nurturing women for which Mari's fantasmatic projection allows gain power within the patriarchal social system.; The second chapter looks at Yoshimoto Banana's 1988 Kitchin as a radical feminist work which would eliminate the masculine principle, launching in its stead a culture governed by an imagined feminine principle. Kitchin's male-to-female transsexual character's voluntary abdication of patriarchal rights reveals male acknowledgement of the superiority of the feminine principle. A society of men who would rather be women confounds a male hegemony fundamentally hostile to women. It allows for the rise of a correspondingly and antagonistically powerful matriarchy.; The third chapter presents Matsuura Rieko's 1994 Oyayubi P no shûgyô jidai as a piece of postfeminist ideology which would do away with both the masculine and feminine principles. Oyayubi P attempts to put man and woman on a plane beyond the binary. It draws attention to the groundlessness of a supposedly natural division of the sexes into penetrator and vessel, ruler and ruled. This it does in a deconstruction of the sexed body, which heralds a utopian anti-phallocractic social structure.; But there are problems with the ideals that are set forth in these stories. There are faultlines in the portrayals. In the conclusion to the dissertation, I offer a concise summary of these faultlines and consider in their light the question of the title: Can alternative male sexuality successfully be put to feminist purposes? Are the feminist projects herein truly feminist?...