“Before atrocities are recognized as such, they are authoritatively regarded as either too extraordinary to be believable or to ordinary to be atrocious. If the events are socially considered unusual, the fact they happened is denied in specific instances; if they are regarded as usual, the fact that they are violating is denied: if it’s happening, it’s not so bad, and if it’s really bad, it isn’t happening.” – Catherine A. MacKinnon

I: Establishing the Social Norm

Especially since the 1990’s, the way in which we receive news and information has radially changed, thanks to the ever-improving technology. The current generation and the parents of this generation have always lived with the information technologies the older generations could not even conceive of possible. Radios had been around for a while before televisions came to dominate the domestic life, yet prior to the 1950’s, even the television programs were entirely insipid from our modern standard[1], and it was only after the 1960’s when the colour TV was introduced that the people “shared” information worldwide.[2] Hence there is a sharp distinction between what TV was before the 50’s and what it came to be, in particular, after the 60’s. As more households owned colour televisions, the function of television in society changed from mere reception of information to entertainment. People began talking about programs on TV at school, people had much easy access to product advertisement, and it became the norm of social networking among young people. Television programs were, increasingly, catered for the enjoyment of younger generation. Animation was revolutionized with Osamu Tezuka’s unique styles that captured every child’s attention in the 60’s. TV shows included plots that involved teenagers and music programs aimed for a larger audience by having a popularity contest. People no longer had to decide what is trendy to wear, but only had to follow what the celebrities wore in movies and shows to stay in fashion. Hence, what was fashionable was no longer parochial, which admitted gradual acceptance of the community after criticism, but now instantaneously accepted nationwide: whatever she was wearing last night on channel 8 became the fashion. As women were allowed to work along with men, they became the target of scrutiny. “That black dress she was wearing was sexy,” “The colour coordination of the anchorwoman’s clothes was a bit off,” and so on.[3] Television succeeded in setting up a social norm it desired, while people following the norm set by television programs believed they were the part of the culture: the movement, as if they had always worn that black dress. This was the era of the first transformation in social media – commercialization of information.

Over the years, television programs and celebrities came to be regarded as that which reflects reality. This is both true and false. While televisions must understand what is popular among the youth culture and society to be successful, youth culture and society are fed on that very idea of what is popular by the televisions they never miss to watch. In other words, it is not what people want that televisions show, but it is what the televisions want people to want that they show. If televisions are successful in making people want what televisions want (which they are), then it is not completely false to say that televisions show people what they want. But it is not true either to say televisions are responding to the public needs, since it is the very televisions themselves that export the idea of what is desirable for the public.

With the widespread of the Internet in the 1990’s, the media would undergo yet another transformation by commercializing the public. By connecting the people worldwide through the web of networking, anyone can now be seen or interviewed on the Internet. Websites such as YouTube and blog sites are perfect ways to broadcast yourself in your own words. The first decade of the 21st century saw a growing development of social networking systems such as Facebook and MySpace. Information has transformed itself from top-down structure (i.e., a center gathers information and send it out to regions) to horizontal stricture (i.e., unfiltered information disperses from anywhere). The biggest advantage is of course the accessibility of information by almost anyone with the Internet, diverse discussions that allow people to learn more about the other culture and world affairs easily, and transmission of minority opinions into the world. It is only natural that liberal views become popular among young people as well as the educated. But even such tremendous social benefit is not without a backlash. As liberal views are shared almost worldwide, topics concerning sexuality and gender in particular have taken a twisted turn. In this global age, everybody knows that gender discrimination to be outdated, everybody sees that sexism is a problem in the past, everybody takes for granted that feminism has won the battle for gender equality. Thus, being a feminist in this enlightened era is clinging onto the glory of the past. To be a feminist, indeed, is outdated. It is old and hence to be rejected. “Why would you bring up feminism,” people would question, “since feminists won the battle decades ago? What’s the point of claiming that you are a feminist, other than trying to impress people with your moral sensitivity?” Feminism, indeed to them, died when it ‘won’ the freedom it set out to achieve.

As a matter of fact, feminism is far from dead. In fact, we are facing a new type of anti-feminist movement that is far more subtle and malignant; we are entering into the new phase of discrimination and oppression with the advent of the Internet. This is the age of global sexism, where the uneducated is controlled by the uneducated. Just as bullying has become a global issue throughout the nations with the abuse of the Internet, sexism too has become upgraded. This is what Susan J. Douglas calls ‘the rise of enlightened sexism’ – to understand the mechanics of how enlightened sexism works requires a completely different set of conceptual system from our previous mindsets. We no longer are facing the problems of lack of political opinions or the right to education (the first wave feminism), we no longer are dealing with the attainment of equal job opportunity for women (the second wave feminism), nor are we simply dealing with the unwanted sexual encounter or sexism behind the closed door (the third wave feminism), but what we are facing now is enlightened sexism – it is enlightened in that it “is feminist in its outward appearance but sexist in its intent.”[4] Not only is it dedicated itself completely to undoing feminism (hence it is also an attack against all the feminist battles previously fought) but also includes in-your-face sexism, but done with a twist so it would not seem like sexists are actually being sexists, for why would they, since they are giving opportunities for the girls’ own good.[5]

In this paper, my objective is to elucidate how this enlightened sexism has come to dominate the popular culture to the extent that has turned most of us into unknowing hypocrites. At the same time, to discuss this issue with a sense of urgency, I have picked an increasingly popular Japanese girls-only singer group, AKB48, as the ultimate embodiment of the enlightened sexism.

II: Enlightened Sexism

Social ethics in Japan is almost non-existent. Frequency of death by overwork[6], pornography on the trains and stations[7] and stifling of minority opinions in society[8] are some of the glaring evidence of this. “Men can choose to enter an adult bookstore; women and children cannot choose to avoid sexually violent or beauty-pornographic imagery that follow them home.”[9] There is injustice in society, and nobody is doing anything about it. In the society where female workers get fired because they became pregnant[10], and where it is socio-culturally accepted even by the female workers themselves, it is no wonder exploitation of the oppressed gender becomes the norm and justifies itself by the name of ‘cultural’ practice. In the early 1970s, women in Japan were influenced by the philosophy of Simone de Beauvoir and of Betty Friedan. But at the wake of 1990s, as the enlightened sexism rose as a backlash of women’s getting equality, feminism in Japan existed in name only and its philosophy had practically gone extinct. People still believed that women should be granted equal rights as men, but women in Japan have repeatedly told me, “I don’t like feminists, because they assume they are better than men; they want a revenge, and treat men as their inferior. I don’t like that.” Indeed, this is not a phenomenon unique to Japan, but prevalent in the Western societies as well. But what is different from the Western societies is that in Japan there is no one who tries to correct that definition of feminism, because they believe correcting someone assumes that they are superior to others and hence brings about a hostile eye and embarrassment to themselves. This attitude, indeed, of seeing ethics as a sign of superiority makes it impossible for employees to file a complaint about excessive overwork or for women workers to criticize male perspective (such as that it is natural and lawful for men to fire women because women would get married and quit anyway) in society.

Hence, AKB48 sprang out and won success in a society most fitted for exploiting the socially weaker. Here, perhaps it is best that we see what it is that is so vehemently abhorrent about the girls-only popular singer group in Japan, AKB48, how it encapsulates and promotes the aspects of enlightened sexism and why it, more urgently than other groups similar to it, needs to be discussed and paid attention to from the perspectives of social ethics and culture. AKB48 is a singer group comprised of (in principle) 48 girls who are amateur singers. Yasushi Akimoto, who created and writes lyrics for the group, has produced a number of popular idol groups in the past, but maintains the view that this group is different from any other groups in the past or present.[11] Indeed, Akimoto himself emphasizes that its concept is radically different in that most singer groups go onto the stage after “strict auditions” and “go[ing] through difficult lessons and coaching”, whereas with AKB48, it is the opposite. “AKB48 girls are ‘unfinished’”, Akimoto continues, “they are still not very good at singing or dancing” and “are unpolished and fans can watch them progress.”[12] Asides from a poorly constructed argument from the aesthetic point of view,[13] what stands out in its marketing strategy is that fans can watch them grow. In fact, this is the entire concept. But who would want to watch, semi-permanently wasting their time and using their money, something that is not finished? This is not a sporting contest; when was the last time you just watched a group of people practice until they become skilled at what they do? Clearly, there needs to be an aspect that keeps the audience interested – interested enough that people would not just quit watching. This is where the employment of young girls come in handy. They are malleable, cheaply employed and attractive to male audience who are the one with money. As has been hinted upon above, women in Japan are predisposed to housework duties rather than aspiring careers. Even if they do want careers, they get fired as soon as they have babies. The society in general makes it hard for women to be women. Hence it follows that it is usually the men who have spending money at their own disposal. It is usually the men who work, and it is the men whom companies want to hire.[14] Akimoto was lying when he at one point denied that he is strictly targeting men as his audience when asked a question implying if he is merely using girls to allure economically stronger sex.[15] As a reputable producer of entertainment industry, it is hardly likely that he had not thought about the targeting audience. In fact, he does state that he was initially targeting “people who like idols.”[16] Being fully aware that people who like idols are predominantly men with economic independence,[17] he cannot have sounded more hypocritical than then. This employment of young girls has another benefit of masking the apparent sexism of the past, and turn it into apparent pro-feminism in outward appearance. Contrary to the women in the past, girls can now get jobs as governors, lawyers and distinguished artists. Even in the United States, a 2009 poll showed that “60 percent of men and 50 percent of women ‘are convinced that there are no longer any barriers to women’s advancement in the workplace.’”[18] In Japan, where women believe it is natural for companies to fire them upon pregnancy, the growing popularity of female singer groups in Japan is a proof that women have attained what feminism set out to accomplish and even more. But here lies the trick of enlightened sexism. Even though girls became popular and achieved public fame and ‘career’ success, they neither sing nor dance well on stage, singing in over 10 people at the same time renders it impossible for any sensible audience to ascertain the talent each singer may have, and these girls are often not praised for their singing or dancing abilities (since, for one thing, they all dance the same) but based on their personality, appearance and whether they are single of not.[19] This is a clear statement of enlightened sexism: women are supposed to be admired for how they appear, not what they can do professionally. Is it truly said that women have achieved the same social equality as men? Do men get fired for dating somebody? Are they barred from the competition if they are ugly? Enlightened sexism “takes the gains of the women’s movement as a given, and then uses them as permission to resurrect retrograde images of girls and women as sex objects” and such that it proclaims that since women have attained equality, “now it’s okay, even amusing, to resurrect sexist stereotypes of girls and women.”[20] Because everyone knows that sexism is ridiculous and the guys who embrace it is a bunch of morons, the objectification of women is acceptable; after all, it can’t possibly undermine women’s equality now that they have it all, right?[21] In fact, this is one of the comments I received against my criticism of sexism in popular culture:

“You treat consumers like complete idiots who cannot tell a fantasy that they are being sold from reality. Let people have their fun – if it’s all consensual, it should be just fine”[22]

We all know that they are selling a fantasy, and no one is stupid enough not to differentiate the reality from fantasy, and if they are, then they are just morons – these people “are so dumb, such helpless slaves to big breasts… why, it’s actually a joke on [these] guys. It’s silly to be a sexist; therefore, it’s funny to be a sexist,” so the female display is completely harmless and a feminist critique not necessary.[23] We all know sexism is stupid and retro, so why would we be sexist? Only some clueless morons who don’t get the jokes would think that![24] In fact, now the feminist battle is over and won, we should embrace we used to see as sexist as a relief, including hyper-girliness. Thank God girls and women can bathe together in the shower, use sexy appearances to get jobs, and now act dumb in string bikinis to attract guys. Since women allegedly have the same sexual freedom as men, they actually prefer to be sex objects because it is liberating.[25] That this is a common view by male audience of AKB48 and is widely accepted as a good argument is obvious from a number of comments I received against my criticism.

“Yeah heaven forbid women sing about sexuality. I mean, we all know that women are completely sexless creatures who should only be impregnated in the name of procreation.

And about the girls being “too young”, you clearly are very out of touch with the sexuality of young people today. I can tell you that when puberty hits, it hits, no matter what any moral or law says.[26]

“These girls are not being exploited. They know what they are doing, get money for it and the worst they have to endure is a few morons throwing tickets in their face. Noone [sic] is forcing them to endure it and they get paid for which makes this a regular job. Also they can quit anytime they want.”[27]

“Furthermore I have talked about akb with university students and know full well that girls like akb because they are cute, have cool dresses, use vivid colors and they make songs easy to sing at karaoke bars.”[28]

“Wow just wow, so a girl who is 15 and decides for herself what she wants, then it’s wrong? Girls are old enough to decide by the age of 15 if not sooner.”[29]

These are some of the comments that praise (hence presupposes) equality and independence of women in the 21st century. If you see women doing something sexual, it is the proof that they have been liberated. Further, who am I to say they are exploited? Obviously it is what they want to do, after all, “no one is forcing them” to do this. However, this kind of view is exactly what enlightened sexism fosters, as it “is especially targeted to girls and young women and emphasizes that now that they ‘have it all,’ they should focus the bulk of their time and energy on their appearance, pleasing men, being hot, competing with other women, and shopping.”[30] It takes what used to be sexist but with a twist – with seeming approval from the women who are exploited themselves. “If women are doing it against their will, then it is bad,” these perpetuators say, “but they signed up to be sex objects themselves. So why bother and assume your view, which is contrary to what those girls themselves say, is right?” Sure, women who take off their clothes for the camera are not exploited, because they made the decision to do it. They can be sexual now and turn their backs on stick-in-the-mud, because it is liberating. But if this were true, that this is what girls want, and that what media do is merely reflect the reality, why do we only see them who are skinny and pretty? The very fact that AKB48 does not have any women considered overweight tells us something we intuitively know: that media are not simply mirrors that show the reality. In fact, Susan Douglas warns us in her book that “[m]any producers insist that the mass media are simply mirrors, reflecting reality, whatever that is, back to the public. Whenever you hear this mirror metaphor, I urge you to smash it.”[31] She also feels that if media are mirrors as they say, it must be fun house mirrors where you see your figures distorted and certain parts become huge while other parts nearly disappear. It eventually dedicates itself on “celebrat[ing] female centered-knowledge – fashion, makeup, babies, relationships – that used to be derided as trivial, and insist that such knowledge matters.[32] That this idea of enlightened sexism is propagated in AKB48 is also made apparent with their “online application called ‘AKBaby’ which allows fans to visualize how their children would look like if their mother were one of the AKB48 girls.”[33] With this application, by sending your pictures, they will computer graphically generate a picture of a baby made with one of the AKB48 members. Indeed, one of the creepiest triumphs of enlightened sexism is the sexualization of young girls as harmless, funny or both.[34] This is why AKB48 girls are mostly consisted of younger girls, wearing bikinis or nothing at all but soap bubbles, including 14 years olds.[35] All this is justified because, as one commented, “girls like akb because they are cute, have cool dresses, use vivid colors,” as if it makes it all okay for them to sing about teenage prostitution.[36] Perhaps, it is less of a problem if they sang about references to safer sex or sexual risks or responsibilities, but they don’t. The questions these perpetuators of enlightened sexism avoid to ask themselves are how girls and women have been sexualized, how that is different from the way men have been, and what the consequence of all this might be.[37] Studies have shown that when young men are exposed to such stereotypes AKB48 portrays women as, i.e. girls bathing each other, thin girls wearing bikinis while smiling for no particular reason, or wanting to be sexualized, men are more inclined to treat women as sex objects or approach them in similarly sexist ways.[38] Another study found that when women are exposed to the similar stereotypical images, they are less likely to want to assume leadership roles and more likely to choose a subservient position.[39] Such studies clearly show us that how influential media are in shaping our identities, our dreams, our ambitions and even our fears. For such media’s “relentless parading of hyper-thin women corrodes many girls’ and women’s self-esteem, makes them very dissatisfied with their own bodies, and contributes to the prevalence of eating disorders.”[40] This is also evidenced by a 2006 survey, where girls felt they had to be skinny to be successful, more than half of the girls in grades three through five worried about their appearance, and yet another study showed that the number one wish of girls between the ages of eleven and seventeen is to lose weight.[41] A primary school teacher in Japan told me that her 6th graders do not stop talking about how they wish to be like AKB48 members during lunch break. But these idols they wish to be like are distortion of reality. Just as in the West, Victoria’s Secret gives a definitive answer to the ultimate question: “What is sexy?” Answer: Gisele Bundchen or Heidi Klum, AKB48 too defines what success and beauty should look like: Oshima Yuko, Kashiwagi Yuki, or any others in the group, for that matter, as they all point to one answer: Barbie. This is the enlightened sexism’s ideal female form.[42] In fact, this group is so obsessed with creating a perfect female form that in June 2011 they created a computer-generated member named Eguchi Aimi, who is a composite character collected from assembling each member’s best facial features.[43] From such actual examples, what we can learn about women’s roles in popular culture is restricted to their faces, bodies, hair, outfits, behaviors, relationships, and mothering skills by which they are ultimately judged, and hence they perpetually remain under relentless, withering, microscopic scrutiny.[44] This is precisely what beauty is: generic figure that is replaceable. Since what mass culture defines beauty is of a generic figure, as a woman faces being subjected to invasive physical scrutiny, it is impossible for her to pass the beauty test – “you have to look like a supermodel to fit in,” a seventh-grader explained.[45] “‘You are expected to be very sexy and attractive but at the same time are condemned for the sexuality that you portray,” another tenth grader complains.[46] Girls are perpetually trapped in this lose-lose situation: “if you do not dress like a high class hooker, you are a dork; if you do, you are slutty.”[47] In short, there is no right way a woman can look. But in the culture such as ours where men look at women and women watch themselves being looked at, women come to see themselves as cheap imitations of fashion photographs, rather than seeing fashion photographs as cheap imitations of women.[48] If a harsh judgment is passed regarding how they look, it is not her reputation that suffers so much as the stability of her moral universe.[49] This leads to the common view held among young women that they can only feel good about themselves in a state of semi-starvation. Symptoms of semi-starvation are normally seen upon losing 25 percent of their body weight, and the psychological effects of self-imposed semi-starvation are identical to those of involuntary semi-starvation. Namely, emotional disturbance including depression, hypochondriasis, hysteria, angry bursts, loss of ability to function in work and social contexts due to apathy, reduced energy and alertness, social isolation, and decreased sexual interest.[50] Of course, this is not a problem unique to AKB48 or just Japanese popular culture in general. But from what has been said of the group, it is undeniable that AKB48 is as guilty as any other media that use enlightened sexism’s ideal female form to make women hate what misogynists hate. In effect, I believe AKB48 is doing more harm than other similarly oriented groups solely due to its insurmountable popularity. In a way, as we have seen in one of the comments above, it is true, it may be argued as misogynists often do, that women choose to go on an excessive diet, that they choose to look pretty to attract guys and that they choose to be sex objects. So what’s the harm in that? It’s not like they are doing it against their will. Let them have fun. But when this choice is the only choice offered to them to be successful, when the choice is to be visible or to fall out of the picture in the society, when it is to survive or to perish, such a choice means nothing. Indeed, the situation of women resembles that of an animal caught in a trap; an animal caught in a trap does not choose to gnaw its leg off.[51] Hence it is obvious that the girls did not choose to do the mouth-to-mouth relay of the soft candy in a recently controversial commercial.[52] They did not choose to make a promotional video with almost no clothes.[53] And no, they did not choose to believe it is the only way for idols to succeed. It was chosen for them by the popular culture industry, and it was forced on them as the only way to stardom. Yet still, some people believe that women have not only attained social equality but also achieved a high status much envied by men. And this social currency is femininity. Whatever embodies this femininity is, then, beautiful and thus adored as goddess-like. But femininity in the end is nothing but femaleness plus whatever a society happens to be selling, for “ [i]f ‘femininity’ means female sexuality and its loveliness, women have never lost it and do not need to buy it back.” [54] Those who say that women are respected in the society because they are portrayed as goddesses do not realize that the definition of beauty comes from outside women themselves. They are the ones who manipulate this definition in whatever way they like so they may further perpetuate enlightened sexism into public sub-consciousness and justify it by saying ‘we respect women because we adore them.’ We clearly adore them for their beauty, so much so that we sometimes “dismiss or do not hear a woman because our attention has been drawn to her size or makeup or clothing or hairstyle.”[55] This is exactly what is happening with the AKB48, for the members are voted for their looks. That is why even if some of them have developed talents over the years of participating in the group, they are forced into ‘graduating’ from the group, because they are now older and lacking in ‘femininity.’ This also in turn helps “to ensure that as few men as possible will form a bond with one woman for years or for a lifetime” because they are always ‘graduating,’ and at the same time helps to ensure that women’s dissatisfaction with themselves will grow rather than diminish over time” as younger girls come in to replace the older ones. This is the reality of the system of consumer culture: “markets made up of sexual clones, men who want objects and women who want to be objects, and the object desired ever-changing, disposable, and dictated by the market.” [56] AKB48, in this way, stands out as the prime example of beauty myth working with optimum efficiency.

I believe AKB48 as the result of our neglecting the studies of social ethics in Japan. More than the Western countries, Japanese culture has been openly sexual. That this is the case is obvious to anyone who has been to Japan, got on a train and walked in the city. Here, sexual explicitness is not the issue. As Naomi Wolf mentions, we could use a lot more of sexual explicitness, “if explicit means honest and revealing; if there were a full of spectrum of erotic images of un-coerced real women and real men in contexts of sexual trust, beauty pornography could theoretically hurt no one.”[57] But when the depiction of sexuality is distorted and censored to fit the male fantasy, such as seen in many of the AKB48 promotional videos, it persuades the viewers that that is how it is and hence how it should be. Just as pornography teemed with violence against women desensitizes and “makes men progressively trivialize the severity of the violence they see against women,”[58] popular culture depicts sexuality such as prostitution and female subservience so that men and women will become interested in it.[59] However the fans of AKB48 tries to willfully ignore, the fact is that pornography and mass-culture are working to collapse sexuality with sexual fantasy created by men, “reinforcing the patterns of male dominance and female submission so that many young people believe this is simply the way sex is.” This means that many of the sexual aggressors, such as rapists and people who pay for sex, of the future will come to believe that they are behaving with socially accepted norms.[60]

III: The Reign of AKB48

Feminist movement has always centered on the issue of equal, informed education of women, but the age of enlightened sexism – what I might call a second-wave sexism – is immune to this antidote. This is precisely because the exploitation now begins at a much earlier age. As an example, the youngest AKB48 member is an 11-year-old[61] and a 13-year-old was seen almost naked in the infamous promotional video for Heavy Rotation.[62] The fans claim that those girls choose to wear sexy outfit (or nothing at all) and sign the contract; they know fully well what signing a contract implies, as we should not treat girls as stupid and incapable of making their own decisions. The absurdity of such a claim is so obvious that I will not elaborate it here. What I need to point out to those who believe in such a claim is that this has nothing to do with intellect or stupidity – smart people are fully capable of being exploited. Some people stubbornly argue that these girls are not exploited precisely because they would not be doing this if they were exploited. These people assume that the exploited are only exploited when they are coerced into doing something against their will; because exploitation implies coercion and the girls in AKB48 are all consenting to the terms of contract, they are not exploited.[63] By this reasoning, children who consent to adults having sex with them are not exploited, nor are girls who show their breasts on camera for money. This indeed is an irritatingly idiotic definition of what exploitation is, and I would not have spent time in mentioning about it had I not been getting the same arguments over and over again: that they are not exploited. Whatever their reasoning, I shall respond to them, once and for all, by citing dictionary definitions, Reference.com.[64] According to one of the most referenced online dictionary, ‘exploitation’ means “1) Use or utilization especially for profit, 2) selfish utilization, or 3) the combined, often varied, use of public relations and advertising techniques to promote a person, movie, product, etc…”[65] Does any of this sound like what popular culture does, AKB48 for instance? And not even one dictionary states that ‘exploitation’ has to do with stupidity or coercion. They can be accompanied qualities of persons being exploited but they are not essential for someone to be exploited.

In the reign of popular culture, it is not possible to educate young men and women prior to the exploitation. For one thing, we are born in the midst of indoctrination of exploiting culture, but even if we were not, the popular culture gets to you faster than you can learn multiplication at school. The only way for us to guard ourselves against such an offense is to be aware of the exploitation as a normal course of events in the popular culture, and actively refuse to accept it. The popular culture has interfered feminism by giving us something we can get preoccupied with – a beauty myth. This is because the only way to stop a revolution is to give people something to lose.[66] But we will not be blinded by the beauty myth. Not until we have the conception of beauty that is noncompetitive, nonhierarchical and nonviolent.[67]

[1] For instance, most programs were limited to transmitting cooking shows and cartoon. (http://www.livinghistoryfarm.org/farminginthe50s/life_17.html) accessed on Aug. 1st, 2012.

[2] The first colour TV was introduced in Japan on Sep. 10th, 1960; in Canada in 1966; in the US in 1953 with a gradual replacement of the black and white TV with that of the colour. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_introduction_of_color_television_in_countries) accessed on Aug.1st, 2012.

[3] The first anchorwoman news reporter was in 1976.

[4] Douglas, Susan S. “The Rise of Enlightened Sexism: How Pop Culture Took Us from Girl Power to Girls Gone Wild.” 10

[6] Japan is known for overwork – I once met a man who worked at a head office of a private language school, who told me that he could only come back home and see his newborn baby 2~3 times a week. The company prepares for the workers sleeping bags so as to induce them to work and sleep at the office. Such in-your-face provisions in the office also make it seem normal for workers not to go home.

[7] Advertisement posters for pornographic magazines, such as PlayBoy, are found in each train cart, where it is visually accessible to anyone. Since trains in Japan are used by kids (for commuting to primary school) as much as adults, imagine the psychological influence it produces on them about the image of women.

[8] By this I mean a social pressure rather than strictly political pressure. For instance, even among friends or coworkers, discussing about moral issues in depth makes you seem ‘too serious’ and hence boring. It is embarrassing to be outspokenly moral.

[9] Wolf, Naomi. The Beauty Myth, 135.

[10] This happened to a friend of mine very recently. She used to be a head assistant to a reputable dentist, yet upon her second pregnancy, she was asked to leave – it is not in any way an isolated incident, but is practiced regularly by companies in Japan. The custom and culture gives a peer pressure to the women who get fired due to their physical condition as woman from filing a complaint.

[11] This is a comment most often repeated in many of his interviews about the origin of AKB48. Here, I believe it is more than sufficient to cite one source for the sake of formality. http://blogs.wsj.com/japanrealtime/2011/12/28/the-man-who-made-akb48/

[13] Art normally insists to be complete and presentable, no true artists would show a painter who can’t paint or an unfinished calligraphy and say it is a form of art, as that would justify my claim for a better grade for my unfinished essay in the same reasoning.

[14] When they want women workers, it is normally for receptionists or assistants, as we have seen, and such workers are dispensable. Women are used until they bear children.

[17] He has been in this business for the last 40 years.

[18] Douglas, The Rise of Enlightened Sexism, 21. Her source is from Time magazine published on Oct 26, 2009.

[19] It is famously known that girls in AKB48 are not allowed to date anyone. As soon as it is found out that they have boyfriends, they are fired or reduced to lower status within the group, and many fans cease to support them.

[22] See the comments posted by Anon E. Mouse at https://isseicreekphilosophy.wordpress.com/2011/07/24/akb48-sexual-exploitation-of-pre-teen-girls-in-japanese-pop-culture/

[26] See Greelight’s comment at https://isseicreekphilosophy.wordpress.com/2011/07/24/akb48-sexual-exploitation-of-pre-teen-girls-in-japanese-pop-culture/

[27] See Ready2’s comment at https://isseicreekphilosophy.wordpress.com/2012/01/19/the-case-of-akb48-neo-virus/#comments

[29] See Eunseo’s comment at https://isseicreekphilosophy.wordpress.com/2011/07/24/akb48-sexual-exploitation-of-pre-teen-girls-in-japanese-pop-culture/#comments

[35] See more on this at https://isseicreekphilosophy.wordpress.com/2011/07/24/akb48-sexual-exploitation-of-pre-teen-girls-in-japanese-pop-culture/

[36] Or compensated dating, as it is called in Japan.

[38] Ibid., 211. Her source is from Laurie A. Rudman and Eugene Borgia, “The Afterglow of Construct Accessibility: The Behavioral Consequences of Priming Men to View Women as Sexual Objects,” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 31 (1995):513-514.

[39] Ibid. Her source is from Paul Davies et al., “Consuming Images: How Television Commercials That Elicit Stereotype Threat Can Restrain Women Academically and Professionally,” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, December 2002, 1626.

[48] Wolf, Naomi. The Beauty Myth, 58, 105.

[51] Wolf, Naomi. The Beauty Myth, 258.

[52] For more information, see http://www.tokyohive.com/2012/04/akb48s-puccho-mouth-to-mouth-cm-criticized-by-viewers/

[54] Wolf, The Beauty Myth, 177.

[58] For instance, pornographic images often imprints young men and women with a sexuality that is mass-produced, deliberately dehumanizing and inhuman. See Wolf, 162. Further, “[o]f the women raped, 84 percent knew the attacker, and 57 percent were raped at dates. Date rape, this, is more common than left-handedness, alcoholism, and heart attaks.” See Wolf, 166.

[60] Ibid., 167. She further goes on to say that “[c]ultural representation of glamorized degradation has created a situation among the young in witch boys rape and girls get raped as a normal course of events. The boys may even be unaware that what they are doing is wrong; violent sexual imagery may well have raised a generation of young men who can rape women without even knowing it.”

[61] See “The youngest member of the group, Natsumi Tanaka, was born in 2000, and 11 years old at the time of the announcement. She said that “joining AKB48 is my ambition since I was 5 years old, so it feels like a dream to be in this group.”” And its source at http://www.oricon.co.jp/news/music/2002974/full/

[62] Matsui Jurina was born in 1997, and the Heavy Rotation was released in 2010.

[63] I will refer you back to the comment by Ready2, or see the footnote 27 in this paper.

[64] Ranked one of the most popular websites in 2007, many of the information listed come from external sources such as CIA World Factbook, prepared by the CIA, frequently used as a resource for academic research papers. See Wikipedia links at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reference.com http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_World_Factbook