Japanese Self Theory

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Introduction By inseparable, I understand it as the self and the other are mutually influencing and are constructed upon each other. The construction of the self and the symbolic others are interdependent. In Edward Said’s Orientalism, he demonstrated that the generalized conception of the non-European societies such as the Middle East and Asia that are unfamiliar and termed “East” are based on the terms of the “West”, thereby justifying their colonialization of these countries with inaccurate representations based on Western thoughts where the Orient is depicted as weak and irrational. The misrepresentation of the non-West are founded on Western thoughts, prejudices and images, picturing the “East” with generalizations that emphasized and…show more content…
These friendship networks constructs their self around the other, by formulating their actions as opposite of what the sarariiman and the sengyo shufu usually do or practice as they want to be liberated and get out of the typical Japanese social and gendered hierarchy. The usual practices of sarariiman and the sengyo shufu are influencing the behavior of the Wain-kurabu and Nomi-kai, as the friendship networks believe that these typical practices are reinforcing the gender inequality and social hierarchy in Japan. Practices these female Japanese executives’ friendship networks engage in are usually un-Japanese and lean towards Western ideas such as going Dutch (warikan), addressing each other by first names and having a connoisseur lifestyle. The practice of addressing each other by their first name is going against the distinctive Japanese culture where people address others based on the type of relationship they share, with the use of different suffixes in dissimilar natures of relationship, usually with reference to the family name. The Japanese women executives’ networks do so as to free themselves of their relations as being someone’s daughter or wife, thereby…show more content…
The self is constructed by the other, her larger kin group. Her actions are connected to the honor of her larger kin group, which can be observed in the case where a woman is murdered by her male kin for the dishonor she had brought upon her kin group when she engage in illicit sexual behavior with men before marriage or men other than her husband after marriage. These Kurdish women have no control over their body and sexuality, but rather have to behave and act virtuously to not risk herself being executed in honor killings as flirtatious behavior and signs of her not protecting and preserving her virtue can deem her as unvirtuous, rendering her to the punishment of honor killing. Kurdish women’s behavior are heavily controlled and restricted by her larger kin group where she can never be left alone and social interactions with non-kin men are prohibited so as to prevent interactions with men that may lead to these women inability to safeguard her reputation. In their patrogenic culture, the woman’s body and her reproductive capacity becomes a property of the kin group as her womb is a metaphor of soil and “earthly territory of the group”, representing patrilineal reproductive sovereignty. By valuing the women’s wombs as soil and earthly territory, the self of the Kurdish women are fashioned by the larger kin group. The other prescribes the values and the rules the self

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