I was looking around online checking out some fashion sites and I came across pictures of what people in the west call harajuku girls (above). I heard about harajuku fashion a while back. Apparently so-called harajuku fashion came about in Tokyo, Japan in the 90's. It's sort of a mixture of styles, mainly punk, traditional Japanese and Goth. The teens who styled and wore the clothes sometimes hung around in the area of a train station called Harajuku Station. Hence the name harajuku girls.I saw something though that I had not heard about. In 2004 the pop singer Gwen Stefani formally of the band No Doubt released an album called Love. Angel. Music. Baby. Ms Stefani at that time hired back up dancers who were called The Harajuku Girls. The dance group featured four Asian women. Three Japanese women and one Japanese American woman. The women worked as back up dancers for live performances as well as video's.
Sometime after this there became a stir in some parts of the Asian American community calling the use of these women degrading and that it perpetuated stereotypes about Asian women. Well that struck me because that seems to be a constant concern in parts of the African American community with regard to rap videos and the depiction of African American women.
So I wondered what would happen if instead of Asian American women fighting such battles by themselves and African American women fighting by themselves and let's not leave out Hispanic American and Native American women and Arab American women, the list goes on. What would happen if all of these groups fought together. Imagine the strength of a coalition of American women of color fighting all the ills that effect all of the groups. How much more effective would millions of women of color be in so many areas, politics, demeaning depictions in the media, violence against women and children, work place discrimination, poverty, the list goes on. The fact is that few of the ills that plague each group does so to that group alone.
So instead of Asian American women speaking out against the negative depiction of harajuku girls by Gwen Stefani and African American women speaking out against negative depictions of African American women in rap video's, how about all women of color speaking out against all of the negative depictions.
Why is it that people of color in this country are so eager to find reasons of discord between respective groups rather than finding commonality? Are we all fighting to see who is the number one victim? Maybe I'm being naive and I'm sure many people would agree that I am and site reason after reason why this couldn't happen, but I hold out hope that one day women of color in America and the world for that matter will see what divides us is far less than what unites us. Maybe one day all woman of color will stand together as one, what a force to be reckoned with that would be.
Whether it's harajuku girls or video vixens it's the same attack. It's an attack on the humanity of women. It desensitizes society and allows people to view woman of color as being less. I hope the time is near that we will join together, more voices equals more power.
4 comments:
"So, I wondered what would happen if instead of Asian American women fighting such battles by themselves and African American women fighting by themselves and let's not leave out Hispanic American and Native American women and Arab American women, the list goes on. What would happen if all of these groups fought together. Imagine the strength of a coalition of American women of color fighting all the ills that effect all of the groups. How much more effective would millions of women of color be in so many areas, politics, demeaning depictions in the media, violence against women and children, work place discrimination, poverty, the list goes on. The fact is that few of the ills that plague each group does so to that group alone."
I wonder as well. Imagine the force that WOC banding together in a group would do to the status quo. Fear. Terror. Dread. When those WOC have finally come together as one to combat all the isms that harm them, then, and only then, will a dent be made in bringing down much of what harms and destroys WOC on a daily basis.
It is not enough for black women to speak out on the Don Imus's or the snoopy dogs out there in the world; it is not enough that Korean women speak out on the injustice of Japan's mistreatment of WWII comfort women; it is not enough that Native American women are the only ones who speak out on the atrocities of rape they endure because of their invisibility.
ALL women must speak out on all things that harm women.
Until all WOC come together and fight collectively against racsim, sexism, classism, heterosexism and all the "isms" out there both in and out of America, figure on WOC still being kept under the heel of oppression.
We all have voices to sing of our sufferings in this world.
We can certainly use our voices to sing for all of us, and in the end all help each other.
What affects one group, will always affect all other groups of women.
Until WOC realize and accept that by helping black women, by helping Native American women, by helping Asian women, Latina, Arabic----we all help each other.
Thank you so much for your comment.
I hope that in this new world of 1000's of media outlets including blogs, that we all will have more unencumbered communication with each other and hopefully that will lead to a coming together.
Depite what some think, change is possible. And so - called little voices can start revolutions!
how about this approach...
Black women stop allowing themselves to be marginalized. No one forces them to be video vixens. It's a choice. How about we as black people start teaching our kids about respecting themselves. We used to do this and it worked. I really don't know when we got away from this. I agree with the idea that the exploitation of women in music videos is wrong, but I also believe that Black Women, have to bear part of the blame.
Yes I agree that Black women to an extent bear part of the blame, but I think the focus ought to be on a society that is comfortable with this and the giant publicly traded companies that give a platform and make billions.
Many of the women that appear in those video's are victims, and I'm not comfortable putting too much blame on them. I think given better opportunities most if not all of them would choose not to be video vixens.
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