Body Image Awareness

Foreword

Airin Ri

As my last semester as the Editor in Chief of Uprizine closed in this summer, I ruminated over what the themes for Fall 2021 Zine could be. While there are a plethora of issues that deserve to be put under the limelight to spur meaningful discourses within academia, I wanted this Zine to reflect my and many club members’ fervent passion to promote equality and equity within our society.

After weeks of introspective contemplation and a series of discussions with some of the leadership team members, I have made a final decision that the zine themes should be two of the most imperative issues closely related to the students of our generation – “body positivity” and “sexual consent”. To cover such sensitive issues that could evoke gut-wrenching emotions and indelible memories for many is a challenging task. Yet, I wanted our club to take on this challenge based on my own conviction that raising our voices and standing up against the social tide that is detrimental to our mental and physical health vis-à-vis human rights, is my and many other students’ duty. Indeed, we wanted to fully utilize our platform given to Uprizine where its zine readership is large and diverse. That is, I along with many club members believe that tackling these issues head-on would allow us to set much-needed discussion in motion for the betterment of the TUJ community and beyond.

The absence of a positive outlook on our physique and the knowledge of consent to engage in sexual acts is glaring in the world but especially in Japan. The fact that many dialogues that flow from these themes could become achingly personal to many students, I believe, is a testament to the pervasiveness and ferocity of the ramifications that stem from these issues. Consider the seemingly innocuous fashion or cosmetic advertisements we are bombarded with every day in our lives. We become inculcated to believe that our body that frames our unique souls and minds must be altered to fit into the narrowly tailored mold constructed by society’s idea of vogue. When we are encouraged to become someone we aren’t, our souls and minds along with their bodies could become incapacitated, spurring illnesses of many kinds, undermining tsinew to fully engage in our lives. As such, advocating for body positivity – a concept virtually inexistent in Japan – that asserts a healthy body image of all shapes, sizes, and appearances have a significant meaning.

Meanwhile, because non-consensual sex is legal in Japan, many victims of rape are left without justice ever being realized through the legal system. This not only encumbers the healing process of survivors but also discourages people from reporting their incidents. Such iniquitous reality is often overshadowed by the façade of peace and security promoted as the virtue of the country and thus, many people, including Japanese citizens, are unaware that such a primitive set of laws govern the country and its people. While some fervently advocate for the amendment of these obsolete laws that sanction rape and for the requirement of consent to be normalized in society, the large portion of the population in Japan is not even familiar with the concept of sexual consent. Stigma against the survivors and victim-blaming could largely be imputed to such dismal conditions of Japanese law and social norms. Consequently, heartaches and trauma that could have been prevented irreversibly afflict many people, robbing them of their happiness, hopes, and aspirations.