Tomorrow Girls Troop has no center or hierarchy
Tomorrow Girls Troop continues to grow every day and now has a total of more than 50 members. Since the beginning, our members have been scattered all over the world, and therefore, our base is the internet.
While most members live in Japan and North America, we also have members in South Korea, Europe, and South America. Our members are diverse in their upbringing and cultural backgrounds, and many of us travel around the world frequently for school, work, or marriage.
There is no one common language that all of our members can speak. We communicate primarily in Japanese and English and occasionally in Korean. It is common practice to use translation and interpretation for internal communication. Having members in different parts of the world facilitates the exchange of information about international feminism, and this allows us to create more impactful work. On the other hand, it is difficult for us to meet face-to-face in any one place. Thus, from the very beginning, our members have been facilitating projects through our online community.
Most of Tomorrow Girls Troop members are women in their late teens to 30s, and the majority are students, part-time workers, or women raising children, who have little time or money to spare. The online nature of our group allows members to work on projects on their own time and in any location. This form of activism is accessible to members who are raising children as well as those who work long hours or night shifts. Many of our members participate in the group’s activism in the little spare time that they find during their busy daily lives.
We believe that messages are conveyed most strongly when activists feel motivated and fulfilled in the work. For this reason, members are free to join, leave, or take a break at Tomorrow Girls Troop.
We also actively try to eliminate hierarchical relationships based on age, gender, academic background, etc., which are deeply rooted in today’s society. At Tomorrow Girls Troop, we actively invite younger and/or newer members to lead projects.
Why Tomorrow Girls Troop members work anonymously
At Tomorrow Girls Troop, we intentionally keep our members anonymous as a strategy. There are two reasons for this choice.
Firstly, we hope that people focus on the social issues that we address rather than our members’ appearance, gender, title, education, or nationality.
The Guerrilla Girls, a group of feminist artists that formed in New York City in 1985, also wear masks and work anonymously. They describe the reason for the group’s anonymity: “We wanted the focus to be on the issues, not on our personalities or our own work.” In their talks, they encourage others to stay anonymous as well when working on feminist issues.
In Japan, so many people have spoken out on feminist issues only for the media to often emphasize and at times ridicule the activists’ appearance, fashion, age, title, etc. This obscures the actual issues that they have raised. This emphasis on the activists’ characteristics rather than the issue seems more likely when it is women or other minorities, such as people in the LGBTQ+ community, speaking out, or when men speak out in support of minorities.
Although Tomorrow Girls Troop is different from Guerrilla Girls—generationally, in country of origin, and in gender makeup, as we are not women-only—we trusted them and decided to work anonymously. After all, the Guerrilla Girls had been confronting feminist issues for 30 years.
Secondly, we wanted to be considerate towards those who were unable to work under their real name due to family issues such as domestic violence. Since the beginning of Tomorrow Girls Troop, we have always had such members.
We consider being able to work using one’s real name to be a privilege. It signifies that one may not be threatened, disowned by their parents, fired from jobs, harassed, or followed by stalkers or domestic violence abusers, or, even if such things occurred, one may have people around them that will help them or have a safe space they can escape to. Women and gender minorities are more vulnerable to such situations. We decided to create an anonymous group so that those in such unstable situations can also work together.