On the Origins of Tomorrow Girls Troop
I am often asked, “How did you end up founding Tomorrow Girls Troop?” In feminism, there is a famous phrase: “the personal is political.” After studying feminism, the uncomfortable personal experiences that I had had all connected, and I felt that as an artist and as a woman I needed to face politics and society.
I grew up in the Japanese countryside aspiring to become an artist. I liked other subjects as much as I liked art, but where I am from, if I was studying on the bus, the driver would tell me, “You shouldn’t study because you’re a girl.” Even though my hometown is in the countryside and there are barely any people, I was groped at the library or used-bookstores when I was in high school. When we were applying for college, my friend was told by her parents, “Since we let your older brother go to college, you should just go to a vocational school,“ and she had to give up applying for a four-year university. Now looking back, it feels natural for me to become interested in feminist issues considering the experiences I have had as a woman. But at the time, I did not realize that these experiences were a result of discrimination, and I did not have any knowledge about feminist issues.
I got into an art university in Japan. I was interested in politics and social issues and wanted to study political art, but I could not find any professors that taught it. Because I believed that if I wanted to study art that dealt with politics and social issues I had to study abroad, I studied English and pursued a graduate program in New York. There, I took courses on socially engaged art and queer feminist art. This was my introduction to feminist art.
The class on queer and feminist art was an eye-opener. Artists that I had learned about in Japan such as Yayoi Kusama and Yoko Ono were introduced in class, and their work was categorized as feminist art. I learned about Yasumasa Morimura’s work as queer art. I had studied Yayoi Kusama, Yoko Ono, and Yasumasa Morimura for many years in Japan, but I realized that no one there was lecturing on their artwork from the perspective of gender.
After graduation, I got married in the US and had a child. I moved from New York to Los Angeles. I was happy raising my child in the local community of mothers who were also artists, but I also joined a community of Japanese mothers to teach my child Japanese. The group consisted of many mothers who were wives of expatriate workers.
Spending time in that community, I noticed that the concerns that the Japanese mothers had were much more serious than those that American mothers had. For example, when our children were about three months old, American mothers would often talk about contraception. American ob-gyns usually ask mothers which method they prefer around that time. Since there are more options to choose from than in Japan, American mothers discuss among themselves which one they should choose. Another common topic was about starting to go on dates again with their husbands. American mothers would talk about who to ask to look after their children and where to go on a date.
Meanwhile, in the Japanese mothers’ community, there was no discussion of protection at all, and some would even mention that they did not want to sleep with their husbands anymore or that they no longer liked their husbands. A common reason for this was that they lost trust in their husbands because they would not help with taking care of their children or with household chores. Even the wives of those that seemed financially well-off would talk about how they gave up going to the dentist or the hair salon because they were taking care of their children by themselves and did not have time. When I tried to introduce them to a babysitter–“ I know a good Japanese babysitter. They have a nursing license and are very trustworthy”–they would decline, saying, “My husband would not like it if I hired a babysitter,” or, “My in-laws that are in Japan will not allow me to get a babysitter.”
Before then, I thought optimistically that if services such as babysitters became more accessible in Japan, there would be less burden on women. I was surprised to see that there were many young women who were not able to receive services necessary to their mental and physical wellbeing, such as going to the hair salon or the dentist, even when there are affordable and safe options readily available, due to the expectations of a “good mother” that are imposed on them by themselves and others around them.
I learned about many issues: child molestation, lack of options for contraception, the “three-year-old myth”*, the lack of childcare services, the lack of men’s participation in childcare, the gender wage gap, and the lack of women in decision-making positions in organizations. Learning about Japanese feminist issues, I felt as though all my experiences of gender discrimination which existed as separate dots in my mind finally connected as a line. I came to believe that what Japan needs are feminists that liberate women and break down the barriers in women’s minds that define how a woman should be.
From that point on, I began to gather members for an artist group to tackle feminist issues in Japan. First, I approached Japanese acquaintances that I had met in the US. I thought that those who live in the US would understand feminism. However, they turned me down, saying, “I don’t think feminism would be accepted in Japan.” I then decided to try my non-Japanese friends. My Korean and American artist friends immediately agreed to join saying, “We are interested in Japanese feminism!”
Since I felt that we needed more Japanese people in the group if we were to do feminist activism in Japan, I also reached out to my friends in Japan. My friends in art declined, saying, “I think there is equality in Japan,” or, “I have never been discriminated against for being a woman.” On the other hand, my friends who had studied sociology agreed to help, saying, “We need feminism in Japan, too. We can’t make art, but we can help.”
Because the group ended up with international members, we decided to expand our focus to East Asian feminism, not only Japanese feminism. With the addition of non-artist members to the group, the challenge for us became how to have artists and non-artists working together.
The founding members were: Midori Ozaki (myself), a Japanese artist raising a child; Sumiko Yagawa, an office worker and mother; Myeong-soon Kim, a Korean artist; Gye-Wol Song, a Korean designer; and Beate Sirota Gordon, an American art writer. And with the support from a couple of friends who could not be official members but were willing to help out, we founded Tomorrow Girls Troop. The five founding members are still active in our group today.
Tomorrow Girls Troop has many members, and they all have their own stories of their first encounter with feminism. There is still not a single country that has achieved gender equality. We hope that learning about our struggles through this book will help you feel closer to feminists.
*The myth suggests that a child should not be separated from its mother for the first three years of its life to ensure proper development and bonding.