“Gendered Representations and Feminism” has long been debated in women’s studies. However, we should not end the discussion by stating that we respect the history of speaking out against gender discrimination and carry it forward to the present day while at the same time enjoying the freedom to enjoy representation. How should we face this theme?

  Kira introduced a history of criticism of sexism and gender asymmetry in the interpretation of representations in art history, as well as various examples of gender issues in the responses of the art world to these criticisms. Maenosono introduced a new way of thinking about two-dimensional bi-shojo (beautiful girls) characters, which are often criticized in the context of gender discrimination, and proposed a methodology for enjoying them while being aware of the mechanisms of gender and discrimination. Tanaka’s report raised an essential question of how to charge discrimination and violence in the current media. Various new online media uncritically inherit sexist expressions. Magazines for female readers also are full of sexist content. The audience joined the discussion on this problem.

  Through questions and answers, the participants were able to confirm the importance of dialogue and opportunities to exchange various opinions, as well as the need for institutions and literacy with rules for enjoying while criticizing sex discrimination.

  The so-called “flaming” phenomenon that has recently occurred mainly online is often related to gender and representation. Representation is not just a “reflection of the real world” but an “expression of the desire” of the person who created it. However, since there is no compulsory education curriculum to teach about such effects, social recognition of power relations over-representation has not penetrated the general society. The result is the emergence of irreconcilable debates between feminism and anti-feminism over gendered representations and the existence of a third audience that makes up the majority of audiences that do not participate in either.

  In the “Map of the Social Structure of Visual Representation,” there are stakeholders such as “creators,” “recipients,” and “orderers and mediators” who order works in society centering on representation. Both pieces of art and stakeholders exist in society and are in a mutually tense relationship that creates and interprets art. Both have a mutually influential relationship. The desires of the community, creators, and members of society who live in it become represented and the work also plays a role in society’s ideology.

  It is necessary to build a common framework for discussion to advance the stalemate debate, such as efforts to provide society with educational opportunities related to symbolic reading comprehension in a way that encompasses the third audience.

  This paper aims to refine the discussions on “bi-shojo kyara”（commonly known as “moe kyara”）. First, arguments criticizing “bi-shojo kyara” from the perspective of gender equality are problematic in two ways. Such discussions tend to（1）falsely assume that all “bi-shojo kyara” look sexual, and（2）pay attention only to the sexual appearance of “bi-shojo kyara” and dismiss other viewpoints that women’s studies have pointed out. This paper explores the criticism against advertisements with representations of women, which women’s studies and activities have made for several decades, and proposes analyses on “bi-shojo kyara” from the following three perspectives: their（1）sexual appearance;（2）character and settings;（3）necessity of using representations of women. Next, from analyses of actual advertisements with “bi-shojo kyara,” this paper considers that “bi-shojo kyara” has no problems when perceived from those three perspectives. This paper considers the unique issues and potential of “bi-shojo kyara” due to their fiction-ness. Consequently, this paper insists “bi-shojo kyara” should not be denied from biased viewpoints based on misunderstandings and should be studied based on their realities.

  This report deals with specific cases of female representation in media content and advertisements. They have become the subject of controversy on SNS in recent years from the perspective of media theory and media culture theory in the age of digitalization. This paper tries to explain the following four points. First, based on the intentions of holding the symposium and the presentations by the two preceding speakers, I would like to present a rough sketch of the theme of “representation of women in the media” and organize the points of discussion. Second, based on the results of the second-wave feminist movement against representations of women, improvements were made to stereotype words in conventional media and the language used to express women, and thorough internal examinations aimed at creating gender-equal content. While confirming the achievements, this report also thinks about its limits. Third, this report examines the cultural expansion of free sexual expression in popular culture for women. In the materialistic consumption of masculinity and female sexuality by women, the criticism of “moe-e” seems to be a double standard. Fourth, the subsequent changes in media technology and the transformation from analog to digital media have erased the boundaries between various communities and brought about a revolution in the media environment, such as the seamless transition between the private and public spheres. At the same time as theoretically explaining the above, this report explores the difficulty of dialogue on the “representation of women” and the possibility of overcoming it.

  This paper studies hair removal by female high school students through interviews with 32 female students at Minamikaze（pseudonym）, a Japanese co-ed private high school. Most of the students remove hair from their armpits, arms, and legs. They started and continued this practice to conform to the normative expectations related to body hair and construct their imagined selves. The imagined self identifies with not only the actual body but also the body that is attainable through beauty practices because hair removal has become the minimum grooming practice for specific classes of Minamikaze’s female students, they don’t have any choice other than to remove their body hair.

  Consequently, one student who does not meet this expectation ends up hating herself, even though she does not receive direct criticism from others. In Japanese society, hair removal in armpits, arms, and legs has become the grooming required for women in their teens and twenties. Therefore, even women who cannot remove their body hair for physiological reasons may receive criticism from others. Because this is unjust for women, it is necessary to change the norm that women should remove their body hair in order to be beautiful.

  This paper reviews the victim and survivor discourses on sexual assault that have developed since the late 1960s, mainly in anglophone countries. Recently, research, especially in psychiatry and psychology, focusing on the subjectivity of women who have experienced sexual assault, is flourishing in Japan. However, while technical theories such as the development of psychotherapy and clinical research have seemed acceptable in this context, the discussions by feminist researchers on gender issues have not yet achieved this status. Therefore, this paper investigates the debates among feminist scholars that have developed mainly in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Philosophers and sociologists, in collaboration sometimes with psychologists, considered the merits and demerits of psychiatric discourses on sexual assault and the resulting trauma. Specifically, the author will examine how the victim discourse, which emphasizes passivity as a sick person suffering from trauma, and the survivor discourse, which emphasizes autonomy and coping actively with trauma, have developed since the late 1960s. This examination reveals how feminist scholarship seemingly devalues medical interventions and attempts to illuminate the people excluded from them. This paper concludes this review will provide clues for rethinking care for those who have experienced sexual assault in Japan beyond a mere critique of medicalization.

  When an occupation is gendered as feminine, how do those who work in it interpret the gendered figure assigned to it? This paper aims to clarify this question by focusing on the narratives of women working in the beauty profession. In the beauty industry, approximately 80% of the employees are women, therefore it is highly gendered as a “feminine” occupation due to its working conditions and nature. How do women in the beauty industry accept or dismiss the “feminine” image of their career? Moreover, how do their interpretations relate to the transformation and reproduction of gender norms and feminism? The purpose of this paper is to clarify these questions. In previous studies, beauty workers have been discussed either as “agents” of the “beauty myth” that women must be beautiful or as “victims” engaged in labor under poor conditions. Such discussions lack a perspective that seeks to understand their interpretive practices and the characteristics of their work. This research examines women’s interpretations of their occupations using data from interviews with 29 women in the beauty industry from January to April 2021. This study uses two definitions of “pink collar jobs” (“women’s workplace” and “women-oriented work”), which women’s labor studies have conceptualized, as supporting lines in the analysis. The analysis results indicate that women working as beauty professionals do not merely accept the image of “beauty profession = feminine” that has become ubiquitous in the population, but construct their own professional identity, sometimes dismissing it and sometimes using it strategically. Furthermore, their interpretations are ambivalent to feminism, as they can be involved in both reproducing and fluctuating gender norms.