![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trenchkamenOh Black Jack, Black Jack. I thought you were the world's most brilliant doctor. Then I read "Confluence", one of the stories in the first volume Vertical recently released, which contains this gem:
"As you know, the uterus and ovaries secrete crucial hormones that define a woman's sex. To have them removed is to quit being a woman. You won't be able to bear children, of course, and you will become unfeminine... I'll say this while you're still a woman. Megumi. I love you with all my heart!"
After the surgery Megumi switches her name to Kei (a man's name), dons a suit, and begins working as a naval doctor, as that's a "man's job".
I know Black Jack in the original manga is strongly a product of his environment; Japan was still extremely patriarchal in the 70s, and for a man living during that time period, Black Jack is quite egalitarian. That doesn't mean I have to like the antiquated sexual politics at play.
But such blatant, ignorant medical misinformation I would hardly expect of the most ill-educated laborer?
Tezuka-sensei, you have a medical license. For shame. SHAME.
This whole concept is so absurd and utterly WRONG, even on a purely physiological level, that it is hard to justify even with dramatic license.
I am very much a modern, genderqueer/androgynous woman. I understand that. I know what seemed radically egalitarian and feminist in Japan in the 1970's is still going to strike me as markedly sexist. And I know it's stupid of me to let one story bother me, but this bothered me so much. I thought so much higher of Black Jack than this. To stop loving a woman because you performed an ovariohysterectomy and you don't consider her a 'woman' anymore? I appreciate the plasticity of gender at play, but this strikes me as back-asswards in all the wrong ways.
Shallow and insecure as it is, this is one of the main reasons I'm more comfortable with the modern Black Jack adaptations. In all the ways that really matter, it's still Black Jack, but I can't, say, see anybody thinking in all seriousness that a woman's gender identity is defined in terms of her reproductive organs. I also couldn't see modern Black Jack saying "Women shouldn't work this late", or any such bullshit. My 'chauvinist cad' alarm starts to go off, which I do not like with one of my favorite characters. That, and I'm a sucker for modern medical technology.
Also, "The most common type among women, with a high mortality rate?" I'm pretty sure even in the 70s breast cancer was the leading 'chick cancer', not uterine cancer, Uterine cancer is uncommon as cancers go.
"As you know, the uterus and ovaries secrete crucial hormones that define a woman's sex. To have them removed is to quit being a woman. You won't be able to bear children, of course, and you will become unfeminine... I'll say this while you're still a woman. Megumi. I love you with all my heart!"
After the surgery Megumi switches her name to Kei (a man's name), dons a suit, and begins working as a naval doctor, as that's a "man's job".
I know Black Jack in the original manga is strongly a product of his environment; Japan was still extremely patriarchal in the 70s, and for a man living during that time period, Black Jack is quite egalitarian. That doesn't mean I have to like the antiquated sexual politics at play.
But such blatant, ignorant medical misinformation I would hardly expect of the most ill-educated laborer?
Tezuka-sensei, you have a medical license. For shame. SHAME.
This whole concept is so absurd and utterly WRONG, even on a purely physiological level, that it is hard to justify even with dramatic license.
I am very much a modern, genderqueer/androgynous woman. I understand that. I know what seemed radically egalitarian and feminist in Japan in the 1970's is still going to strike me as markedly sexist. And I know it's stupid of me to let one story bother me, but this bothered me so much. I thought so much higher of Black Jack than this. To stop loving a woman because you performed an ovariohysterectomy and you don't consider her a 'woman' anymore? I appreciate the plasticity of gender at play, but this strikes me as back-asswards in all the wrong ways.
Shallow and insecure as it is, this is one of the main reasons I'm more comfortable with the modern Black Jack adaptations. In all the ways that really matter, it's still Black Jack, but I can't, say, see anybody thinking in all seriousness that a woman's gender identity is defined in terms of her reproductive organs. I also couldn't see modern Black Jack saying "Women shouldn't work this late", or any such bullshit. My 'chauvinist cad' alarm starts to go off, which I do not like with one of my favorite characters. That, and I'm a sucker for modern medical technology.
Also, "The most common type among women, with a high mortality rate?" I'm pretty sure even in the 70s breast cancer was the leading 'chick cancer', not uterine cancer, Uterine cancer is uncommon as cancers go.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-04 06:29 pm (UTC)I mean, he once wrote a story about a kid getting flashbacks from someone else's death because of cellular memory from a skin graft. Its awesome, but totally bullshit. :P
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-04 10:27 pm (UTC)This instance just felt like magical realism for all the wrong reasons, with all the wrong implications. It didn't come off as magical realism. It came off as painfully ignorant and sexist.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-04 08:04 pm (UTC)You know my number! Give me a call when you get in on Sat. morning.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-04 10:28 pm (UTC)ASU has two teams. There's the CLAS team, which is for the veterans. I'm not on that team. I'm on the other team, the rookie team. I don't think we have a name yet.
We're flying out Friday afternoon.