"Einstein yori Dianna Agron" by HKT48
In Japanese there is a word, joshiryoku (女子力), that translates directly to "girl power." It's something Japanese women want.
It doesn't mean what you might guess from watching "Ghost in the Shell" or other female anime character badassery.
According to Wikipedia.jp, joshiryoku is the ability to make men fawn over you (男の人にチヤホヤされる力). I have observed that in addition to fashion and sex appeal, it seems to include such abilities as cooking and sewing. It doesn't include martial arts, computer programming or entrepreneurship, for example.
Young Japanese women can often be heard lamenting their lack of joshiryoku or talking about how to increase it (女子力アップ). There is much sexism in Japan, and sometimes it seems women are the source, or at least aren’t resisting very hard. Having a daughter in Japan, this bothers me.
"Girl power” is a thing in English, too. Popularized by the Spice Girls, it means women’s unity or self-reliance, almost the opposite meaning of joshiryoku.
An example of English-style girl power popped up in the Japan Times recently. Masami Ohinata, the female president of a women’s university here, laid into Yasushi Akimoto, the male mastermind of the world-conquering AKB48 family of girl singing groups, for writing sexist lyrics like the following:
“I don’t think about anything difficult”
“I am not interested in news”
“what is important is keeping my skin smooth” and
"No matter how good you are at studying, if you aren't loved, it means nothing."
These lyrics are from the HKT48 song "Einstein yori Dianna Agron," which means "I'll take Dianna Agron over Einstein." It's about a schoolgirl obsessed with her joshiryoku.
“‘I felt as if the clock had been turned back to 50 or 100 years ago,’ Masami Ohinata, a psychologist who is president of Keisen University in Tokyo, blogged after a student showed her the lyrics,” reported the Japan Times.
Ohinata's opinion was widely covered in the Japanese press.
Ohinata's opinion was widely covered in the Japanese press.
I hope to see more women fighting the power in Japan like Ohinata as my daughter gets older.
