Ripples of Change
Japanese Women’s Search for Self

A film by Nanako Kurihara
1993
57 minutes
Color, VHS 16mm
US/Japan
Subtitled

Powerful political analysis is combined with a passionate personal story in this
exceptional documentary about the Japanese women’s liberation movement in
the 1970’s and its influence on contemporary Japanese society. Director Nanako
Kurihara left her homeland in the 1980’s, frustrated by the lack of interesting
roles for women in Japan. In New York, she met a Japanese woman who had
been involved in the women’s liberation movement in Japan in the 1970’s.
Kurihara returned to Japan, bringing together interviews with veterans of the
movement, fascinating archival footage and her personal impressions to produce
a film which explores the meaning of the liberation movement, the factors that
motivated it and the effect it has had on people’s attitudes. "Ripples of Change"
is an excellent resource for the study of global feminism, women’s roles and
Japanese society.

The film feautes unique footage of "Lib" demonstrations and interviews with participants. I think the shots of the "Lib Camp" in Nagano were among othe most interesting; also, there is the interview with Tanaka Mitsu, organizer of the "Fighting Women Group"(Gruppu Tatakau Onna) and author of the pamphlet, "Liberation from the Toilet" (Benjo kara no kaiho).

Some lines that stood out to me:

1.Tanaka Mitsu talks about feeling unworthy all the time--"I had no good boyfriends, I wasn't pretty enough. I didn't really feel like a 'human being' that men were always talking about. I couldn't contribute to a discussion with them. I had to start with what I was: a woman. We didn't even have a language, a vocabulary, for the kind of discourse that we needed to have. . . .I realized that the feelings I hd about the kind of person I was were not my fault. I am beautiful. My life is beautiful. I was filled with a feeling that I wanted to make my life beautiful. These are the feelings that I had when I wrote the pamphlet, "A Toilet No More,"

2. Family life in Japan is controlled by women. men are married to their companies, women to their children. Many women like this power but it's uneven. men don't have to sully themselves with day-to-day decisions about the family budget. But love doesn't have much to do with it,

3. Emiko Funamoto, founder of Onna Eros, believed that women needed a network of communication, they needed to write and explore themselves as Kate Millett and Betty Friedan had done. Women needed to talk and write about themselves but they had no outlets. Publishers were not interested. So, she founded her own journal. But kept an executive position in an ad agency even though they tried to freeze her out for two whole years by never assigning her any projects or accounts.

4. So it becomes a theme that women have to start with themselves first, who they are. Since women are so integrated into the society in their roles as mothers and stewards of the home, the changes they make will have a "ripple" effect over time throughout society. Tanaka Mitsu notes that in the beginning there was a lot of "Watashi ga. . .Watashi ga. . ." talk, in other words, "I this and I that." It had to be about "me" at first but this was difficult in Japan because it's so easy to be labeled "selfish" if you speak that way and assert your own agency.

5. There was the example of Sumie who has her own band, published her own books and calendars, and lives in/runs a communal house in Tokyo. In the 1970s, there were the "witch" concerts by and for women.

6. The narrator, Kurihara Nanako, put the question to Funamoto Emiko pointedly. If women end up unmarried, alone, taking care of a parent who has had a stroke--isn't that kawaiso--pitiful? Emiko's response is that to live an unexamined, an un-liberated life, is really the pitiful choice. She has chosen her life. She takes care of her mother. Doing it your own way is better. No one should pity me, she says, in a very matter of fact way.

7. In a like manner, Nanako tries to pin Tanaka Mitsu down: Hasn't she withdrawn, let the movement down, and isn't she responsible for the women's lib movement's failure? No way, she replies. "Lib" was about freeing the self, nurturing the self. It may take time, but people have to do this for themselves, one person at a time. She used to think power was defined by how many people you could mobilize and organize; that's the way political factions operate. But that's not really IT. One person has power, too. You can affect people still. As an individual changes, her influence radiates out as ripples do when you drop a pebble in a pool of water.

Margaret Mead Film Festival Margaret Mead Film Festival
San Fransisco Asian American Film Festival
National Educational Film and Video Festival, Gold Apple
San Francisco Film Festival, Certificate of Merit
Tokyo Film Festival
London Film Festival

“A powerful and daring work.”
Kyoko Hirano
Film Center, Japan Society

“Fascinating, cross-culturally inspiring.”
Robin Morgan
Ms. Magazine

“A unique opportunity for thought-processing the notable
similarities in the US and Japanese movements towards
sex/gender equity.”
Library Journal