May Inui 9/17/25

All of this week’s readings explored the overarching theme of women feeling like outliers in society as they struggle to align their identities with societal expectations. In “Diary of a Void”, the protagonist experiences workplace gender inequality, where she often feels subjected to tasks just because she is a woman, such as serving tea and cleaning up after meetings. She therefore uses pregnancy almost as a tool to escape the expectations she feels are placed on her as one of the very few women in her workplace. Although this temporarily relieves some of those pressures, it also takes an emotional toll on her, as we see glimpses throughout the reading where the reality of her actually being pregnant becomes a blur. As she starts to learn more about maternity, she grows attached to this identity she has created for herself. I found “The Most Boring Red on Earth” to be similar to this piece in that the protagonist initially puts her job before her own body, viewing her period as a mere burden that interferes with her work. However, she gradually develops an interest in her period and becomes more in tune with her body. Similarly, in line with the theme of female autonomy, in "Breasts and Eggs", Natsuko feels out of place in society and in her relationships because of her lack of sexual desire, which gets in the way of her connections with people important to her. She feels isolated and incomplete as a woman because she isn’t able to have children in the “traditional” way, and she battles the reality of her situation alongside her desire to experience motherhood. 

In “The Lonesome Bodybuilder”, the protagonist experiences a loss of identity in her role as a wife, feeling unseen and unvalidated by her husband. To fill this void, she turns to bodybuilding (a sport stereotypically seen as male) to physically grow bigger, using it as a form of empowerment and a way to regain control over her identity and prove it to herself.

The stories “The Woman in the Purple Skirt” and “Naked” both cover the struggles women face with employment. The woman in the purple skirt is viewed as an outsider in society because she can’t get a traditional, steady job. I especially liked the stylistic choices in how the narrator interacts with the protagonist in this story. “Naked” explores the experiences of a recently divorced, middle-aged woman navigating unemployment. She allows herself to be free from the social construct that demands constant productivity and participation in the rat race by embracing free time, but also faces the struggles that come with this freedom.