Aoki Yayoi

One of Aoki Yayoi's criticisms was, at the root of modern civilization only the "masculine principle" exists, furthermore the "feminine principle," that should be balanced with it, doesn't exist and consequently the masculine principle is being distorted.[6] The ultimate women's liberation that Aoki Yayoi aimed for was none other than a fundamental revolution from the most basic levels of society focused on changing the distorted masculine principle, and society as a whole having been founded upon it, and realizing a feminine principle underlying society and an equality of the sexes predicated on a masculine principle that derives from that feminine principle.[6] She seems to be anti-Western in many of her works by criticizing Western civilization, but she also uses a misreading of Western theories to support her ecofeminist arguments.[7]

In the mid 1980s, Aoki was involved in a public debate with Chizuko Ueno, where Aoki's feminist principles were accused of being essentialist for romanticizing the problematic construct of the "feminine". Ueno eventually wrote Can Women Save the Earth?, critiquing Aoki's analyses, but this criticism was based on an oversimplification of terms taken out of context.[2] Because of Aoki's use of the term "feminine principle" and her emphasis on reintroducing caring and nurturing values into contemporary society, her work has also been criticized for being too emotionally charged, maternalist, or utopian.[8] This debate became the last in the Japanese ecofeminist sphere.[9]

Aoki's analyses regarding technologies were situated within the global geopolitical context. Aoki was particularly concerned about the impact of new technologies (especially reproductive technologies) on third world women, and argued that one must consider a variety of contexts within which women develop a relationship to technology. For example, Aoki cited that a Japanese woman may have a liberating or empowering experience with reproductive technologies while a South Indian woman's experience with the same technology might be involuntary.[2]

Aoki was also wary of contemporary society's growing dependence on technology, since she believed it led to political apathy, war, and nuclear disasters. She argued that we should be developing a more self-reliant system of existence.[2]

In 1990, Aoki, alongside several women's rights groups, opposed a government proposal to restrict Japan's abortion law as she argued that the policy would infringe on a woman's right to control her body.[10]

While Aoki recognized that the economic independence of woman is crucial to the feminist movement, she argued that "if all it achieves is the right of passage of woman into existing male social structures and practices, I don't know that we have achieved very much".[2] She cited alternative value systems like the ecological feminism of Denmark or the Green Party in West Germany as other routes that feminism should explore.[2]