*wry* Yeah, it would be good if her sources on the sex trade were a bit less popularized; on the other hand, she has a good point that it was a fairly entrenched feature of the major cities and that slippery interface between underworld and acceptable oppression.

Which is where I go for ignoring historical gender inequality; part of the project of steampunk, if you approach it as such, is to envision a better world. That can take the form of "wouldn't it be good if that imperialist/colonialist stuff were, you know, not happening and let's see how that would work" or of "let us translate those things into an AU setting where we can highlight their problems more easily". I'm consistently drawn to the former in my fanwork of all kinds, which is why I especially like the aspect of steampunk that jettisons historical gender limitations.

And, while I certainly don't wish to try to take any special authority to critique gender inequality in another culture, I am, by the same token, not going to /refrain/ from critique just because the culture isn't the one I grew up in. I do my best to keep in mind the things I may not see because of my subject position (which one also has to do with one's home culture), but I'm still going to judge as best I can as I go, and keep revising as I find information. I feel that anything else is an ethical failure.

Mostly, it just ticks me off that the only Japanese steampunk that seems to be going /is/ completely uncritical Orientalism. I'm really not down with that, and for an anime con to have a steampunk theme... well. I'd like to contribute to that in a more thoughtful way than "oh, look, it's a geisha/dragon lady". *makes a face*