What makes a "bad girl" bad? -- that is the question posed in this book. "The answer is that badness is attributed to such females by a sexist and male-dominated society that attempts to define, limit and control women.
Women who defy patriarchies, such as Japan, always provoke an intense concern, a serious censure, and a very public debate. A subversive potential is posited when out-of-line women become such a public focus. Censure becomes necessary because negative labeling then fortifies the patriarchal system.
This perceived subversion is of serious concern to dominant males who often read female independence as a threat. For, as Maxime Hong Kingston put it: "Isn't being a bad girl almost like being a boy?"