I fully believe Murakami when he says that he sees the women in his writing as "unique individuals" and he sees "them as a human being" before he sees "them as a man or woman." I do get the sense that he cares deeply about his characters on a conscious level, regardless of their gender. However, certain characters of his really do rub me the wrong way -- Midori of Norwegian Wood felt hyper-sexual in a way that felt more like a male fantasy than a real-life woman. I'm not trying to say there aren't women who enjoy sex or speak openly about it, but after the third time or so she brought up something so explicit that even Toru was shocked it began to feel like overkill. Naoko's depiction also bothered me because she had the opposite problem where she fully relied on Toru to open herself up to sexual experiences and was overall a very passive character (though, given the circumstances of her boyfriend's death and her declining mental health this is more understandable).
That being said, there are times where Murakami's writing of women pleasantly surprised me. I agree with the class consensus that the woman in "Sleep" was quite well-written, though I disagreed with a majority of the class who believe that her husband sexually assaulted her in college (if you read closer the language seems to suggest it was a different boyfriend, and she also claims the moment she stopped seeing her husband as her "protector" was during the incident with her mother-in-law -- if he'd raped her, wouldn't that have been the moment?). However, I think the story is actually more powerful without her husband being the perpetrator because this leaves him otherwise "perfect" and blameless, making her growing resentment towards him all the more conflicting for her. Her loss of agency after becoming a wife and mother is the pain point which seems to trigger her change of attitude after the insomnia kicks in. But if sexual assault were involved, this would give her a more "valid" reason to have anger at her husband in her friend's eyes, one which would overshadow this struggle for personal freedom and render it effectively invisible once again.
Lastly, I would like to say that "The Little Green Monster" explored something rather interesting to me. In the interview with Mieko Kawakami speaking on this story, he says "I was exploring a kind of cruelty that women seem to possess. I can feel when it's there, but can't claim access to it." At first read I found this kind of offensive and wasn't sure what he was talking about. But after taking a moment to think about it, I actually found myself in acknowledgment of what I believe he's referring to. I agree that men and women are generally different, and this often comes with different aggression styles. Whenever I notice women bullying others, it tends to be in a subtle way leaving room for plausible deniability so that when you try to call them out, they can claim they were just joking or that it's not such a big deal anyway because you're all friends. With men, they seem to be upfront with their harshness and/or more physical and it all seems to blow over quicker even if it's outwardly more aggressive. These are all vast generalizations, of course. I think this female "conflict style" is what Murakami aimed to capture in "The Little Green Monster." The protagonist defeats the monster without ever opening her mouth by imagining all the vicious things she wants to do to him in her head. To the outside world, none of her thoughts are detectable, yet they are real, and the monster is left only able to accept her onslaught: "All that remained, suspended in the air, were its mournful, bloated eyes. That won't do any good, I thought to it. You can look all you want, but you can't say a thing. You can't do a thing. Your existence is over, finished, done."
