A rose by any other name is still a rose…

or is it?
On gender roles
in contemporary Japan

Magdalena Ciubancan
“Dimitrie Cantemir” Christian University
Bucharest
 自由国民社
Top 10
• 2010
- イクメン
- 女子会
• 2009
- 草食男子(herbivorous men)
- 肉食女子(carnivorous women)
• 2008
- アラフォー
 GENDER
• Gender vs. Sex

• Gender - socially constructed roles of and

relations between men and women

• Gender roles

• Gender studies/women studies

 GENDER ROLES IN JAPAN
A historical view
• Heian period
- women are allowed to inherit and own a
property
• Tokugawa period
- only men are allowed to own a property
• Meiji
- the role of women in labour force intensifies
- 良妻賢母 (good wife, wise mother)
 Gender roles in Modern Japan
• 1920s-1930s
- 生めよ、増やせよ

• 1947
- the new Constitution

• 専業主婦 、教育ママ
 Gender roles in contemporary Japan
WOMEN
• “I don’t interfere with my husband’s business,
not with my mouth, hands or legs” (Kumiko
Hashimoto)
> public

• (former prime minister Takeo Miki) “hardly

knows how to wash his face properly”
(Matsuko Mori)
> private coming into public view
 Gender roles in contemporary Japan
WOMEN
PRIVATE PUBLIC

• individualistic approach • employment

- rejection of arranged marriages • politics

(81% in 1955 to 40% in the 1980s)
• organizations
- marriage age (28.6 in 2009)

- private income

• family life > authority

 Gender roles in contemporary Japan
MEN
• Salary men
• Herbivorous men (Maki Fukasawa, 2006)
> in their 20s or 30s
> not competitive
> fashion conscious
> not interested in dating, having relationships
> reject both the Japanese and the Western
standard of masculinity
 Gender roles in contemporary Japan
MEN
Cosmetic lines for men
(Mandom < ‘man’+’freedom’, Shiseido)

Men-only beauty parlors

Clothing items
(bras, skirts, meggings < ‘men’+’leggings’)

Accessories
 Possible explanations

• ‘herbivorous men’-friendly environment in

Japan (kabuki)
• economic decline > no optimism > resignation
towards work (> fashion-consciousness)
• mother relation
• Childhood -> Teenage ->Emerging adulthood -
> Adulthood
 Gender roles and language
MALE FEMALE
• first names: pretty, flower,

? pure, beauty, snow etc.

 Airu
> PASSIVE

• lexical items traditionally

used by men (umai)

• personal pronouns (kimi)