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Presenting a vivid social history of “the new woman” who emerged in Japanese culture between the world wars, The New Japanese Woman shows how images of modern women burst into Japanese life in the midst of the urbanization, growth of the middle class, and explosion of consumerism resulting from the postwar economic boom, particularly in the 1920s. Barbara Sato analyzes the icons that came to represent the new urban femininity—the “modern girl,” the housewife, and the professional working woman. She describes how these images portrayed in the media shaped and were shaped by women’s desires. Although the figures of the modern woman by no means represented all Japanese women, they did challenge the myth of a fixed definition of femininity—particularly the stereotype emphasizing gentleness and meekness—and generate a new set of possibilities for middle-class women within the context of consumer culture.The New Japanese Woman is rich in descriptive detail and full of fascinating vignettes from Japan’s interwar media and consumer industries—department stores, film, radio, popular music and the publishing industry. Sato pays particular attention to the enormously influential role of the women’s magazines, which proliferated during this period. She describes the different kinds of magazines, their stories and readerships, and the new genres the emerged at the time, including confessional pieces, articles about family and popular trends, and advice columns. Examining reactions to the images of the modern girl, the housewife, and the professional woman, Sato shows that while these were not revolutionary figures, they caused anxiety among male intellectuals, government officials, and much of the public at large, and they contributed to the significant changes in gender relations in Japan following the Second World War.
E-Book Content
The New Japanese Woman ASIA-PACIFIC: CULTURE, Editors: Rey Chow, H. POLITICS, AND SOCIETY D. Harootunian, and Masao Miyoshi Barbara Sato The New Japanese Woman MODERNITY, MEDIA, AND Duke University Press WOMEN IN INTERWAR Durham and London 2003 JAPAN © 2003 Duke University Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper Designed by C. H. Westmoreland Typeset in Palatino by Tseng Information Systems, Inc. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data appear on the last printed page of this book. FOR KAZI AND SHO Contents LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ix xi Prologue: Women and the Reality of the Everyday 1 1 The Emergence of Agency: Women and Consumerism 13 2 The Modern Girl as a Representation of Consumer Culture 45 3 Housewives as Reading Women 78 4 Work for Life, for Marriage, for Love 114 5 Hard Days Ahead: Women on the Move 152 NOTES 165 BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEX 233 213 List of Illustrations 1. "Bluestocking" 15 2. "Longing to Be a New Woman" 18 3. Women's higher-school students, early 1920s 26 4. Mitsukoshi Department Store in downtown Tokyo, early 1920s 29 5. Matsuya Department Store on the Ginza in Tokyo, early 1920s 29 6. The height of fashion for modern girls, circa 1925 47 7. Modern girls on the Ginza, circa 1928 47 8. Images of modern girls, circa 1928 50 9. A view of the Ginza in the 1920s 50 10. "A Modern Girl's Belongings" 52 11. Dance-hall dancers waiting for customers, circa 1929 62 12. Sapporo beer hall on the Ginza, circa 1929 63 13. "Lovestruck Customer Drinks Too Much Coffee and Ogles the Cafe Hostess" 64 14. Crowds in front of a popular Asakusa movie theater, c