Gender in Japan is different, to be sure. On a daily basis I am shocked at how many boys tend dress rather on the effeminate side, with outrageous hair-dews and sometimes even make-up. Even on campus at Kansai Gaidai I am surprised to see girls who dress more boyishly (I use the word 'surprised' as girls fashion here tends to be quite 'girly'; that is, lots of bows, short skirts and shorts and high heels galore.) As I have mentioned in previous posts, fashion here is raging, and so it is not surprising that the fine line between the male and female gender is often toyed with and crossed. This particular blog consists all of photographs that were taken during the gay pride parade in Osaka on October 18th. I thought these photographs would be perfect when discussing gender in Japan because this particular event proved to me that even though times are changing and people are becoming more open to the idea of the reversal of gender roles, there still seems to be a great deal of hostility towards the subject. For example, as I was walking in the parade, I came upon an old man who was standing in the middle of the crowd grabbing people, yelling at them in Japanese and shaking them. Although I couldn't make out exactly what he was saying, it was obviously not good. Although the people around me just laughed off the situation, it made a lasting impression on me because it really proved that in terms of gender identity, we are in a big period of transition- not only in Japan, but across the world.
I would also like to add at this point that I did not purposefully use only pictures of men cross-dressing and pushing the boundaries of their of gender; indeed, this is an important half of the equation. However, I found almost no women who were cross-dressing as men or even standing out in the crowd at all. I was very surprised by this, and also a little puzzled. I have heard that it is simply not as accepted here for a woman to be lesbians or bi-sexual, but I didn't really believe it until I went to the gay pride parade. Although I do see some girls on the campus who dress more boyishly (with baggy jeans, timberland boots and jerseys), I felt that perhaps this was more of a fashion statement rather than an attempt at pushing the the boundaries of gender. Nevertheless, the word about homosexuals (yes, even lesbians) is definitely on rise.
Here is a link to a short article written about Mizuho Fukushima, a lesbian Japanese political leader:
2 comments:
Yes indeed gender is different in Japan. Gender roles are culture constructs so the ideas of masculinity, femininity, heterosexuality and homosexuality differ from culture to culture.
While I am not totally dismissing your observations, they would be stronger if you had some academic sources to back them up. Did you talk with anybody at the parade?
It's kind of hard to talk to Japanese people when you don't speak Japanese. So no, I didn't talk to any Japanese people at the parade.
And if I was to talk to English speaking people at the parade, wouldn't that just be another form of foreigners OBSERVATIONS, just like mine?
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