The "Modern" Japanese Woman

Japanese culture, although often imagined in terms of harmony and tranquillity, is frequently marked by tension and anxiety. The Taisho era (1912-26) has been conceived as a progressive period in which the jazz age merged with democratic politics to produce what is often termed "Taisho liberalism." Yet Taisho ... was a time of dramatic transformation and transition as the values of the native past and those of the seemingly foreign future frequently confronted each other in stark contrast. These tensions ... came to fruition with the ultranationalist ideology supporting Japan's wars from 1931 to 1945.

With the growth of an urban, industrial, and increasingly international society, where values were instantly and endlessly discussed in the mass media, Japanese ruminated on the nature of national, social, and cultural identity. An essential question resided in all spheres: How could one be both Japanese and modern, if modernity is defined as Western? Were modernity and Japaneseness antithetical? Or could individuals and society synthesize some new middle ground? If so, how? Might modernity have parallels in Japanese tradition, or, more precisely, in those practices actively being constructed as "tradition"? Stated conversely, did the Japanese past contain the seeds -- the antecedents -- of modernity? ...

In many ways, women were at the very core of the social and cultural tension in interwar Japan. One historian has recently written of the era, "Women could not enter public space without arousing anxiety about their presence." There was no questioning the fact that men had to work in the new economy and wear the clothes appropriate for factory or office. Women's participation in the project of modernization, however, was a far thornier matter. In a favorite formulation ... , the nation's goal was the adaptation of Western technology to preserve Japanese spirit. For the average urban male, modernization was mandatory. But for females -- emblems of that native essence -- Westernization was inherently problematic. In the dispute over the fate of Japanese culture in the modern age, women's bodies and lives thus constituted "contested spaces."

This contest was often played out between two antithetical images of women. On one hand, the modern girl (modan gaaru or moga for short) -- sporting pumps, short dress, bobbed hair, and conspicuous in such modern spaces as cafés and urban streets -- represented, at the least, an enchantment with the material surface of Western modernity. She also held the promise or threat of cultural and sexual liberation, and the possibility of militant social action. On the other hand, the traditional woman -- championed in official ideology as "good wife, wise mother" ... , and belonging to the space of the home -- stood guard over conventional values sanctioned by Confucian and Victorian morality alike. These poles in the debate represent politico-cultural ideologies, aesthetic choices, and even marketing strategies.

Between these compelling opposites of radical modernity and reactionary tradition is a rich and passionate middle ground, where the styles and values of the moga and the good wife, wise mother mingle. This culturally composite woman was largely the product of a sophisticated capitalistic society, where ideology was not simply expressed through visual style, but could be wholly transformed into style as fashion, all the better to market it to followers who were also consumers. ... Not surprisingly, there were both formal efforts to deflect the potentially subversive qualities of the moga by making her more like traditional women, and spontaneous attempts to find formal commonalities. Likewise, even as the Japanese-style woman was being crafted as an antidote or counterbalance to the moga, there were also attempts to infuse her with the vitality of the modern girl.

The Chronicle of Higher Education