mini传媒

Published on July 1, 2021
Job titles and other details are as of the time of publication.
(The interview was conducted in Japanese and was thereafter translated into English.)

What is “gender” in gender history research?

I am conducting historical research on the theme of gender. When I say historical research on gender, the first thing that comes to mind for many people is probably the historical transformation of masculinity/femininity or the roles of men and women. It is now becoming well known that the notions of “masculinity/femininity” or the “roles” of men and women were created historically and socially and are by no means immutable or universal. In fact, when I first began my research, I was most interested in the changes in gender role norms.

However, what I am currently focusing on in my historical research is not just the substance of “masculinity/femininity” or the “roles.” The subject of my historical research is the very idea of gender, which is thought to be at the basis of “masculinity/femininity” and “roles.” What does it mean to consider gender historically? Some of you may have a question mark in your head. You may think, “Isn’t gender (sex) an unchanging thing that belongs to the biological realm?”

I will later explain this point, but first I would like to talk about how I encountered gender research and my research to date.

Caught between “individuality” and “femininity”

When I look back on my personal development, I feel that I received messages at school and at home that told me to “be individual.” What needs to be noted here is that being able to contribute to society is a prerequisite of the “individuality” that is being encouraged. I think there are many people younger than me who felt confused when they were told to “be individual.” However, before I felt uncomfortable with the message “be individual” itself, I was confused by how it clashed with another message, and that message was to “be feminine.”

I could internalize the “individuality” discourse and do what I want, say what I want to say, wear what I want to wear... While there was a part of me that was happy to continue to develop my individuality, there was also a part of me that tried to hold it back based on internalized standards of “femininity.”

Later, as I studied feminism, I realized that this is one of the dilemmas that arise because the evaluation of a person as a person and the evaluation of a person as a woman are different, and that I too had experienced the dilemma that had been pointed out in feminism for a long time.

Gender norms hidden in romantic relationships

There was a discrepancy between evaluation as a human being and evaluation as a woman, and the area where I experienced this most intensely was in the area of romantic relationships. In my very immature view of romantic love, which I had until I was a college student or around that time, the ideal love was one between a “manly man” and a “feminine woman.” I had strongly internalized the norm that men should take the lead and women should be passive, especially when it comes to sex between opposite-sex lovers. Looking at the results of the Nationwide Survey of Sexual Behavior Among Young People, I can see that there are still many young women who feel the same way I did.

There is a premise that men and women are equal and that it is good to “be oneself” without being bound by femininity. At the same time, there still are strong gender norms in the realm of heterosexual relationships. It was here that I experienced the “person-woman dilemma” I mentioned earlier in its most intense form.

Of course, I wasn’t able to explain things so clearly at the time, and I was just confused and didn’t know what to do. And it was during a gender theory class I took at the University of Toronto in Canada, where I studied abroad during my third year of university, that I was given words to express my feelings of confusion. I sat in the front row and listened to a lecture about what kind of power relations are hidden in the gender roles of men = active and women = passive, and what kind of social structures lie behind these, and that was when I decided to pursue a career in gender studies.

The reason why conflicting values are embedded in romantic relationships

After returning to Japan, I entered graduate school at Kyoto University, where I conducted research to clarify the process by which gender norms are formed in sexual love and romantic love in heterosexual relationships. In particular, I put much effort into research focused on romantic love.

When it comes to romantic love, as I mentioned earlier, there are very strong gender norms, such as men should be tall, and women should be pretty. On the other hand, romantic love is also idealized as a relationship in which people affirm and accept each other as they are, regardless of gender norms, which I find very interesting. In other words, two contradictory values are embedded in romantic love. What can this mean? As I continued my historical research focusing on this point, I came to realize that the concept of romantic love is engraved with the conflicts of the era in which it was formed.

In Japan, during the Meiji period, the class system was dismantled, and people were given freedom to choose their occupation, freedom to move, and freedom of marriage. In theory, the society that was formed was one in which everyone could do what they wanted and choose their own way of life. In other words, it is a society in which people form their own identities or ideas about who they are. However, a certain framework was imposed there, and that framework was “gender.” Even when the social order of the class system was abolished, a social order based on the framework of gender was created, with men working and women doing housework and childrearing. This is clearly evidenced by the fact that “freedom of marriage” did not include same-sex marriage, and it did not guarantee the “freedom not to marry.”

On the one hand, it was considered ideal to develop one’s talents and live as one’s “true self” regardless of one’s origins, and on the other hand, roles were imposed based on gender. It can be said that this kind of duality was also engraved in the idea of romantic love. It may be said that love made the conflict invisible by successfully encompassing two different demands. By being led to discover one’s “true self” in the romantic relationship between people of the opposite sex, the gender norms required there became invisible. Ideals such as “the original self” and “the true self” are particularly sought after today, but as with the “individuality” mentioned earlier, we need to be wary of what assumptions are attached to those ideals.

You may be stepping on someone else’s feet under the yardstick of “normal”

So I conducted my research by focusing on gender norms in romantic love, but what became clear at the same time was the process by which the heterosexual norm that love is something between a man and a woman was formed. As a result, I realized that when I first started my research, I had somehow centered my thoughts on love between people of the opposite sex. I myself had grown uncomfortable with the gender role norms that existed within heterosexuality but had always considered heterosexuality itself to be self-evident. This means that I have unknowingly stepped on the feet of those who suffer from heteronormativity. Researching romantic love has not only given me words to express my own difficulties in life but also made me realize that I may be complicit in making other people’s lives difficult.

Also, while examining the process by which the distinction between men and women emerges in love, I realized that the gender concepts of “man” and “woman” themselves are undergoing major changes, and this led to my current research topic.

Turning my eyes towards the history of gender views in Japan

At the beginning of this interview, I said that the current subject of my historical investigation is not only the inner nature of the “masculinity/femininity” and “roles” of men and women, but also the very idea of gender that is the foundation of this. Some of you may think that gender (sex) is biologically unchangeable and wonder what it means to explore its history. Indeed, since humans are sexually reproducing creatures, gender phenomena may have existed throughout the ages. However, where do we find the basis for classifying humans into two categories, male and female, even in situations not related to reproduction? Is it the body, our “inner selves,” or the culture? How strong do we believe the boundary between men and women is? What do we think about crossing that boundary? As is clear from just asking a few questions, how gender itself is constructed is not something that has stayed constant through the ages.

In particular, what I am trying to clarify is the major shift in views on gender from the early modern period to the late modern period. With the abolition of the class system from the Meiji period, views on gender have undergone major changes, along with the formation of a system of gender-based division of labor based on the division of male and female domains, and the emergence of a new view of self and humanity. A direct influence was the influx of sexological knowledge from the West. However, it is not as simple as a new idea about gender coming from the West and taking root. In the process of research, we are beginning to see that traditional values have remained despite the influence of new knowledge. By examining how both aspects interacted and depicting the history of gender views in Japan, I aim to relativize what kind of gender views we have as the foundation of society we live in today.