Current Issue/Words/Japan's Modern Girl

Alison Craig - "Japan’s 1920s Modern Girl: Non-Feminist, Commercial Tool, and Social Construct"

            During the 1920s, a new image of Japanese women emerged: the modern girl. She wore western style clothes, cut her hair short, spent money frivolously, and pursued promiscuous sex. The modern girl image was analyzed scrupulously by both intellectuals and the media to the point that several stereotypes arose: one, the modern girl was a misnomer and that she did not represent a feminist, let alone a modern girl; two, the modern girl was merely a commercial tool to sell the new mass magazines; and third, the modern girl was an individualist young woman. As a social construct of 1920s Japan, the modern girl represented a rise in individualist philosophies within Japanese women.

            Following the Meiji Restoration(1), a new constitution was drafted for Japan in 1868. While this Meiji Constitution(2) did not place gender-based laws, the Meiji Civil Code (1898)(3) restricted women’s rights. The Meiji-era(4) ideal of a ‘good wife and wise mother’ permeated the Civil Code, particularly in the case of marriage:

                                    A woman becomes incompetent upon contracting a marriage; that is, it becomes necessary for her to obtain the permission of her husband in the conduct of important legal acts, as lending or borrowing of money, transfer of her own real estate or some valuable pieces of movable property, bringing of an action in a court of law, accepting or refusing a succession, etc…

                                    There are two classes of divorce; divorce by consent and divorce by judicial action… In the case of a divorce by judicial action… the committing of adultery on the part of the wife is in itself a sufficient ground for divorce, in the case of the husband it is necessary for the husband… to have been prosecuted by  law upon the accusation of the husband of the woman who is party to the crime. The wife, therefore, cannot bring an action for divorce against her husband even when he keeps a concubine, resorts to houses of ill-fame, or enters into illicit                                     relations with unmarried women or widows. (Y. Takenobu, “The Japan Yearbook: 1924-1925,” 248-249)

Upon entering marriage, women became dependent upon their husbands as they had previously been with their parents.

            In the 1910s, “the notorious ‘New Woman’ (atarashii onna), a woman who transgressed social boundaries and questioned her dependence on men, started to pose a threat to gender relations” (Sato, 13). Barbara Sato comments that through self-cultivation (reading, writing, and meditation) these women “overturned the common notion of femininity,” because they were not acting like the Meiji-ideal of what a woman should be (14).

            Further, some of these women collected into groups to amend laws that they viewed as unjust. As Hiroka Tomida explains in “The Association of New Women and its contribution to the Japanese women’s movement,” women were prohibited from voting, so they appealed through writing to a member of the Diet to change laws (a right guaranteed by the Meiji Constitution to all Japanese nationals). One such group was the Association of New Women that fought for the Police Security Law to be amended so that women could join political organizations, and organize and attend political assemblies (53).

            Originally hailed as a second generation of ‘new women,’ the modern girl shocked the older feminists. Her short hair betrayed generations of long-haired Japanese women; her western-style clothes destroyed the image of a young woman wearing only kimono. Sato quotes aspiring novelist Mochizuki Yuriko reminiscing about cutting her hair short:

                                    You cannot imagine the shock it gave to the people around me [to have cut  her hair]. My mother took one look at me and cried in indignation, “You must becrazy! If you go out, everyone will call you one of those new women”—the term modern girl was not in use yet…

                                    When I think back [to 1918], the painful experiences far outnumbered the comic situations. Even today, it is appalling how many idiots jeer and hiss at me  and are ignorant enough to label me a modern girl. (54)

Despite falling into the stereotypical fashion of a modern girl, Mochizuki feels adamant that she is not a modern girl; the term has several negative connotations, including promiscuity (particularly adultery(5)) and superficiality(6). These negative connotations promoted the idea that the modern girl was too self-absorbed to change laws to raise Japanese women’s place in society.

            Yosano Akiko, as cited by Sato, was a poet and advocate of equal rights between the sexes who condemned the modern girl:

                        These girls in Western dress and short haircuts just copy whatever comes from abroad. The reason that girls who could be mistaken for prostitutes in their crazy get-ups have emerged is bit due to the influence of women’s liberation. It is  because there are certain ‘new types’ among the men who like what is decadent and want young women to look like that. (56)

As Sato analyzes, “The modern girl made no verbal pronouncements about her position in urban culture” (48). New Women were “linked to social demonstration and a conscious self-awakening [through self cultivation],” but the modern girl was viewed as having “nothing of import” to intellectuals (Sato, 68). Compared to the new women, the modern girl was a non-feminist who did nothing to support the Japanese women’s suffrage movement.

            Despite being condemned by several writers and intellectuals of the day, the modern girl was everywhere in 1920s Japan. Plastered in the new mass women’s magazines, the modern girl’s exploits and images sold the new medium. These magazines focused their attention on women. Angela Coutts remarks that there was “a significant rise in female literacy because of increased educational opportunities” (168). There were more women who were able to read, so these new magazines had a larger market than previously.

            In the summer of 1925, Kon Wajiro(professor of architecture at Waseda University) performed a survey of clothing styles worn by people in the Ginza district of Tokyo(7). After scrupulously surveying more than 1000 people, Kon’s findings indicated that a mere one percent of women wore Western garments. Compared to the 66 percent of men not wearing kimono, this number staggers the mind (Sato, 49-51). So, where had all of the modern girls gone? Simply, modern girls did not exist in the masses that these magazines presented.

            Despite the few women stereotyped as ‘modern girls,’ mass magazines used the modern girl image as a commercial tool. Sato describes these magazines as going “out of their way to carry a range of catchy topics,” which the modern girl stereotype delivered (88). Yet, as Sato elaborates “[i]t is unlikely that reading about the modern girl prompted young women in any number to imitate her” (88-89). The modern girl sold magazines, but she did not sell herself. The media had extrapolated a stereotype into a social construct; the modern girl was an abstract concept rather than a person.

            In the 1920s, the modern girl was dismissed as “modernity in its most superficial form” by many intellectuals (Sato, 56). Yet, as Sato elaborates, the modern girl was a social construct (68). The lack of young women who would fall under the modern girl stereotype (as seen in Professor Kon’s survey) and those that reject the label (such as Mochizuki) indicates that modern girls were in very short supply. With so few actual modern girls projected a thousand times over in the media, this social construct evolved into a stereotype that a negligible amount of young women actually qualified as.

            So then, why would 1920s Japan construct the modern girl image? The modern girl appears as self-absorbed and uncaring about the social order. The modern girl represented a woman who, more or less acted like a man—she did what she wanted independent of her gender.

            In terms of sex, men had significantly greater freedom than women. As Tomida comments, “Japanese society had a very tolerant attitude towards men’s sexual behavior. State-regulated prostitution continued to survive, and it was permitted for Japanese men to go to brothels and have mistresses,” yet women could not (58). The modern girl construct, on the other hand, freely chose sexual partners.

            The modern girl destroyed the classical Japanese aesthetic for women by appearing with short hair and Western-style clothes. Yet, this transgression multiplied through the media. Women who would not dare to behave like the modern girl stereotype would eagerly read this character’s exploits. What did these 1920s Japanese women see in the modern girl image?

            Through the modern girl women, were able to live vicariously. This social construct ignored the cultural norms, acting independent of its gender. A woman could marry her lover rather than one her parents choose, buy what she wanted, and do what she pleased through imagining the modern girl’s life. The modern girl construct reflected a desire to be more independent, but no one dared emulate her.

            Despite the few numbers, the modern girl multiplied through mass media portrayed as a young woman who transgressed the social norms of 1920s Japan. This image represented an infantile individualism within Japanese women. They wanted the freedom men had, but were unable to act themselves.

Works Cited

Coutts, Angela. “Gender and Literary Production in Modern Japan: The Role of Female-Run Journals in Promoting Writing by Women during the Interwar Years.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture & Society 32.1 (2006): 167-195.

Takenobu, Y. “Chapter XIV: Women Problem.” The Japan Year Book: 1924-25. [no date]: 247-253.

Sato, Barbara. The new Japanese woman: modernity, media, and women in interwar Japan. Durnham, [North Carolina]: Duke University Press, 2003.

Tomida, Hiroko. “The Association of New Women and its contribution to the Japanese women’s movement.” Japan Forum 17.1: 49-68. Academic Search Premiere. University of Colorado Library, Boulder, CO. 23 March 2007 <http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdf?vid=11&hid=2&sid=ffe750d4-d7e6-4cdc-8566-            715e1af93284%40SRCSM2>.

 

Footnotes:

The Meiji Restoration marks the reinstitution of the Japanese emperor as the head of state. Previously, a military bureaucracy (the Shogunate) had ruled Japan with the imperial family as a figurehead.

The Meiji Constitution is loosely based on the English Constitution. It created the Diet (a parliamentary-like assembly) and announced that all Japanese citizens were equal, but the ability to vote would be decided by the Diet.

Early Meiji-era law that stipulated what the social norms would be in Japan.

Period marked by the rule of Emperor Meiji (1868-1912).

Oi Sachiko, a well-known Japanese actress of the time and labeled as a modern girl for her exploits gained infamy for having an open marriage with her husband (Sato, 61-62).

The lack of feminist or anti-capitalist declarations by modern girls made several intellectuals think of them as lacking depth (Sato, 48, 56, and 68)

The Ginza is a well-known shopping district in the Chuo Ward of Tokyo. In the 1920s, fashionable shops, theatres, restaurants, et cetra were centered in Ginza, so it would be expected that many modern girls could be seen shopping, eating, etc. there.