Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, Volume 6, Number 1,2005

Q Routledge
Q \ | ( Taylor6iFrarKhiCroup

Beyond the 'feminization of masculinity': transforming patriarchy

with the 'feminine' in contemporary Japanese youth culture
Yumiko IIDA

ABSTRACT Contemporary Japanese society has seen the emergence of aesthetically conscious young
men who employ feminine' aesthetics and strategies as ways of exploring and practising new masculine identities. Jn this paper, I explore the significance of this emerging trend of male beauty by
observing and analysing the expressions, strategies and intentions of those young men who have
taken to aesthetically representing themselves in these ways. This cultural trend is often described as
the feminization of masculinity,' echoing the gendered articulation of rising mass culture in terms of
the feminization of culture,' which acknowledges aspects of the commercialization of masculine
bodies in Japan of the 1990s onward. While this view successfully links important issues, such as
femininity, beauty, and the gendered representation of the self in a broader context of capitalist
culture, it does not sufficiently convey a sense of agency in the young men's lively practices of exploring and expressing new masculine values and ideals. Rather than viewing feminization' simply as a
sign ofcommodification, I argue that these young men strategically distance themselves from conventional masculinity by artificially standing in the position of the feminine', where they can more
freely engage in the creation of alternative gender identities. From this point of view, the use of the
phrase feminization of masculinity' often implies a fear and anxiety on the part of patriarchy over the
boundary-crossing practice that seriously challenges the stability of gendered cultural hegemony.
Moreover, such anxiety driven reactions easily merge with nationalist inclination, as those threatened tend to seek the consolidation of patriarchal/hegemonic order by eliminating ambiguities and
indeterminacy in cultural/national discourse. J conclude that the cultural hegemony of contemporary
Japan could better sustain itself by incorporating non-hegemonic gender identities, which would
allow it maintain an open space for critical imagination and effectively diffuse an obsessive and
ultimately self-destructive desire for transparency/identity.
Japariese youth culture, male beauty, feminization, phallocentric discourse,
counter hegemonic practices, nationalism
KEYWORDS:

Introduction
As I made my first research trip to Tokyo in 1996 after being away from Japan for about 7
years, I was astonished by the degree of change, more precisely the 'improved appearance',
of a class of young adolescent men who seemed to have a much keener awareness and interest in how they looked. Since then, every time I went back to Japan for one reason or
another, I was kept mesmerized by the fast pace of change, the degree of 'improvements,'
and the extent to which more and more young Japanese males involved themselves in great
effort and money to improve their visual appearance.^ This cultural trend of the increasing
presence of image conscious yoxmg men, or what might be called the 'cult of male beauty',
is clearly observable in the Japanese youth culture of the past decade or so, not only on TV
screens and in men's magazines but on every city street, standing and sitting right next to
ISSN 1464-9373 Print/ISSN 1469-8447 Online/05/010056-19 2005 Taylor & Francis Group Ltd
DOI: 10.1080/1462394042000326905

Beyond the feminization of masculinity' 57

you at cafeterias, CD shops and inside subways. These young men sport colourfully dyed
hair, neatly coordinated outfits, and display a fashion sense that is well-learned and skilfully represented on their slim bodies. One may view such an emergence of a large segment
of aesthetically conscious young men with varying degrees of 'feminine' features as a
worldwide phenomenon of recent years, and not particularly xinique to Japan of the 1990s.
Yet, the scale and degree of the self-beautification of young Japanese men, and the manner
in which this fits into the greater context of contemporary youth culture, seems to be
unmatched elsewhere.
In this paper, I intend to explore the significance of this emerging trend of male beauty
by primarily observing and analysing the expressions, strategies and intentions of those
young men aesthetically representing themselves. From varied point of views, this cultural
trend is often described as the 'feminization of masculinity' by a group of feminists. As they
have argued, the emergence of aesthetically conscious young men reflects the intense
commercialization of culture in the 1980s onward, which has brought about a cultural orientation that ascribes greater significance to the adaptation of feminine aesthetics and strategies. From this point of view, the 'feminization of masculinity' is seen as a logical outcome
of the greater trend of the 'feminization of culture' in the so-called 'postmodern cultural
condition' where human bodies are transformed into visible representational surfaces. I
follow this line of argument up to a point, since this theoretical scope allows me to link
important issues, such as femininity, beauty, and the gendered representation of the self, in
a broader context of capitalist culture that reconfigures masculine bodies. However, I also
need to employ another perspective that sufficiently conveys a sense of agency in the young
men's lively practices of exploring and expressing new masculine ideals. While the perspective of 'feminization of masculinity' tends to reduce young Japanese men into passive,
commodified bodies, I want to view their use of feminine aesthetics and strategies more in
terms of assertions of non-conventional masculine identities, which are made possible by
distancing themselves from the socially ascribed masculine value connotations. The
employment of feminine aesthetics and strategies by young men, in other words, provides
them with a means to refute silently imposed ideological assignments and cultural expectations to reproduce the conventional masculine order in the cultural hegemony of Japanese
society. In shifting my perspective this way, I view what is described by some as the 'feminization of masculinity' as counter-hegemonic practices that challenge conventional masculine values and ideals upheld by the phallocentric hegemonic discourse. I argue that this
challenge to the phallocentric economy is opening up a space for the subjective feminine
gaze to rise, to which young men are now responding with efforts to redefine masculinity.
In this sense, the increasing presence of gender ambiguous identities is, at least in the case of
contemporary Japan, conducive to a feminist goal of transgressing patriarchy.
Although I devote substantial space to describing and analysing the cultural significance of the 'feminization of masculinity', my further objective is to problematize the
discursive contexts in which the phenomenon is placed and discussed. By not conforming
to their socially ascribed gender role nor to conventional notions of masculinity, those
young men disturb the stability of the clear gender division between the masculine and the
feminine assumed in phallocentric discourse, and thereby become subjected to a moral
charge from those who feel threatened by the erosion of the authority of the patriarchal
economy. In this sense, the coinage of the phrase 'feminization of masculinity' itself is implicated with such a fear and anxiety over gender boimdary-crossing and the consequent loss
of power of those who are included in the privileged half. What is articulated in terms of
'feminization of masculinity' is, therefore, an attempt to manage and contain a crisis on the
part of Japanese patriarchy and the phallocentric masculine subject, which came to be
increasingly challenged by shifting gender power relations, assertions of new gender ideals,
and intrusions of other destabilizing factors to the patriarchal economy. In the following

58 Yumiko Jida

discussion, I challenge this inclination in the patriarchal discourse, which makes us think in
a phallocentric language that reinforces the assumed gender boundary, and seek a different
way of describing the phenomenon in the way it deserves. I pay particular attention to the
political implications of the crisis-ridden hegemonic discourse, which strongly reacts
against the intrusion of what is different, and is compelled to reassert the transparency and
coherence of its masculine order by excluding all ambiguities. Particularly noteworthy is
that these anxiety driven reactions - regardless of their motivations being gender, generational or class oriented - easily merge with nationalist assertions, inseparably meshed with
dogmatic moral claims justifying the existing socio-cultural order. As opposed to the clear
gender divisions assumed in the hegemonic perspective, however, the presence of ambiguities and indeterminacies are precisely what can diffuse the obsessive and ultimately selfdestructive inclinations of the patriarchal discourse and subject in crisis. Seen from this
point of view, I conclude that the cultural hegemony of contemporary Japan would be much
better off, if it wishes to sustain itself, by incorporating assertions of non-hegemonic gender
and other identities, rather than presenting a reactionary call for a transparent and coherent
national identity.
In the following pages, I first describe the phenomenon of the emergence of aesthetically conscious young men with particular attention to the socio-economic and cultural
conditions that gave rise to it, and what the 'feminization of masculinity' may mean in
that light. In the next section, I shift my focus to investigate the intentions and the cultural
implications of those aesthetically conscious young males, who strive to break from old
ideals and expectations and express unique identities of themselves by employing nonconventional gender codes, such as beauty and femininity. Discussions of young women's
search for alternative gender ideals, and the growing diversity in youth identities of the
1990s that cross-cuts established hegemonic cultural assumptions, are the subject of the
following section. In the final section, I locate my observations on a theoretical terrain in
the search for non-patriarchal ways of discussing the non-conventional gender identities
and practices observed in contemporary Japanese youth culture, leading towards my
conclusion.
The 'cult of male beauty,' or the 'feminization of masculinity'?
The emergence of fashionable maleness is not entirely new, and one can trace the roots of
this widespread male aesthetic awareness at least to the 1960s, when major cosmetic companies, like Shiseido, launched lines of cosmetics designed specifically for young men. It is
also possible to see the present prevalence of male beauty in a greater historical frame of
reference as being in contiguity with older cultural traditions such as the culture of homosexual boys in early Edo wakashu kabuki. However, I locate the current vogue for male
beauty not along this highly specialized artistic tradition but within a popular, modem, and
capitalist cultural phenomenon that exposes masculine bodies to full-scale commercialization where powerful inscriptional forces of media-constituted aesthetics are at work. In
contemporary Japan, the young Japanese male is increasingly targeted by the growing
fashion and image industries, and exposed to the flood of commercial flirtations disseminated from various forms of media, such as men's fashion and idol magazines, and numerous TV programmes, wherein images of physically appealing young males are ubiquitous.
One finds aggressive advocacy in male fashion magazines of the day, such as Men's Non-no,
Fine Boys and BiDan, which encourage young men to improve and maintain their physique
with numerous photographs of how best to obtain the targeted facial and body images, in
the same way women's fashion magazines do. Indeed, the pages of contemporary male
fashion magazines are filled with information on more than mere updates on trendy clothing items, hairstyles, and fashion techniques, but also on facial care, aesthetic salons and

Beyond the 'feminization of masculinity' 59

body-building studios, often stepping into sensitive territories, like the removal of body
hairs and surgical alteration of facial and body parts, accompanied by unhesitatingly
detailed explanations of medical experts.^ In this discourse of male beauty, fashion magazines, beauty industries, and the pop-culture media collaborate together in cultivating a
highly sensitized aesthetic consciousness in the minds of young men, tacitly imploring them
to submit to 'the cult of male beauty'. By making these efforts, young men could be
rewarded with careers in the idol industries, as models and actors, or win prizes in various
male beauty contests offered by those industries in addition to the more predictable results
of gaining greater attention from young females.
To be sure, the exposure to the commercial sign-economy and the strategic representation of the self are not new cultural phenomena of the 1990s but were already present in the
prosperous bubble economy of the 1980s, which gave rise to the extravagant and sophisticated, if snobbish, material culture in which one's identity was typically displayed by
means of images associated with luxurious brand items. Young males, however, enjoyed
degrees of freedom from the disciplinary effects of such cultural norms until the late 1980s
or so, with their interior largely kept away from the tide of commercialization. Several
factors conjoined in the early 1990s, however, that together gave rise to 'the cult of male
beauty'. One of these factors is the development of a renewed stage of capitalist economy
centring on image creations, which is capable of disseminating globally generated images,
channelled though equally global networks (especially on the internet). Since this commercial culture is visually oriented and mainly operates in the sphere of the popular imaginary,
identities of contemporary youths are typically constituted in the milieu of tight-knit information networks and the pleasure-disciplinary circuit that endlessly make them desire to
strive to perfect their appearance. Added to this is the increasing presence of the notion of
virtuality in the everyday, in which the boundary between the 'artificially imagined self
and the 'true self is blurred, creating a condition where young people are encouraged to
modify and recreate their identities. In this context, the imaginative exploration of alternative selves, including the aesthetically sophisticated self-representation by young men, is a
highly desired practice that serves the purpose of such an image-oriented economy. Indeed,
masculinity became a new and favourite target of capital's colonization; the Japanese pop
music scene of the 1990s, for example, was a nurturing grovmd which saw the mushrooming of such a new breed of men. These pop idols typically displayed delicate and beautiful
'feminine' faces with smooth skin, often accompanied by flimsy eyebrows, eye make-up
and coloured lips, as well as an androgynous body shape and somewhat 'foreign' images as
if they came straight out of a girls' fantasy comicbook.^ The music they play mostly falls into
categories either of American rock and roll or European rock/punk styles, the former
emulating cheerful, healthy and active West Coast American images while the latter is
inclined to display sophisticated, sensitive and introverted images broadly associated with
'European' Romantic artistic codes. These new types of young musicians are somewhat
pejoratively called the 'bijuaru-kei' - a sub-category of musicians who are 'visually-oriented',
and by implication, not musically serious, although there is no reason to assume that the
quality of music produced is negatively correlated to the attention given to appearance.
C!learly, their intent is not to 'look like women', and the visual rhetorical techniques they
employ are quite different from those of women, who typically pursue the image of 'cuteness'. Instead, these young male musicians skilfuUy combined their feminine appearance
with new and attractive images of young adult men, such as independence, gentleness and
sensitivity, although admittedly overridden by narcissistic self-awareness of their beauty. In
other words, they are pioneers of new identities for young adult males who no longer
comfort themselves by simply following hegemonic masculine ideals, but actively seek and
employ aesthetic styles and characteristics conventionally associated with women for their
own purposes. Such an adaptation of feminine aesthetics was initially displayed among pop

60

Yumiko Jida

musicians, but then spread much broader to ordinary young males, leading to what some
call the 'feminization of masculinity'.*
For the sake of argument then, it is possible to defend the proposition that what critics
of mass culture describe in terms of the 'feminization of culture', or the qualitative change in
culture as a result of commercialization, results in the 'feminization of masculinity', the rise
of a class of men who actively employ feminine aesthetic codes and strategies. To be sure,
the phrase 'feminization of culture' was initially used to designate changes in the gender
composition of labour due to the greater participation of women in the workplace, as the
maturing capitalist economy increasingly favoured the part-time, non-unionized, and
service-oriented jobs that made women more visible in public space.^ More recently,
however, the phrase came to be used to refer to the change in cultural orientation under
'postmodernism', which has been eroding the elite, modernist and patriarchal cultural
hegemony (high culture) with its commercially driven, casual and inauthentic, artistically
inferior and mass produced form of art. In this change, so it is argued, the conventional
cultural values such as substance, meaning and depth, were challenged by popular
culture's 'guerrilla tactics', which playfully and ironically incorporate commercially generated symbols and images to elaborate on stylistic representations and forms.^ Referring to
these qualitative changes, Margaret Gullette, a feminist scholar, argues that masculinity in
the culture of the industrialized world, has come to be represented as a sign, 'a signifier of
desire, pleasure, and difference', similar to the ways in which femininity has long been
subjugated to stylized representation of the self by means of the aesthetic techniques of
parody and masquerade (Adkins 2001: 4). She claims that 'the emergence of male cosmetics
and perfumes, the nornialization of the "male makeover," and men's performance of more
"expressive" corporeal styles', are markers of changing gender positions in society, such
that 'men now experience the traditional cultural traps of femininity ... by becoming the
subjects of an objectifying gaze' (Adkins 2001: 4). If one follows this line of thinking, it can
be argued that the 'feminization of culture' may indeed entail a 'feminization of masculinity' in the cultural context where the intensification of commercial and technological effects
has diffused the hegemonic phallic gaze, allowing more pluralistic ideas and practices to
assert different views. Along the same vein, Rita Felski has argued that a femiruzed state of
culture manifests a change in the cultural orientation of society in which 'the dominant
motifs ... [would be] no longer those of self-discipline, control and deferred gratification,
but rather of hedonism, abundance and instant pleasure' (Adkins 2001: 5). In such a feminized culture, she argues, '[c]apitalism is increasingly portrayed as the good mother rather
than the repressive father, the munificent breast rather than the phallus', where everyone is
equally 'feminized' under the omnipresent and all-encompassing gaze of the mother Capital (Adkins 2001: 5). The sound of strongly gendered language not withstanding, the link
made by Felski between the cultural change under advanced capitalism and the increasing
presence of 'feminine features' among young men's representation of themselves is an
attractive one. Following this view, one may argue that young Japanese men are now
locked into the psychological trap of the pleasure/discipline circuit, in which they are made
to follow the artificially cultivated desire to consume beauty goods and services in their
effort to narrow the gap between themselves and their ideals. Beauty in this economy is a
compulsory currency to which contemporary yoimg men and women are now equally
subjugated.
Although the idea that the 'feminization of culture' leads to the 'feminization of masculinity' is an interesting proposition, one should be cautious of giving too much credit to
such an overtly gendered explanation of cultural phenomena. By juxtaposing opposite
genders, the phrase makes the popular trend of redefining masculinity sound like something that should not be happerung, is unnatural and possibly dangerous, implying the
degeneration of the 'superior' gender into the 'inferior' one. Such negative connotations to

Beyond the 'feminization of masculinity' 61

the 'feminine aspect' have already been expressed in the debate on mass culture, but the
problematization of masculinity in terms of 'feminization' reveals an even greater anxiety in
phallocentric discourse. Although the changing cultural context under maturing capitalism
has substantially contributed to the emergence of young Japanese males' active employment of feminine aesthetics and strategies, this alone is insufficient in explaining the
phenomenon. For one thing, those who attempt to create new masculine identities are not
passive objects of structural/material changes in society, but agents who are involved in the
generation of cultural currents. Any practice that claims non-hegemonic gender identities
disturb cultural norms and pose a challenge to the patriarchal economy would point to the
fact that the existing order is not natural nor consented to, but open to contestations and
possible negotiations. By discussing the emergence of non-hegemonic masculine identities
in terms of 'feminization', the possibilities contained in such counter-hegemonic practice are
demoralized by the hegemonic perspective, which aims to reassert a clear gender division.
Another issue at stake is that the search of young men for alternative masculine images is in
part pressed ahead by the demand of women of the same generation, who are themselves
seeking female identities more suited to themselves. This does not mean that the feminized
expressions of masculinity are immediately conducive to the subversion of patriarchal
order as such, but at least it puts the transparency and authority of phallocentric discourse
into question. It only means that in discussing non-conventional gender identities it is
important to pay attention to the actors' intentions, strategic practices, and the messages
they try to send to their generation and society at large, as well as the dynamics these practices generate in the hegemonic operations of phallocentric discourse. In this sense, contemporary Japanese youth culture is a battle zone where established and emergent values
collide against each other, each claiming a higher authority and legitimacy. While being
subjugated to the hidden gaze of culture industries and the chain of commercial pleasuresigns they create, yoimg men and women also add their share of input to the picture.
Indeed, the Japan of the 1990s witnessed a surge of generational claims rejecting conventional gender identities, and instead expressed their preferred values and ideals in such
ways as to transform the conventional order of phallocentric discourse.
Searches for alternative gender ideals
The decline of corporate masculine culture in post-bubble Japan provided young men and
women with renewed opportunities to explore and assert new gender identities outside
those conforming to the hegemonic ideal. On the other hand, since such expressions destabilize the conventionally assumed gender roles and ideals in the phallocentric discourse,
claims for different gender identities were inevitably merged with generational struggles.
Indeed, the younger generations of the 1990s are often described by the older generation as
the shin-jinrui - literally, new human species - with a moral condemnation addressed to
those who no longer share the same values with 'the rest of society'. Strong resistances to
these new attitudes on the part of the guardians of hegemonic discourse seem to have
created a setting in which both genders found each other as natural allies, rather than
competitors, in their attempts to create new gender identities. Indeed, men and women of
younger generations increasingly came to reject the previous masculine ideal of the salaryman type, which typically designates de-eroticized corporate culture, as exemplified in the
anti-aesthetic characteristic of oyaji - unattractive middle-aged men. In particular, young
women who were expected to fulfil the conventionally defined roles of housewife and
motherhood are no longer content, increasingly viewing them as conditions of subordination to the patriarchal society. In her study of the intense beauty work among contemporary
young Japanese men, Laura Miller argues that the phenomenon has two mutually intertwined motivations; one is the female desire for the 'aesthetically pleasing and erotically

62 Yumiko lida

charged' type of man, and the other, the resistance to the salaryman model representing the
white-collar and masculine ideal of a corporate culture under the bubble economy. Miller
argues that '[f]or many young Japanese women, patriarchal values, or at the very least a
dowdy conservatism, go hand in hand with the cloned salaryman body style', and therefore, the appreciation of an opposite aesthetics, 'the ephebe style', is inseparably linked to 'a
rejection of male dominance and an assertion of an independent sexuality' (Miller 2003: 44).
More generally, there is greater appreciation for a better quality of life, such as having
hobbies and leisure time in which one's self-cultivation and the representation of a unique
personality are given in this new cultural climate (Miller 2003: 38). It has been reported that
contemporary Japanese males and females under 20 years of age are much less gender
conscious, are inclined to 'see their partners more as individuals than as men or women',
and women's expectations with respect to their male partners are increasingly diverging
away from the hegemonic canons of the 'Japanese male proper'. Also reported is a major
shift in women's criteria for ideal men, which used to be described as the three 'Hs' - high
salary, high educational credentials and high physical status - but which is now settling
into the three 'Cs' - comfortable, communicative and cooperative - as well as a shift in the
gravity of gender power relations which is now more favourable to women (Miller 2003:
54). At this juncture, it appears that many young Japanese men began to seek new and
different images of masculine ideals that are more reflective of women's desire for erotically
charged men.
The merger between these two motives in effeminate male appearances among young
men - i.e. the response to women's desire and the generational struggle against the older
gender values - can be identified in the popular appeal of the bijuaru-kei musicians. A
popular rock group called Glay, for example, consistently pursues in their songs a theme of
the complicated and involved frustration of living in a materially rich and spiritually
impoverished world, and the related anxiety of attaining a maturity in which they are
bound to lose the purity and innocence of youth (Masubuchi 2000).'' One well-informed
music commentator has remarked that the songs written by Hyde, the vocalist and songwriter of another popular bijuaru-kei rock group, L'Arc-en-Ciel, are something akin to 'a
scream rejecting the maturation into adulthood' (Masubuchi 2000).^ Presumably, their fans
are likely hearing their own inarticulate voices in the groups' songs, sharing similar feelings of pressures, anxieties and frustrations, perhaps stronger in the adolescent male than
in the female, to enter an adult world where dishonesty, 'dirty' power games and hierarchical order prevails.' Noteworthy here is that the physical beauty of feminine appearance
serves as an effective and indispensable currency to advance young men's generational
challenge to configure new masculine ideals. The power of beauty, generally speaking,
rests upon the symbolic slide from youthful beauty to the purity of mind, perhaps because
'a libidinal investment in the ideal male body was historically furnished with an alibi based
on a set of equivalences: spiritual and moral beauty = physical beauty = idealized masculinity' (Solomon-Godeau 1995: 75). In addition to that, in the highly visualized and information oriented economy of the day, it seems that the successful visual representation of
self is endowed with extra significance that may enable an instant conviction nearly impermeable to reason. By strategically taking the aesthetically pleasing and gender ambiguous
masculine position, these young musicians seem to achieve a number of goals simultaneously: an appealing assertion of the generational challenge to reject corporate culture
and salaryman masculinity; a political instrument to attract young women whose criteria
of selection is increasingly inclined to physical beauty and feminine aesthetic styles; an
ideological relief from being fixed into expected positions and responsibilities in society; an
imaginative outlet for an exploratory desire to experiment with non-conventional identities; and, perhaps, a narcissistic satisfaction with aesthetically and erotically representing
themselves.

Beyond the 'feminization of masculinity' 63

There have been extensive discussions in past feminist literature concerning the view
that gender is not a biological category that unproblematically expresses one's biologically
given sex, but is a conscious acting out, a masquerading of one's socially ascribed gender
role to conform or to advance one's goals. From this perspective, those who strategically
gender themselves in the given hegemonic codes with targeted results are often seen as
'feminine', in the sense that femininity is a masquerade, the conscious acting out of a role.
The nature of the masculine self has been treated as something 'inherently opposed to the
kind of deceit and dissembling characteristic of the masquerade' (Brod 1995: 13).^" Along
the conventional philosophical tradition, masculinity is symbolically linked with solidness,
consistency and certainty, which does not betray the notion of masculinity as naturally
given physical and mental strength. The masquerade, on the other hand, breaks from this
assumed link of the natural and the social. A person's appearance no longer necessarily
coincides with his/her personality, and this characteristic has typically been seen as feminine, as perhaps most clearly articulated in Joan Riviere's 1929 classical work 'Womanliness
as Masquerade'.^^ Along this line of argument. Sue Thornman claims that a 'female person'
holds a 'double-subjectivity', a subject position simultaneously occupying both inside and
outside patriarchal narratives and constantly negotiating its positions by disrupting the
assumed gender boundaries (Thornman 2000: 144). Thorrunan argues that while a female
person 'represents herself to herself, she also acts out a role of another subject who
'consciously creates, manipulates, and compensates for the figurability of an imaginary
subject that projects cohesiveness as its founding assumption through a fictional body'
(Thornman 2000:144).^^ It seems that the gender ambiguity displayed on the bodies of those
aesthetically conscious young Japanese men represents some aspects similar to the
masquerade and double-subjectivity, employed as a means to explore and cultivate nonconventional masculine identities. The surface bodies of those young men in this sense are
sites where their counter-hegemonic generational challenges are displayed in aesthetically
appealing looks. In order to clearly mark a different masculine identity from the conventionally recognized ones, a simple modification to existing masculine ideals would not
serve the same purpose, for doing so would instantly transpose them into the terrain of
patriarchal lexicon, not allowing them enough distance from the corporate masculinity
narrative to freely explore and clearly communicate new masculine identities. By holding
an ambiguous gender position, they relocate their practice to the de-gendered space where
alternative identities can be constructed in negotiation with the historical and discursive
contexts. In other words, the purpose of young men adapting feminine aesthetics is not to
hold the position of women, but to distance themselves from the corporate masculine ideals
and expectations imposed upon them, so that they can more effectively pursue their own
goals.
Not surprisingly then, a typical reactionary response to gender-generational challenges
waged by contemporary Japanese youth articulates itself as a reassertion of the established
values and ideals of cultural hegemony, with the familiar tactic of emphasizing biologically
and socially determined gender roles and a rhetorical appeal to family codes. For example,
Hayashi Michiyoshi, one of the authors who popularized a version of 'Men's Studies' in
Japan (although there are different streams of Men's Studies in Japan, this one is particularly anti-feminist), emphasizes that gendered characteristics are natural and highly desirable biological attributes, and, for him, it is the work of genetic coding that makes boys and
girls select certain things over others - i.e. differing choices of toys, colours and activities."
According to Hayashi, these differences are the early marufestations of manliness and
womanliness that later constitute fatherhood and motherhood. For him, identities constituted by the specific attributes of individuals and the common nature of mankind are
neither desirable nor sufficient, since, according to him, 'both "mankind" and "individuals"
can only survive by depending upon various units of institutions, such as family, work

64 Yumiko Jida

place, local community, school, ethnicity and nation', and therefore, 'denying and imdermining desired identities by these intermediary institutions {-rashisa) and their organizational principles is wrong'.^* Although being critical of both genders, who advocate and
practice the elision of the conventional gender ideals, the weight of Hayashi's attacks is
gravitated more towards women. Feminist claims, argues Hayashi, that gender attributes
are socially constructed and that the notions of masculinity and femininity as internalized
effects of socially imposed gender images by cultural conditioning, are not only appalling
but also anti-social. From this vantage-point, he immediately links the inability to act appropriately in society among Japanese youths with the decline of 'proper' gender identities in
them. Hayashi even claims that current social problems, such as serious youth crimes and
the loss of concentration among young children, are by and large results of the declining
'proper' gender identity, and feminists' advocacy for devaluating the 'naturally endowed'
gender ideal is responsible for such occurrences of disorder. Hayashi's idea of the desirability of distinct gender characteristics is a kind of eugenic view of the survival of species,
which views gender near exclusively in terms of the function to serve reproductive
purposes, rather than expressions of actual and imaginative selves. It is not difficult to see
that his advocacy for socially desirable gendered identities, which he simply sees as the
solution for most of the social problems of the day, is a tautological affirmation of his desire
to maintain social order typical of those who locate themselves within the position of hegemonic perspective. As assertions of alternative gender identities are inseparably enmeshed
with generational challenges to the established values and ideals, hegemonic responses to
them also inevitably link them together, revealing that the defenders of the status quo are
now at least fighting a double-fronted war.
Diffusing the phallocentric gaze
If commercial culture provides a more favourable ground for women's performative gender
practices and greater manoeuvrability as discussed in various mass culture theories, Japan
of the 1980s under the bubble economy must have given them greater opportimity to
empower themselves. This was in part true to the extent that women successfully
performed and subverted phallocentric gender codes by turning themselves into fetish
objects in the extravagant commercial culture.^^ Although such efforts themselves did not
instantly promise them a higher cultural status as such, the greater 'commodity values'
attached to them indeed often provided young women with greater leverage in negotiation
between the sexes. For instance, women taking an initiative in dates became a common
practice, and a playful 'game' between the sexes emerged at the height of the bubble-economy. In this game, young women assign tasks to their prospective dates who must bear
upon fulfilling their specific and momentary needs, such as paying the bill for dinner,
providing a means of transportation, buying them expensive gifts and so on.^^ Contrary to
such relatively welcoming conditions for women's assertiveness in private relations, their
attempts to create new gender ideals in the public terrain in the decade of the 1980s were
contained, often usurped by the powerful presence of corporate masculine narrative that
persistently diminished their efforts. For example, the advancement of women into executive positions under the Equal Employment Opportunity Law of 1986 generated more
reactionary cultural debates than actual job opportimities for women, and was treated as a
sub-cultural phenomenon rather than as a professional matter, giving rise to the creation of
a stereo-typical female figure known as the oyaji-gyaru - 'girls acting like a middle-agedmen' (Molony 1995: 268-273). This naming has a double function of a moral teaching to
women about the inappropriateness of their presence in the male-reserved professional
territory and as a phallocentric tactic of degrading them as improper women. Although
playfully construed, the figure of the oyaji-gyaru tacitly disables the 'intrusion' of women as

Beyond the Jeminization of masculinity' 65

others into the established public terrain of corporate masculinity, by relocating their activity from workplace politics to the sub-cultural terrain in which professional women were
reduced to laughable existences. By and large, the strong presence of masculine corporate
culture under the bubble-economy of the 1980s maintained patriarchal control over fluid
gender boundaries, successfully disabling 'female threats' by employing the famihar tactic
of fixing women to the lesser half of the binary, i.e. the private (not pubhc), cultural (not
political/economic), amoral (against norms) and sexual (not professional). Moreover, the
patriarchal discourse of the 1980s not surprisingly produced a non-threatening ideal female
type of its own fantastic making, based on the images of young girls who are pure, cute,
innocent, dependent and vulnerable, but sexually awakened. This highly crafted image of
the male-constructed female type defined the long reigning cultural trends that celebrate
the combination of youthful appearance and sexual assertiveness in young women.^''
If the cultural discourse of the 1980s is characterized by the combination of the flourishing of material culture and the strong presence of phallocentric corporate masculine economy, the discourse of the 1990s is marked by the rise of image-centred culture combined
with the declining hegemony and diversification of values. The cultural chmate of the 1990s
gave young women substantially greater opportunities to explore different identities
outside patriarchal feminine ideals. At the intersection of the relative decline of hegemonic
values and the increasing commercial encroachment to turn young girls into fetish commodities emerged a new teenage female ideal type categorically described as the kogyaru (literally, small 'gals'). The kogyaru, which originated in Japan sometime in 1993, is a now world
(in)famous popular young female type, who displays herself in a very short school-girl's kilt,
white knee socks, and brown or blonde died hair, growing into a new ideal for young
Japanese women who wish to break away from conventional ideals of femininity.^* This new
ideal type portrayed combined images of cuteness, innocence, independence, sexual assertiveness and defiance, obviously retaining the fantasized images of sexy yovmg girls created
by corporate masculine culture of the previous decade, although in the 1990s teenage
women themselves actively reformulated them with their own input. The kogyaru are closely
associated with aspects of information-technology media, partly because of tiieir sporting of
virtual toy-gadgets and cell-phones, but, more significantly, because of their volimtary identification with the highly crafted and anonymous figure defined by media construed
images.^' This voluntary turning into fetish objects is an indispensable condition for them to
obtain an exploratory cultural space where different selfhood and gender identities are
sought.^" The danger of being fixed by male sexual fantasy not withstanding, it appears that
the kogyaru freely swim across the sea of the post-bubble media-scape as pure signs, freed
from conventional feminine moral/sexual codes. The late 1990s saw the emergence of subcategories of the kogyaru, which more explicitly demonstrated anti-patriarchal defiance by
means of humour and irony in their representation of themselves. One of them is referred to
as the yamanba - which literally means old evil women - who display an aesthetically
displeasing style of make-up called ganguro - 'black faces' - with their artificially darkened
faces and overtly exaggerated features, such as huge threatening eyes and white painted lips
standing out on darkened faces.^^ Unhke the kogyaru, who endorse the dominant feminine
aesthetic code of cute, representing new sexual icons for men of all ages, the yamanba are
almost completely detested by men and hardly seen as sexual objects. The emergence of
yamanba is significant for their clear departure from the long-reigning conformist feminine
aesthetics towards a conscious display of defiance, ironic self-mockery (similar to the punks
of yesteryear) that borders upon the grotesque. The yamanba and the aesthetics oi ganguro are
notable markers to indicate that those young Japanese women have completely rejected the
patriarchal ideals of female beauty, as well as the continuing patriarchal governance of
gendered identity. While the independence of women's sexuality was expressed by the
kogyaru in a circumscribed way conforming to male desire, the yamanba pushed their sexual

66 Yumiko Jida

autonomy a step further by standing outside of the phallocentric narrative. With the rise of
such an alternative/feminine gender perspective in the highly diffused and fluid phallocentric discourse, it seems that the widespread designation of diverse gender identities and
performative gender practices among contemporary Japanese youth can no longer be
reversed nor controlled by the singular hegemonic gaze.
Abigail Solomon-Godeau warns against any premature expectations to interpret the
greater visual representation of effeminized men as conducive to feminist goals. She instead
argues that what the phenomenon suggests is nothing more than 'a repudiation of a previous model of masculinity that... [is] no longer appropriate to the needs of a new or changing collective imaginary and symbolic order' (Solomon-Godeau 1995: 73). According to her,
masculinity, like capitalism, has always been in crisis, constantly needing to restructure and
refurbish different images of masculinity in order to defend itself from the challenge and
intrusions of female others that destabilize its transparent order. Referring to her study of
post-revolutionary French paintings where the frequent appearance of androgynous and
effeminate idealized male figures are found, Solomon-Godeau maintains that the effect of
the formulation of those ambiguous masculine figures is more likely to be the displacement
and colonization of femininity.^^ In so far as Solomon-Godeau's own context is concerned, I
would agree that the emergence of ambiguous masculinities is primarily cormected with
male interests in reconstituting masculinity, and has little to do with contesting phallocentrism and patriarchy or the emancipation of women. In fact, the increasing narcissism
among effeminized young men seems to be an observable fact in contemporary Japan,
which also may encourage a homoerotic cultural climate - i.e. not homosexual but a
diffused and vague erotic atmosphere.^ However, unlike in the context of post-revolutionary France, by far the majority of beauty-conscious/effeminate young Japanese men are
heterosexual and striving to win greater attention from women. This may be in part derived
from the orientation of Japanese culture itself, where 'the viewing subject is not exclusively
male, and "the female gaze is recognized and incorporated"'(Miller 2003: 53). In contemporary Japanese youth culture, young men are, so it seems, not only objectified by the powerful gaze of capital but also by an increasing degree of female subjective gaze, and the
formulation of contemporary masculine identities is conditioned by both of them. In this
new highly fluid and de-centred discursive environment, yoimg Japanese men's identity
formation aims to simultaneously assert a generational resistance and an erotic appeal to
women. As that happens, the two closely related spheres are given particular significance in
achieving their double-objective, one is a feminine aesthetics that allows young men to
distance themselves from their biologically given gender, and the other, beauty as a central
value in new masculine identities. Under the declining hegemonic gaze of post-bubble
Japan, previous cultural assumptions including those surrounding gender became open for
contestation and redefinition.
Indeed, the assertions of new identities by young Japanese men and women certainly
constitute destabilizing forces to the hegemonic/patriarchal order as they aim to cross-cut
conventional notions of polarized genders. The generational rebellion of Japanese youths,
moreover, is not only waged in terms of gender, but against the assumed singularity of
national, cultural and ethnic identity of being Japanese, or Japaneseness. Under the increasingly globalized flows of images across national boundaries, young Japanese of both
genders are actively incorporating images of 'foreignness' into their self-fashioning. As in
the case of gender, this phenomenon of the incorporation of the 'foreign' has little to do with
imitation of those in their original places, nor does it intend to copy already established
aesthetic styles from outside Japan. Rather, through imagistic and aural exploration,
Japanese youths attempt to create alternative ideal types by selectively employing a quota
of foreign images and combining them into the native content to obtain 'effective' - different but familiar enough - outcomes. In this respect, the foreign-looking appearance of some

Beyond the 'feminization of masculinity' 67

bijuaru-kei musicians, with visibly identifiable designators of European urban-techno or

American Black cultural image-objects, is not aimed at becoming what they visually
portray, but at strategically appealing to the images of foreignness with full awareness of
their representative effects. Accordingly, the hybrid image produced by this method of
pastiche assemblage has more to do with the de-nationalization of Japanese youth culture
than intemationahzation as such. Similar to those who choose gender ambiguity as a site for
formulating new identities, this de-nationalization, or de-Japanization, is made possible by
distancing themselves from the notion of biologically and culturally determined selves as a
condition to freely explore values, ideals, representational styles, and identities that may go
beyond the nationally circumscribed imagination. These cultural practices trouble nationalistically inclined Japanese who locate themselves on the side of the establishment, not only
because they diverge away from the visual representation of one's own culture, but,
perhaps more importantly, because they endorse and realize the very idea that they can
constitute identities of their own as they wish. The latter point touches upon what lies at the
core of nationalist motivations; namely, the desire to maintain the transparency and stability of the relation between what they see as naturally given personal traits and his/her
socio-cultural designations of him/herself. The rebellion against such a supposedly natural
and transparent relation immediately challenges the symbolic authority of the hegemonic
discourse, the sole foundation upon which the conventional gender, generational, class and
other hierarchies are justified.
Beyond the crisis of masculinity - the possibilities of 'the feminine'
Andreas Huyssen, in his After The Great Divide, points out that the language that discusses
the phenomenon of the rise of mass culture most often contains gender biases, in which
mass culture is explicitly associated with women, modernity's other, in contrast to the
authentic high-culture of modernism which is the territory of men. According to Huyssen,
the past scholarship has not been very keen to acknowledge the gender bias in the debate on
'mass culture,' while, thanks to the contribution of those who are critical of elitist biases,
class has been more successful in gaining greater recognition.^* He argues: '[I]t is indeed
striking to observe how the political, psychological, and aesthetic discourse around the tum
of the century consistently and obsessively genders mass culture and the masses as feminine, while high culture, whether traditional or modern, clearly remains the privileged
realm of male activities' (Huyssen 1986: 47). Huyssen also observes this omission of the
hidden gender gaze in the discussion of mass culture in Adorno and Horkheimer's influential work. Dialectic of Enlightenment. While appreciating their critical intervention in identifying a misleading and ahistorical notion of the mass culture, Huyssen is concerned about
the disappearance of the traces of gender connotations from Adorno and Horkheimer's
work, which emphasizes the masculine side of commercial culture such as technological
reproduction and administration (Huyssen 1986: 47-48). He argues that 'the inscription of
the feminine on the notion of mass culture ... did not relinquish its hold, even among those
critics who did much to overcome the 19th century mystification of mass culture as woman'
(Huyssen 1986: 48). Moreover, in the work of sophisticated contemporary cultural critics,
argues Huyssen, one still often comes across 'the older mode of thinking' in their metaphorical use of gendered language. According to him, this lapse of critical self-examination is
manifested in the recurring use of gendered languages, where '[t]he haimting specter of a
loss of power combines with fear of losing one's fortified and stable ego boundaries, which
represent the sine qua non of male psychology in that bourgeois order' (Huyssen 1986:53). In
short, the debate on mass culture is permeated by the desire to control the sources of fear in
the elite male, who must rely on the claims for 'authentic culture' and its fortified boundaries that must exclude and degrade women.

68 Yumiko Iida
The difficulties of discussir\g popular culture in non-gender-biased terms seem to be
deep, as the formalizadon/embodiment of those psychological fears are structurally
embedded in modem language and discourse, operating according to the assumed dualism
between masculine, rational, authentic, productive, and orderly on the one hand, and feminine, pleasure, inauthentic, consuming, and chaotic, on the other. In order to avoid being
trapped by the inherent gender biases in modernist discourse, perhaps feminist writers
would have to find different ways of narrating their thoughts, practices and aesthetics. This,
however, is not an easy task. In her critique of the work of Adorno and Horkheimer, Rita
Felski describes the problem of a gendered view of a capitalist commercial culture in the
following manner:
In an influential chapter on the politics of the culture industry, Adorno and Horkheinier
argue that its mythological dreamworlds, seductive commodities, and promises of endless
fun are one of the key means through which individuals are reconciled to the prospect of a
totally administered society ruled by a logic of profit and standardization. The repressed feminine of aesthetic and libidinal forces returns in the form of the engulfing, regressive lures of modern
mass culture and consumer society, which trades in authentic pleasures and pseudo-happiness for
acquiescence to the status quo. (Felski 1995: 5, italics added.)

To be sure, Felski's intention is to issue her criticisms of Adorno and Horkheimer whose
view neglects emancipatory possibilities contained in the processes that tend to diffuse the
modem and patriarchal economy. Felski is also critical of the authors' masculine perspective, which simply reinforces modem patriarchal values and the position of women as the
inferior other (Felski 1995: 607). Felski claims that Adorno and Horkheimer reduce woman
to a pre-symbolic otherness, 'to the libidinal, inexpressive, or aesthetic, the repressed Other
of patriarchal reason', to whom the authors do not show 'any independent conception of
female identity, agency, or desire' (Felski 1995: 607). In criticizing their patriarchal use of
language, however, Felski in part falls into the same old trap of reinforcing the patriarchal
lexicon which locates woman in the position of the oppressed other; in the above passage,
the word 'feminine' is immediately linked to the images of libidinal oppression and the
pleasure of consumption, that are built upon a more general assumption of the feminine as
passive, something to be enacted upon, and reactively formulated in response to male
action. Likewise, the description of young Japanese men's search for different masculine
identities in terms of the 'feminization of masculinity' imposes a patriarchal perspective
that simultaneously demoralizes men's efforts and devalues femininity, while reinforcing
the clarity of the binary opposition of the modem phallocentric economy. One is left with a
familiar question, whether feminist writing can hold an alternative perspective that can
successfully escape the gaze of the modernist masculine perspective.^^
In previous sections, I depicted explorations and assertions of new gender identities in
recent Japanese youth culture, with substantial attention given to the intention and practice
of those who engage in the act of self-representation by strategically standing at the margins
of the phallocentric economy. By virtue of being placed at the margin of the phallocentric
economy, they are imable to find a legitimate place in the master narrative, only appearing
as 'destabilizing elements'. This is clearly exemplified in the various ways of naming the
above-discussed feminine types, such as oyaji-gyaru, kogyaru and yamanba, which are all
viewed and judged by the patriarchal gaze. Seen in such a dominant perspective, young
women's acts of resistance are devalued and demoralized by the familiar self-defensive
mechanism of the patriarchal economy that disempowers its challengers. Similarly, by
referring to aesthetically conscious young men as 'feminized men', and gender ambiguous
cultural practices as the 'feminization of masculinity', it signifies a fearful reaction and
moral condemnation of the patriarchal economy for destabilizing assumed gender boundaries. Such persistent hegemonic denial of alternative gender identities in turn reveals, as

Beyond the 'feminization of masculinity' 69

Solomon-Godeau argues, an inherent crisis in the masculine subject and patriarchal
discourse. Since the stability and order of the patriarchal economy depends on the maintenance of clear gender boundaries and transparency, those defenders of hegemoruc masculinity find the emergence of young males who openly embrace and adapt feminine
aesthetics and strategies threatening. In the patriarchal view, therefore, the 'feminization of
masculiruty' is narrated, along the line of the mass culture debate, as a crisis - the 'feminine
aspects' began contaminating the foundational ground of cultural hegemony with impurity,
opacity and disorder, which is most symbolically manifested in the erosion of conventionally defined masculinity. Viewed from another perspective, however, the assertion of alternative gender identities is a creative cultural practice, specifically when conventional
gender values and ideals become incapable of representing a complicated gender awareness of contemporary yoimg men. Seen from this point of view, as I have proposed, 'the
femiriine' designates those who take a critical distance from socially constructed and idealized notions of gender, and those who consciously and strategically perform their gendered
identities. Psychologically speaking, the challenge from the younger generations of men
would be even more destabilizing to hegemonic masculinity than challenges from women,
since the voluntary abandoning of the 'superior gender identity' by young men inevitably
puts into question the biological ground of the assumed superiority. That is to say, the femimne appearance in some young men contradicts the transparency of biological sex and
socially constructed gender assumed in the phallocentric economy, and thus unsettles the
stabihty of the hegemonic order and the patriarchal masculine self. Moreover, by calling
those fellow young men 'feminine', the patriarchal discourse complicates and further weakens itself, leading to the secondary crisis added to the original; that is, the anxiety generated
in the hegemonic subject internalizes fracture in masculinity itself, as well as shifts the
ground of contestation and struggle from gender to generation.
What is discussed as the crisis of masculinity in the phallocentric perspective, then, is
an identity crisis of the hegemonic subject, i.e. adult middle-class men, who are reacting to
the increasing heterogeneity and opacity in the information-oriented and globalized
cultural terrain. Perhaps, those who strongly react against unconventional gender practices
have their own good reason to be fearful of the dissidents, for their gender identities are
immediately dependent upon the undisrupted operation of phallocentric discourse. This
dependency, moreover, could be more than just psychological, but may also involve total
personal well-being, for the gender identification via the symboUc penetrates the formation
of sexuality and thus personhood. On the effect of language upon a stable sense of sexuality,
Judith Butler argues:
The capacity of language tofixsuch [sexual] positions, that is, to enact its symbolic effects,
depends upon the permanence and fixity of the symbolic domain itself, the domain of signifiability or intelligibility. If, for Lacan, the [N]ame [of the Father] secures the bodily ego in
time, renders it identical through tin-ie, and this 'conferring' power of the name is derived
from the conferring power of the symbolic more generally, then it follows that a crisis in the
symbolic will entail a crisis in this identity-conferring function of the name, and in the stabilizing of bodily contours according to sex allegedly performed by the symbolic. The crisis in
the symbolic, understood as a crisis over what constitutes the limits of intelligibility, will register as a
crisis in the name and in the morphological stability that the name is said io confer.' (Butler 1998:461)

The last sentence summarizes the crux of what supports and defends the phallocentric
discourse: the 'name' becomes embodied by repetition, by means of the identity-conferring
mecharusm involved in the formation of the sexed body. Moreover, since the phallocentric
economy simultaneously constitutes a national hegemonic economy, a crisis of the 'patriarchal name' caused by the disturbances in the symbolic economy also registers as a crisis of
nation. The criticisms of 'effeminate' young men and unfeminine young women by those
who endorse conventional gender ideals typically articulates the challenge of the younger

70 Yumiko lida

generation in terms of the loss of traditional Japanese virtues, the weakening of national
(assumed masculine) spirit, or even the decay of the national moral fabric.^* Due to this
gender-national linkage in the hegemonic subject, the assertion of alternative gender identities - a 'feminine' strategy in the position of 'double-subjectivity' - is likely to meet moral
condemnation in national voices that see gender blurring as un-Japanese. What this extrarational symbolic shde reveals is the multiple affiliations in the identity of the phallocentric
subject - i.e. masculinity, generation, class, and nationahty - that together affirm the authority of the Name of the Father, which nevertheless seeks to imify them to constitute a coherent sense of the body = gender.^^ Another thing revealed is the inherent crisis in patriarchal
masculinity, but not in the way it imderstands itself (i.e. 'feminization'). This crisis is rooted
in its ontological instability which manifests itself in the form of obsessive attempts to deny
and control what is threatening to itself, or 'the feminine' as indeterminacy that cannot be
grasped by the hegemonic gaze.^^ Seen from the perspective at the margin of hegemony,
then, what the patriarchal perspective understands as causes of instabihty, 'the feminine', is
the very source of relief for the patriarchal ehte national subject, in the sense that the former
mitigates the latter's obsessive pursuit for identity - i.e. an inclination that tries to equate
itself with ideally constructed gender/national images. By virtue of being excluded, 'the
feminine' functions as a constitutive 'outside' of the phallocentric symbolic economy that
assures an open space for imagination and alternative possibilities, without which the hegemoruc economy would ultimately destroy itself.
Conclusion
By observing expressions of new gender identities in contemporary Japanese youth culture
and critically discussing the phenomenon described as the 'feminization of masculinity', I
have made an attempt to imderstand how younger generations of men and women perceive
and express their gendered selves, and how those innovative attempts were responded to
by the phallocentric/hegemonic economy. From the above findings, I conclude that the
phenomenon should be located in the context of the crisis of masculinity and of the phallocentric economy, whose age-old values and ideals have lost their appeal and convincing
power with younger generations. Rather predictably, however, these crises are discussed in
the phallocentric/hegemoruc discourse in terms of the loss of morahty, gender and culture
specific virtues, and even loyalty to nation. This sleight of hand, so to speak, reveals the lack
of abihty on the part of a patriarchal economy to constructively respond to new challenges,
instead of anxiously reacting to the destabilizing effects upon itself. By looking at the ways
young Japanese men and women strategically employ gender ambiguity to destabiUze
dichotomist notions of gender at the hegemonic horizon, I found the possibilities for alleviating an obsessive drive in the patriarchal subject for transparency. Such a narcissistic and
claustrophobic drive for self-identity, or desire for the identity-conferring function of the
Name, would ultimately suffocate and destroy the patriarchal subject itself, by virtue of
eliminating all indeterminacy and openness as the constitutive foundation for itself. Seen
from this point of view, the practice of gender ambiguous identities can have a neutralizing
effect and, therefore, be rather conducive to the healthy regeneration of social hegemony.
Moreover, the development of horizontal linkages among counter-hegemonic identity practices in the terrain of youth popular culture - those that cut across gender, generational and
nationality boundaries - seems to suggest that contemporary Japanese cultural hegemony
has to come up with some creative and convincing responses to better accommodate
younger generations' demands.
Such a counter-hegemonic cultural movement naturally involves a challenge to
Japanese national hegemony and thus to the national subject/identity. As observed above,
the explorative effort of finding one's own identity took place first in the field of aesthetics

Beyond the 'feminization of masculinity' 71

where yoimg men and women attempt a number of simultaneous boundary-crossings,

envisaging themselves in plural gender and cultural identities. These efforts are not simply
aesthetic exploration alone, but inevitably initiate transformation in the cultural hegemony
of contemporary Japan, which no longer convinces younger generations with established
values and ideals. Critics may worry that the highly malleable, flexible and ungrounded
expressions in contemporary youth identities are manifestations of the subject in crisis, in
the highly technologically mediated and image constituted society. Although I share similar
concerns on highly abstract and de-centred subjectivity, which fall largely outside the scope
of this paper, I would like to see in those explorations of alternative identities among young
Japanese men and women the possibilities for engendering both subversive and reproductive effects to the crisis-ridden phallocentric/hegemonic economy. Here, I must emphasize
that neither reactionary drives for transparency and imity in the symbolic economy nor calls
for masculine and national identity would serve as a solution to the problem. I would like to
find a solution in an enhanced awareness and complication in the understanding of gender
and national identity, which is not singular, uniform, fixed or transparent, but instead is
always self-reflexive, a self-undoing practice that is open to the possibilities of being other
than itself. Such an open notion of the gendered self would be conducive to building a society with greater imderstanding, sympathy, creativity, exploratory spirit, and an imagination that is open to differing identities yet to be met.
Notes
1. I was especially shocked in the summer of 1998, when I saw a rather ordinary looking young boy in his
high-school student's uniform sitting next to me on the Keihin-tohoku line, one of the busiest commuter
train lines, taking a cosmetic pouch out of his bag, whereupon he began repairing his make-up in public.
I noticed at least a couple of condemning looks towards him from older-generation men, which nevertheless did not stop the boy's continuing effort, looking into the mirror and putting on the powder to
'perfect' his face. This was admittedly unusual, but I began to notice many young men who look into
reflections of themselves at the subway windows checking their appearance, which was something men
of earlier generations refrained from doing, at least in public.
2. Especially noted is the popularity of body hair removal (on chest, legs and underarms) among young
men who developed an acute consciousness of women's strong distaste for hairy men. On the increasing
demand from young Japanese men for hair removal at aesthetic salons, see Laura Miller's 'Male beauty
work in Japan' (Miller 2003) in which she shows how the young men's concerns are motivated by the
aversion for bodily hair among young Japanese women.
3. One can see these effeminate male features in the booming publication of music and idol magazines, such
as PopBeat, Band Hotline, junon and Potato among others, which centre on visually attractive male idols.
Some archetypal images of androgynous male beauty can be found at the internet homepages of idols
such as Gackt and T.M. Revolution, whose addresses are http://www.dears.ne.jp/ and http://
www.tm-revolution.com respectively.
4. In Japanese discourse, the phrase 'feminization of masculinity' can be used in two quite different cultural
meanings; one to designate the gentrification of men, especially the tendency to show greater understanding and sympathy for feminist causes, and the other, the adaptation of feminine aesthetic styles to
display sensitivity, gentleness, and sophistication. However, I am here using the term, as discussed in the
following paragraph, in the sense Western feminists, including Rita Felski and Margaret GuUette, use the
term, to designate a universal cultural trend under a growing capitalist commercialization.
5. A concise genealogy of the term feminization is found in Lisa Adkins (2001: 2-5).
6. One of the 'classical texts' that analysed the features of postmodern art as a manifestation of a stage of
capitalist development is Fredric Jameson's Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic oflMte Capitalism (Jameson

1991). In Jameson's view, 'postmodernism' is the commercial logic of late capitalism where the entire
sphere of culture falls under the immediate gaze of capital, and materiality, historicity, dialectical relations and temporality are all evaporated.
7. For more information, see Glay's official website: http: / /www.glay.co.jp.
8. One can find visual images of L'Arc-en-Ciel and listen to their songs on a number of internet sites
devoted to them.

72 Yumiko lida
9. What is interesting here is that both Glay and L'Arc-en-Ciel have been, at least initially, categorized as
bijuaru-kei bands, that is, groups whose popularity is dependent on their good looks, but they graduaOy
reduced the visual component of their appeal (e.g. literally reduced the amount of cosmetics they wore).
This brings us back to the significance of beauty in contemporary Japanese youth culture, and the necessity of representing oneself in visually appealing images in order to get one's message across. The simple
dissemination of a political message has, perhaps, lost its efficacy long ago, even more so in a televisually
oriented contemporary youth culture where visual appeal is far more important to becoming known and
getting heard than other forms of creative endeavour, such as writing, which carries far less influential
power.
10. Brod argues that this is exemplified in the view of masculinity in traditional philosophers such as Plato
and Rousseau, who 'considered any sort of play acting or pretension to be corrupting of the masculine
virtues' (Brod 1995:13).
11. According to Brod, Joan Riviere's article 'Womanliness as Masquerade' was originally published in the
International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 1929, and reprinted in Formations of Fantasy, 1986, Victor Burgin,

James Donald and Cora Kaplan (eds.).

12. Here, Thornman is citing from Hilary Radner's reading of an article from Vo^we in which Radner finds
ambiguous implications in the act of masquerade, which represents 'an active subordination'. Thornman
summarizes this ambiguity arising from the position of women who are 'both inside and outside the
system of consumerism, complicit with it but in constant negotiation' (Thornman 2000:144).
13. Here, manliness/fatherhood is seen to be endowed with the 'mental strength' (i.e. superior abilities for
objective judgements and the power of creating principles) and 'spiritual superiority' (i.e. attitudes to
respond to transcendental moral demands and the desire to achieve greater justice, honesty, politeness
and intellect), while womanliness/motherhood is characterized by greater tolerance, gentleness and the
ability to generate good relationships, which are derived from greater emotion, sensitivity, affection, the
senses, intuitive imderstanding and groundedness upon the body/earth. See Hayashi Michiyoshi's internet homepage: http://wwwoo7.upp.so-net.ne.jp/rindou/about.html.
14. Quoted from the articles found at the above internet homepage imder the headings of 'Kyouiku' (Education) no. 1: 'Kyouiku ni okeru Fusei no Yakuwari' (The Role of Fatherhood in Education) and 'Fusei' (Fatherhood) no. 13: 'Otokorashisa ni tsuite kangaeru' (Thinking about Manliness).
15. According to Thornman, Luce Irigaray argues that women are described as both fetish commodities and
agents of resistance in consumer culture, with an emphatic voice of the former. Indeed, her observation
of women's gender performance is not too optimistic: 'Women ... become fabrications, "disinvested of
[the] body and reclothed in a form that makes [them] suitable for exchange among men," fetish-objects
invested, like religious fetishes, with the fantasized characteristics of masculine desire, but without
access to desire of their own' (cited in Thornman 2000:127). On the other hand, however, she also finds
an aspect of resistance in performance, that of mimicry, by actively participating in consumption and
thereby deliberately 'convert[ing] a form of subordination into an affirmation', while at the same time
they are not entirely absorbed into this function, but remain elsewhere (cited in Thornman 2000: 127).
Although Irigaray's view encapsulates the dilemma of women representing themselves in phallocentric
discourse, in which thoughts and actions are interpreted according to the hegemonic narrative, in order
to subvert them they must remain at the 'margin' of patriarchal discourse.
16. One finds a series of essays written by two Japanese feminists very useful here, Yukiko Kimura and Ai
Mamana, What Japanese Women are Really Like (1999), see especially pp. 62-65. Admittedly, these are not
the subversive representations of the female selves recognized in feminist literature, but Japanese women
gained standing in positions of decision making by freely utilizing their sexuality as a weapon and this
marked substantial progress from the conventional ideal of femininity, in which women are not
supposed to be placing demands on their male partners.
17. On this ideal female type, see Treat (1996).
18. On the subject of the kogyaru, works by Miyadai Shinji are illuminating: see, for example, his The Obscure
Spite of Transparent Being (Miyadai 2001).
19. These toys and gadgets include things like tamagotchi and purikura. The former is a virtual pet on a small
portable computer screen which demands care (food, cleaning, etc) from its owner, and the latter, a coin
operated photo-booth in which one constructs a play narrative of one's identity represented in stylized
mini-photo stickers.
20. Japanese anthropologist Miyadai Shinji argues that young girls, compared to boys, are more capable of
adapting themselves to such other-oriented identities, and thus successfully coping with the challenge of
the information age in which boys often fail to adapt (which tends to result in hikikomori, the retreat into
one's own room). Simultaneously, however, he also sees in both boys and girls a very similar sense of

Beyond the 'feminization of masculinity' 73

detachment, a typical feature of the other-dependent self in a highly information oriented culture. See,
for example, his Etiquette for the End of the Millennium (Miyadai 1997).
21. The visual images of yamanba and ganguro are found, for example, in the following internet site: http://
www.angelfire.com/art/jap/ganguro.html.
22. Solomon-Godeau argues that the erotics of the androgynous male ideal serve the following three functions for men, none of which have anything to do with a challenge to patriarchy: the medium for the
'narcissistic identification' with the represented image of the beau ideal; the 'fantasy of possession and
mastery' by standing in the position of the displaced/colonized feminine; and 'an escape from the
uncompromising fixities' of hegemonic masculine ideology (Solomon-Godeau 1995: 5). Judith Butler
makes a similar point referring to the implication of drag on feminism, that it is not more than 'a site of a
certain ambivalence,' which 'may well be used in the service of both the denaturalization and reidealization of hyperbolic heterosexual gender norms' (Butler 1998: 451).
23. Observing Japanese youth culture today, it is likely in my view that those who adopt androgjmous looks
remain within the gravity of heterosexual attraction rather than seeking homoerotic romance. Although
it is possible to imagine those who indulge in the narcissistic pleasure of standing simultaneously in the
position of masculine and feminine for a moment, few of them would actually be interested in gay
affairs.
24. Stuart Hall, for one, has criticized the way that the cultural modernization of 'the masses' is seen as a
threat to the establishment, reflecting the fear of those who perceived 'their political and cultural aspirations, their struggles and their pacification via cultural institutions' would destabilize the social order
and the elite dominated culture, if not signalling civilizational decline. While appreciating this insight of
Hall, Huyssen calls attention to another hidden subject of the debate, namely women who are waging a
major challenge to male dominated culture. See Huyssen (1986:47).
25. Indeed, various feminists have made efforts to advance the goal of better articulating feminine values via
inventing feminist narratives, epistemologies, and aesthetics. Felski herself thinks seriously about this.
She argues that a possible solution can be sought, for example, in rereading and rewriting patriarchal
modem myths from a female perspective, as done by J. S. Mill, but she also warns of the danger of recreating another universal myth of gendered modernity in simply replacing masculinity with femininity
(Felski 1995: 7). Felski approaches the gender/modernity question not by providing a 'grand philosophical summation', but rather she aims to 'unravel complexities of modernity's relationship to femininity
through an analysis of its varied and competing representations' (Felski 1995: 7).
26. Along this line of thought, conservative critic Hayashi Michiyoshi criticizes 'femiruzed men' as eroding
the notions of motherhood. As I noted above, the phrase 'feminized men' in Japanese is used to designate
both those who pursue feminine-type fashion style and appearance and those who endorse feminist
causes. This dual meaning assigned to the phrase reveals the operation of the phallocentric gaze, which
uncritically links and equates the symbolism of femininity, feminine aesthetic styles, feminism as a
movement, and the lived women. In this slide of meaning, resentment to any one of them is automatically and simultaneously transposed to all others, and this constitutes a ground for morally and emotionally aspired condemnations against 'fenunized men' and feminists in the name of idealized motherhood.
27. Referring to this aspiration of the bodily ego to obtain a sense of 'wholeness' and 'unity,' Dana Nelson
attributes the source of this aspiration to cultural education rather than internal desires in infantile bodies
as Lacan discussed. She argues: 'Lacan suggested that it is "organic disturbances and discord" which
prompts the child to seek out the form of the "whole body-image." However, it seems to me that the
reverse is actually true: it is the cultural premium placed on the notion of a coherent bodily ego which
results in such a dystopic apprehension of corporeal multiplicity' (Nelson 1998: 27).
28. The patriarchal gaze, however, may be understood as a lack (or refusal) of ability to engage in self-criticism and the authorization and justification of its absolute status by the rejection of being in the position
of the 'looked upon'. Dana Nelson, citing Lee Edelman, characterizes this scopophilic exercise of the
masculine subject as follows: 'If the fantasy of masculinity ... is the fantasy of non-self-conscious selfhood
endowed with absolute control of a gaze whose directionality is irreversible, the enacted - or "self
conscious" - "manhood," ... is itself a performance/or the gaze of the Other ...[I]t is destined therefore to
be always the paradoxical display of a masculinity that defines itself through its capacity to put others on
display while resisting the bodily captation involved in being out on display itself (Nelson 1998: 81-87).

References
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74 Yumiko lida
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Tokyo: Shunju Sha

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and Popular Culture, Richmond Surrey: Curzon Press, 275-308.

Special terms
bijuaru-kei t" ya.jjl'^s

oyaji tS-^ U,

fusei JCtt
ganguro ;t/' > ^ n(i^S)
hikikomori t> t ^1 fc )
kogyaru 3 ^'-\' JU
kyouiku^W
kyouiku ni okeru Fusei no Yakuwari
SCTll-:fcft53(:ttro^S:Si|
otokorashisa ni tsuite
kangaerul? 6 L ^ (COl/ ^T^tX. 5

oyaji-gyaru
purikura 7 ' U ^ 7
-rashisa - b L ^
shin-jinrui If A?S
tamagotchi tz'^ :::^-o
yamanba 'Y-7
wakashu kabuki ^

Author's biography
IIDA YumikofiSH fi ^ i ^ is presently a researcher at the Asian Institute, University of Toronto, Canada. She
has published Rethinking Identity in Modern Japan: Nationalism as Aesthetics with Routledge in 2002, a revised
version of her dissertation surrunarized into a monograph. Her research interests include the study of nationalism and fascism, modem Japanese intellectual history, and features of contemporary Japanese society
among others. She is currently working on a study of a new mode of ideology that works through vision,
technology and pleasure, and its particular effectiveness in empirically stressing subjectivity.
Contact address: Asian Institute, University of Toronto, 1 Devonshire Place, Room 225N, Toronto, Ontario,
Canada.