Salarymen Masculinity: The Continuity of and Change in the Hegemonic Masculinity in Japan across Three Generations

Event details
Speaker : Dr Tomoko Hidaka
               Teaching Assistant, Department of Japanese Studies, NUS
Date      : Friday, 21 September 2007
Time      : 3:00pm - 4:00pm
Venue    : AS4/03-28 (JS Meeting Room)

Abstract

I explore Japanese sararīman (salaryman) masculinity, that is, the ‘hegemonic masculinity' in Japan. The study collects the life-histories of 39 men across three generations of salarymen, who work or worked for a large company with more than 1,000 employees. In this paper, the participants are described as Cohort I (aged sixty and over), Cohort II (aged from forty to forty-nine) and Cohort III (aged from twenty to twenty-nine). By introducing Japanese salarymen's own accounts of themselves, the paper explores the construction of their masculinity throughout their lives. As hegemonic masculinity is shaped and maintained through the structures of society but also changes over time, I pay attention to the phases of salarymen's lives such as growing up, schooling, love and marriage, work and post-retirement and examines similarities and differences across the three generations of salarymen. Additionally, similarities and differences within each generation are explored. While we should not dismiss the persistent resistance to gender equality as a warning, the life histories of the participants over a half-a-century evince signs of change in salaryman hegemonic masculinity.