Overview
Gender (ジェンダー, jendā) is a concept coming from what role each sex plays from a social perspective.
Sex, which is a biological difference, is treated as a very sensitive issue because it is deeply related to one's personality and how one mentally perceives ones own identity .
The way of thinking about this word itself varies greatly from country to country, region to region, and era to era, so what is described in this section should be considered as "one of the ways of thinking in Japan at the beginning of the 21st century".
Social Example
First of all, it is fair to say that, prior to the modern era, the idea of social gender differences was almost uniformly the same worldwide, with a few exceptions.
In other words, "men worked outside the home, women kept house".
This idea was derived from the biological function of women to bear children and nurture them, and basically women did not assume any further social roles other than being ordained.
This idea changed drastically with the development of the steam engine in the modern era, which led to a dramatic advance in human technology.
As machines reduced the percentage of physical labor required of humans, women's labor was needed in large numbers in society.
Later, when men were needed as military force due to the two world wars, women's labor force was needed in large numbers to fill the gap, and after World War II, women's participation in society became much more prevalent than before.
These global trends had a significant impact on Japan as well, with women's entry into society beginning in the Meiji era, and the role of women in society changing dramatically throughout the Taisho and Showa era.
However, even so, until the economic bubble period, Japanese values toward women were largely based on the view that women "resign after marriage even if they join a company," and once they got married and quit their jobs, it was very difficult for women to find employment while maintaining their marriages, and it was difficult to say that the gender gap in society had been filled.
Then, in the 1990s, the bubble economy collapsed.
It became common for couples to work together to support the family, and it became socially recognized that it was "normal for women to work after marriage" as it became common for wives to work part-time while their husbands worked full-time.
Later, in the 00s, the unequal employment opportunities for women began to be reevaluated.
It was also around this time that Japan's overwhelmingly small number of female social leaders, such as female politicians and female executives, from a global perspective, came to be seen as a problem.
Although the lack of equal labor opportunities for men and women has not fully improved since the beginning of the 1920s, it has at least somewhat improved, and it is clear that the social gap between men and women is indeed closing, albeit slowly and surely.
Cultural Example
At a time when the very idea of a woman walking down the street was frowned upon, these innovative women were often singled out by conservatives, who countered by deliberately displaying Western fashions. As part of this trend, a culture of "daring to use men's language" also emerged.
In those days, women did not have the right to vote, and education for women was often blatantly disregarded in school life, so "acting like a man" sometimes even had political significance.
From the regime's point of view, such women were seen as a serious taboo that went beyond "rebellion" and "youthful indiscretion," and in fact, the thorough suppression of such women during the subsequent wartime regime brought an end to this taboo.
In the midst of such a time, the male roles of the Takarazuka Revue, which established itself as a "traditional art form," barely conveyed "masculine women" in the postwar period, and from around the 1970s, when subcultures began to develop, examples of their use in everyday life began to be seen again.
There are various theories about the events that directly triggered the re-popularization and the timing, but there is no doubt that the appearance of such characters in Osamu Tezuka, the "God of Manga," in his own works was a turning point.
In addition, with the arrival of the idol boom, the number of female singers exploded, and many sang songs in the first person pronoun "boku" (A masculine pronoun) to differentiate themselves, or even used "boku" in conversations themselves. Although it did not become the main culture, boku girls were received quite favorably for a while.
However, as the subculture deepened and subdivided, it gradually became beyond the comprehension of the general public, and in the 1980s, the term otaku was coined and often discussed critically.
The term Peter Pan Syndrome, which refers to "a childish spirit and refusal to grow up," is a typical example of such a discussion.
At the same time, feminism was flourishing with the ratification of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), and a number of men perceived this as hijacking their position.
Today, especially among the younger generation, only a handful of women use easily recognizable feminine words. The difference between men's and women's language is rapidly disappearing, and it seems that the world has already become more neutral.
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