Gender and Modernity Culture
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KYOTO ARHA STUDIES ON ASIA KYOTO AREA STUDIES ON ASIA CENTER KOR SOUTHEAST ASIAN STUDIES, KYOTO UNIVERSITY ChNTER K)R SoUTHI AST ASIAN STUDIES, KYOTO UNIVERSITY VOLUME 4 The Nation and Economic Growth: Korea and Thailand YnsHiHARA Kunio One Mala\ Village: A Thirty-Year Community Study TstlBOUCHl Yoshihiro Commodifying Marxism: The Formation of Modern Thai Radical Gender and Modernity Culture. 1927-1958 Kasian TKJAPIRA Perspectives from Asia and the Pacific Gender and Modernity: Perspectives from Asia and the Pacific HAYAMI Yoko. TANABE Akio. TOKITA-TANABE Yumiko Practical Buddhism among the Thai-Lao: Religion in the Making of a Region Edited by HAYASHI Yukio HAYAMI Yoko TANABE Akio TOKITA-TANABE Yumiko Kyoto University Press This book is published as a part of the results of the Center of Excellence Project entitled "The Making of Regions: Formations, Transformations and New Formations in Asia and Africa." Contents First published in 2003 jointly by: Kyoto University Press Trans Pacific Press Kyodai Kaikan PO Box 120, Rosanna, Melbourne 15-9 Yoshida Kawara-cho Victoria 3084, Australia Sakyo-ku, Kyoto 606-8305, Japan Telephone: +61 3 9459 3021 Fax: +61 3 9457 5923 Telephone: +81-75-761-6182 List of Photographs vii Fax: +81-75-761-6190 Email: [email protected] Email: [email protected] Web: http://www.transpacificpress.com List of Figures ix Web: http://www.kyoto-up.gr.jp List of Tables x Copyright © Kyoto University Press and Trans Pacific Press 2003 List of Contributors xi Set by digital environs Melbourne: cnquiries(P>digitalenvirons.com Acknowledgments xiii Printed in Melbourne by BPA Print Group Introduction: Gender and Modernity in Asia and the Pacific 1 Distributors Akio Tanabe and Yumiko Tokita-Tanabe USA and Canada Australia 1. Legacies of the Mission: Christian Ideals and Gender I 7 Bushbooks International Specialized Book PO Box 1958, Gosford, NSW 2250 Services (ISBS) Sachiko Kubota 5824 N. E. Hassalo Street Telephone: (02) 4323-3274 2. Becoming a 'Female Citizen' in Colonial Kerala 41 Fax: (02) 9212-2468 Portland, Oregon 97213-3644 Email: [email protected] USA Toshie Awaya Telephone: (800) 944-6190 3. Power, Culture and Masculinity in (Post-)Colonial Orissa, India 61 Fax: (503) 280-8832 UK and Europe Akio Tanabe Asian Studies Book Services Email: [email protected] Nijenrodeplantsoen 104 Web: http://www.isbs.com 4. Uncovering the 'Domestic': Gender, Modernity, and the Division 3554 TT Utrecht, The Netherlands of Reproductive Labor in Bali 87 Telephone: +31 30 289 1240 Fax: +31 30 289 1249 Ayami Nakatani Email: [email protected] 5. 'Source' and 'Home': Gender and Contemporary Lifeworlds in Web: http://www.asianstudiesbooks.com Central Flores, Southeast Indonesia 1 14 All rights reserved. No production of any part of this book may take place without the Eriko Aoki written permission of Kyoto University Press or Trans Pacific Press. 6. Reorganizing and Traversing Space: Women in the Peripheries ISSN 1445-9663 (Kyoto Area Studies on Asia) of Thailand I 46 ISBN 4-87698-451-4 (hardcover) Yoko Hayami ISBN 1-87684-360-8 (soflcovcr) : 7. Aesthetics of the Female Self: Modernity and Cultural Agency National Library of Australia Cataloging in Publication Data of Urban Middle-class Women in Orissa I 67 Gender and modernity: perspectives from Asia and the Pacific. Yumiko Tokita-Tanabe Bibliography. 8. Constructing Male Aesthetics in Rock and Makeup: Gender Includes index. Strategies by Musicians and Fans of Visual Rock in Japan I 89 ISBN 1 876843 60 8 (pbk.). Takako Inoue ISBN 4 87698451 4. 9. (De-)Sexualizing Gender Relationships: Sexual Harassment as 1. Gender identity - Asia. 2. Gender identity - Pacific V Area. 3. Asia - Social conditions. 4. Pacific Area - Modern and as a Critique of Modernity 218 Social conditions. I. Hayami. Yoko. il. Tanabe, Akio. Ichiro Numazaki III. Tokita-Tanabe, Yumiko. (Series : Kyoto area studies it. '-•"'' on Asia). Epilogue: From Modernity and Beyond 237 Yoko Hayami 305.3095 a 188 CHAPTBR 7 seem to be the ones who represent the strata of people who bear the 8 difficulties and challenges of integrating the modern and the traditional through the exercise of cultural agency. They also represent the hopes and Constructing Male Aesthetics in anxieties of new Indian women for creating their own space. Rock and Makeup: Gender Strategies Conclusion by Musicians and Fans of Visual We have seen how urban women are negotiating new cultural spaces by Rock in Japan enacting smartness according to a new aesthetics of the self. This involves the creation and embodiment of practices that enable a woman to adjust Takako I none freely to situations which involve interaction with new people and different contexts, and at the same time to conduct herself in such a way that she is not criticized by the people around her. They have developed an objectified gaze upon themselves through internalizing relationships with others. They are not individuals whose own thinking and desires matter most, but see themselves always in relation to their social surroundings and have internalized the gaze of Introduction others as their own. Neither, are they a mere part of a whole whose presence is determined in the structure. Contemporary urban women value their own Visual rock1 became very prominent in the Japanese popular music scene thinking and their own appearance, and place importance on the capacity during the 1990s. The purpose of this article is to explain this phenomenon, to do business alone, without failing to satisfy cultural aesthetics and with particular focus on its gender strategies. The study of popular music ethics as proper and smart women. They exercise agency in creating a new and gender in Japan has been, to date. largely neglected by academic kind of aesthetic standard for urban middle-class women. researchers. The gender aspects of music only began to be studied seriously The kind of embodied agency that contemporary urban women are in the late 1990s (Inoue 1997. 1999. 2001; Kitagawa 1999). In the US. developing suggests the creation of a new sphere which evades the however, this subject has been discussed in articles and books since the substantialization of the colonial dichotomy traditiommodern mapped early 1990s. on to other dichotomies such as feminine:masculine, village:(own, Before analyzing visual rock in Japan. I will outline some of the general lndian:Western and innenouter. They are in the process of creating a new arguments about rock, gender, and modernity developed in previous culture of embodied aesthetics based on a new sensibility that goes studies, mainly by scholars in Ihe US. I will then proceed to analyze the beyond the logic of substantialized dichotomies. It is premature yet to growing popularity and specific features of visual rock, using the band X. make predictions about future developments. The logics of power recognized as a founder of visual rock, as my primary example. Finally, I politics and commercialism are attempting to submerge the new space of will analyze fans who also strategically challenge gender categories. embodied aesthetics and implicate women totally into their logic. Through these analyses I will explore how visual rock could break the However, as far as I can see, the sensitivity and sensibility urban women conventional masculine aesthetics through appropriating modes of bodily are developing in their new embodied aesthetics seem sound and secure. representation which, in recent tradition, have been restricted to the There certainly seems to be a new wind for the post-colonial agency of women's sphere. A visual rock band can be regarded as a type of homo- urban women. social community constructed by sharing a newly extended male aesthetics which primarily includes the exclusion of women from the band/ community. We will see that although its apparent 'deviation' seems to be I'M) CHAPTER CONSTRUCTING MALE AESTHETICS IN ROCK AND MAKEUP against the patriarchal society, visual rock rearticulates existing gender scholars, however, ultimately share the perception that rock music is deeply dichotomies. connected with masculinity. I completely agree with their perceptions, and rock in Japan is not an exception. The following analysis is conducted from this perspective. Rock, gender and modernity: General arguments Rock, technology, and modernity Gender bias in rock Rock music is one of the typical productions of modernity. There is no rock Rock music, particularly hard rock and hea\*y metal, is primarily macho without modernization. First, the sound production itself is totally music for rebels or outlaws, not only in Japan but worldwide. Female rock dependent on electric amplifiers whose volume escalates with tech- musicians are generally still very few in number. The music can be nological development. Second, rock is produced by recording industries characterized as aggressive and powerful, played al full volume and and consumed as a commodity in the capitalist market economy. The exaggerated by the doubling-up of musical instruments and equipment global rock market has been clearly led by the US, which has also been such as twin guitars, double bass-drums, etc. Rock bands typically employ regarded as a leading promoter of modern values. Rock was born and raised a lot of Marshall speakers, famous for their powerful sound. Live in the UK and the US, which still remain the dominant centers of production performance is very important for rock bands. Usually excluding women in the global rock business. Although Japan remains a good consumer of from the stage, typical metal musicians have either long hair or skinheads, UK and US bands, Japanese rock bands have never had success there. wear motor-biker-style fashion, a black leather jacket or T-shirt and boots Technological development could have broken the borders for women with metal studs and chains. They excite their audience by aggressive by negating their physical disadvantage. Powerful rock sound does not shouting and rough behavior including high energy jumping and running depend on the physical power of performers but on the performance of about on stage.