As I was scrolling through Facebook a few weeks ago, I noticed a new trend: Several friends posted pictures (via an app) of what they would look like as “the opposite sex.” Some of them were quite funny—my female-identified friends sported mustaches, while my male-identified friends revealed long flowing locks. But my sociologist-brain was curious: What makes this app so appealing? How does it decide what the “opposite sex” looks like? Assuming it grabs the users’ gender from their profiles, what would it do with users who listed their genders as non-binary, trans, or genderqueer? Would it assign them male or female? Would it crash? And, on a basic level, why are my friends partaking in this “game?”
Gender is deeply meaningful for our social world and for our identities—knowing someone’s gender gives us “cues” about how to categorize and connect with that person. Further, gender is an important way our social world is organized—for better or worse. Those who use the app engage with a part of their own identities and the world around them that is extremely significant and meaningful.
Gender is also performative. We “do” gender through the way we dress, talk, and take up space. In the same way, we read gender on people’s bodies and in how they interact with us. The app “changes people’s gender” by changing their gender performance; it alters their hair, face shape, eyes, and eyebrows. The app is thus a outlet to “play” with gender performance. In other words, it’s a way of doing digital drag. Drag is a term that is often used to refer to male-bodied people dressing in a feminine way (“drag queens”) or female-bodied people dressing in a masculine way (“drag kings”), but all people who do drag do not necessarily fit in this definition. Drag is ultimately about assuming and performing a gender. Drag is increasingly coming into the mainstream, as the popular reality TV series RuPaul’s Drag Race has been running for almost a decade now. As more people are exposed to the idea of playing with gender, we might see more of them trying it out in semi-public spaces like Facebook.
While playing with gender may be more common, it’s not all fun and games. The Facebook app in particular assumes a gender binary with clear distinctions between men and women, and this leaves many people out. While data on individuals outside of the gender binary is limited, a 2016 report from The Williams Institute estimated that 0.6% of the U.S. adult population — 1.4 million people — identify as transgender. Further, a Minnesota study of high schoolers found about 3% of the student population identify as transgender or gender nonconforming, and researchers in California estimate that 6% of adolescents are highly gender nonconforming and 20% are androgynous (equally masculine and feminine) in their gender performances.
So, let’s all play with gender. Gender is messy and weird and mucking it up can be super fun. Let’s make a digital drag app that lets us play with gender in whatever way we please. But if we stick within the binary of male/female or man/woman, there are real consequences for those who live outside of the gender binary.
Allison Nobles is a PhD candidate in sociology at the University of Minnesota and Graduate Editor at The Society Pages. Her research primarily focuses on sexuality and gender, and their intersections with race, immigration, and law.
The problem with gender is that it prescribes how we should be rather than recognizing how we are. Imagine how much happier we would be, how much freer to be our true individual selves, if we didn’t have the weight of gender expectations.
We Should All Be Feminists, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
A week or so back @shomounopostedthis answer to a question about whether Hanyu Yuzuru was gender non-conforming. I thought it was a great question, and also a great answer, one that acknowledges that from a primarily Western point of view, Hanyu, his costumes, his programs and such, would definitely be considered gnc.
And it got me thinking – whatwould the Japanese point of view be? While I’m not a Hanyu fan, and neither am I Japanese (if it matters, I’m Chinese), I live in South Hokkaido, which is 2 hours from Hanyu’s hometown Sendai. Hanyu is an obsession in this area. He is constantly featured on shows, newspapers, and every single competition of his is discussed in detail not only in media but in the workplaces and schools. I may have missed something due to inattention, but I’ve never heard anyone call him too girly. I have heard people accuse him of ‘acting cute’ despite being an adult (a complaint I’ve never heard thrown at models in their 30s who make duck faces and speak in a child-like voice, ahem), but that has more to do with societal expectations of age-appropriateness, not gender. Also, it didn’t strike me that Hanyu himself was motivated by a desire to challenge gender norms in his program choices.
I had an inkling in my mind, but this post ignited enough interest within me to want to read up more and join the discussion when I felt a little more informed. I’d done much research in school regarding gender in Japan, but it was mostly on the representation of women in the media, so I definitely needed to study more before I posted anything. I am still no where near an expert on this subject, but I’d like to present what I’ve learnt within this short week of reading up on the topic of gender norms in Japan. If there is anything that I say that anyone would like to add on to/dispute/etc, please feel free!
So, that being said here’s what I concluded after my readings.
I found that it is not so much that the signifiers of ‘femininity’ (graceful curves, ruffled tops) differ greatly between Japan and say, America, but rather that ‘femininity’ in Japan traditionally has more positive connotations such as courtliness, harmony and culture. I also found that in Japan, ‘femininity’ in the realm of the arts, especially high art – belongs to men. As such, from the perspective of the Japanese, because Hanyu is both an athlete and an artist, his programs will most likely notbe seen as gender non-conforming. In fact by performing femininity, Hanyu as a person will be seen not so much as ‘feminine’ as in more like a woman and/or less like a man, but ‘feminine’ as in a man, but one who is more professional, refined and cultured.
I. Femininity as Japanese Cultural Identity
In this section I will concentrate on Seimei but I think it can also be applied to other recent programs like Notte stellata. As I was scrolling through the ‘yuzuru hanyu’ tumblr tag, I stumbled upon this interview posted by @wherespacepooh, in which Hanyu spoke about his interest in the traditional performance arts and towards wa (peace and harmony). This interview greatly confirmed what I’d been reading with regards to gender norms in Japan – this wa, which is seen as intrinsic to Japanese society and identity, has always been associated with the feminine. And so in pursuing ‘wa programs’, as Hanyu puts it, we should actually expect him to incorporate femininity.
In her book chapter ‘Gender and Japanese Art’ Chino Kaori puts it this way – though “there are many countries and regions in the world that have had a ‘feminine’ identity thrust upon them from the outside…the ‘feminine’ was not forced on (Japan) from without.” From the Heian period, the Japanese chose the ‘feminine’ as the ruling value system within Japan. ‘Femininity’ was associated with courtliness, refinement and elegance – traits of the elite. Most importantly, “‘Femininity’ as a culturally and artistically dominant mode before the Meiji period, does not at all mean ‘female’ but rather the ‘feminine’ embodied by ‘men’”. This ideology thus helped to structure Japanese society and identity.
It is interesting to note that Hanyu’s Seimei is based on a film which itself is based on a historical figure from the Heian period. A period when this conscious adoption of the feminine, defined as gentle and harmonious (wa), became the dominant value system in Japan. A time when the ‘feminine’ traits put men in a position of power.
Chino does acknowledge that during the period of modernisation in the Meiji period onwards, Japan started to consciously portray itself as more ‘masculine’, taking on a more Western view on power and adopting it as their national identity. Still, Kawakatsu Heita, a scholar and the present mayor of the Shizuoka prefecture, suggests that while Japan experienced these changes during the Meiji period and the period following WWII, it never lost its cultural identity – one that is linked tightly to the concept of wa.
Therefore I feel quite strongly that if Hanyu should be praised for breaking any boundaries, I think it should be his fierce desire to bring his Japanese-ness into a Western-dominated field.
@livinginyoureyes also brought up an excellent point in our private conversation, about how the Western media seeing Hanyu as feminine (and negatively so) could be racist in nature. But as I am in no way qualified to talk about that, I’d leave it to her to talk about it if she so wishes.
What I myself can suggest is simply that because the nation and culture in the West is usually associated with the masculine, these Western commentators (and ehm, Leslie Jones?) simply do not know how to read Hanyu’s feminine performances for what they are - A way to express a cultural identity that applies to both men and women.
II. Performance of Femininity as Male Privilege
As shown in the post his costume choices have long gone beyond Western conventions of what is acceptably masculine and into the feminine, even before Hanyu consciously decided to incorporate wa into his programs. And you know, in many ways I don’t think that Japanese will look at something like the Etude costume and be like ‘Uh that’s not feminine’. But rather it’s more a case of, ‘It’s unsurprisingly feminine’.
A lot of it has to do with the dual nature of figure skating. It’s a sport, but it’s also a form of the performing arts. And to the Japanese, femininity in the performing arts, as encapsulated by a male performer, is nothing new. That’s because women were, for a long time, banned from Japanese performing arts. In the past 50 years or so we see actresses return to theatre such as Noh, but by and large males playing female roles in Kabuki, Nihonbuyo and the like, is a tradition that continues to this day.
It’s interesting that even though actresses returned to the Noh stage, even if a female character was played by a female actress, audiences would often first assume that it was simply a very skilled male actor playing the role. Also, in Noh, there is never an attempt to hide an actor’s physiologically features from the audience. A middle-aged actor wearing a female mask for example, could have his jowls showing below the mask, but no one would see this as a problem (see here).
Kabuki theatre is even more fascinating. Take the onnagata, or male actors who played women, for example. Traditionally, they weren’t just supposed to act as women, but live their lives as women to the best of their ability. They were expected to be paradigms of femininity whom biological females were supposed to look up to and learn femininity from. But it is also because of that, that traditional masculinity is never threatened. As scholar Rachel Snyder states, the onnagatas were “participating in hegemonic masculinity in so far as femininity was accepted as a facet of masculinity and masculinity never a facet of femininity.”
Because femininity is an acceptable facet of masculinity, gender performativity (or even embodiment in the onnagatas case) in no way threatens hegemonic masculinity.
If Hanyu displays feminine grace in his programs, then all the more so that as a man he will be seen as a highly-skilled performer. An artist excelling in his craft. In other words, rather than breaking gender conventions, Hanyu as an artist succeeds a long line of male artists from Japanese history to present day who have been praised for their ability to capture, not oppose, feminine grace and elegance. Something that, ironically, a woman will not be praised for as she is not allowed to be a performer in traditional arts.
(On a side note, the most famous example of female performers taking on male roles is undoubtedly the Takarazuka Revue, but to this very day, they have yet to enjoy the elevated status of any of the traditional performing arts. Neither does performance of gender in their case threaten hegemonic masculinity either. Long topic for another day.)
In conclusion, I do think that Hanyu is indeed pushing the boundaries in male figure skating, both technically and artistically, including those of gender norms. But I wouldn’t see him as a champion of such a ‘cause’ as it may be. Rather, I believe it is an unintended consequence, borne of him expressing art and beauty in a way that is influenced (consciously or unconsciously) by his country of origin, and read through Western lenses.
Thank you so much for ‘butting in’. I really appreciate you for taking the time to read my original post in detail and am glad that you read it exactly as I intended.
As you may know, I’m currently writing a response to those questions raised, but you’ve already more or less covered the gist of what I wanted to say! Things like how performance arts doesn’t exist in a vacuum, it influences culture and is influenced by culture, and also that while there was a great influence from the West, the Japanese actually, to a great extent, chose how they wanted to adopt Western ideology, politics and economics. Also after the war and to present day, much has happened, Japan couldn’t have its own army, the bubble economy rose and burst, and so there is a continuing effort to hold on to traditional ideals in order to articulate what it means to be Japanese. It’s impossible to say that people born in the Showa/Heisei period of Japan are completely removed from their traditional cultural ideology.
I’ll definitely also go into popular celebrities and the idea of femininity actually enhancing the desirability of these celebrities/idols as men. And hopefully that will also give a clearer picture on the thoughts of Japanese youth on gender in the present day.
I’m so glad you mentioned Genji Monogatari! I hadn’t even considered that and you are absolutely right! Femininity has long been perceived as a facet of masculinity, and even increases the desirability of a man. And how I wish I could pick up on what you said about hyper-masculinity, but that’s just…a huge topic on its own lol. I would, however, definitely try to address how there are people in Japan who actively try to challenge gender norms, and who would definitely be perceived as gnc, and why Hanyu’s programs are not like those cases.
Lastly, I especially love that you mentioned Shakespeare because his works and their impact on culture also crossed my mind. I hope you won’t mind if I quoted you in parts of my next post – I’ll give credit!
genji monogatari is rly interesting because first, it was written by a woman, so the ideal man created there doesn’t come from a man’s pov, but a woman’s one. second, genji is considered such an ideal because he’s so talented in arts - poetry, dance, etc. and his beauty, especially when performing, is so striking that even men are enchanted by him.
so his appearance would be considered, from a western pov, very feminine. and yet his behaviour - like, he’s very courtly and gentlemanly, but his attitude towards women is also quite forceful, and nowadays there’s a lot of discussion about how a lot of the sexual scenes in genji are actually rape. so yeah, he’s “as beautiful as any lady”, but he’s NOT a lady - he is allowed to behave like he does because he’s a man, and not only that, the IDEAL man.
but oh i’d be really interested to her abt who do you think is gnc in japan! this is such an interesting topic, im half tempted to start doing my own research lmao. and no prob, feel free to quote me. shakespeare was the first thing that came to mind when i tried to think of something/someone that impacts western culture to this day.
I really enjoyed this manga, it’s really cute and warming! It’s about Asuka, who’s a high-school boy. He loves cute, fluffy and sparkly things, his hobbies are to knit, sew read shoujo manga and bake cakes. But his transphobic mom can’t stand feminine men , so he forced himself to hide his real self and pretend to be super-manly. But when he falls in love with the tomboyish and cool Ryo he can’t keep his real self hidden any longer, because love makes him want to make cute bentos and bake cakes and decorate. Also it soon becomes apparent that there’s a lot of other guys with “feminine” hobbies around. It’s mostly light-hearted comedy with some surreal elements, but there is a clear moral stance taken that people should be themselves and not care about gender norms, and it’s the gender roles that are mocked. Also Asuka is truly adorable!
This beautiful English actor came out in 1988 at the age of 49, on a BBC program and has been active member of LGBTQI+ community since. Especially towards the advocation of our trans brothers and sisters.
Troye Sivan
The Australian singer come out on YouTube in 2013 at the age of 18. He has used his influence as a singer and an openly gay individual to inspiration the community through his music.
Lil Nas X
This American singer came out on Twitter by making a simple statement at the age of 20. Not only does he represent the LGBTQI+ but the black community as well. Within media right now, he has a powerful influence- I especially love his breaking of gender norms.
“Who’s your favorite character?” I hear that question come up a lot over Avatar: The Last Airbender, a show particularly near and dear to me. Iroh and Toph get tossed around a lot. Zuko is very popular. Sokka has his fans. But something I’ve noticed? Aang very rarely gets the pick. When he comes up, it’s usually in that “Oh, and also…” kind of way. Which is strange, I think, considering he’s the main character, the titular airbender, of the entire show.
I never really thought much about it until a couple weeks ago when I finished my annual re-watch of the series and found myself, for the first time, specifically focused on Aang’s arc. Somehow, I never really paid that much attention to him before. I mean sure, he’s front and center in most episodes, fighting or practicing or learning big spiritual secrets, and yet, he always feels a little overshadowed. Katara takes care of the group. Sokka makes the plans. Zuko has the big, heroic Joseph Campbell journey. Aang…goofs around. He listens and follows and plays with Momo. And yes, at the end his story gets bigger and louder, but even then I feel like a lot of it dodges the spotlight. And here’s why:
Avatar casts the least traditionally-masculine hero you could possibly write as the star of a fantasy war story. Because of that, we don’t see Aang naturally for everything he is, so we look elsewhere.
To show what I mean, I want to talk about some of the show’s other characters, and I want to start with Zuko. Zuko is the hero we’re looking for. He’s tall and hot and complicated. He perseveres in the face of constant setbacks. He uses two swords and shoots fire out of his hands. He trains with a wise old man on ship decks and mountaintops. Occasionally he yells at the sky. He’s got the whole 180-degree moral turn beat for beat, right down to the scars and the sins-of-the-father confrontation scene. And if you were going into battle, some epic affair with battalions of armor-clad infantry, Zuko is the man you’d want leading the charge, Aragorn style. We love Zuko. Because Zuko does what he’s supposed to do.
Now let’s look at Katara. Katara doesn’t do what she’s supposed to do. She doesn’t care about your traditionally gender dynamics because she’s too busy fighting pirates and firebenders, planning military operations with the highest ranking generals in the Earth Kingdom, and dismantling the entire patriarchal structure of the Northern Water Tribe. Somewhere in her spare time she also manages to become one of the greatest waterbenders in the world, train the Avatar, defeat the princess of the Fire Nation in the middle of Sozin’s Comet and take care of the entire rest of the cast for an entire year living in tents and caves. Katara is a badass, and we love that.
So what about Aang? When we meet Aang, he is twelve years old. He is small and his voice hasn’t changed yet. His hobbies include dancing, baking and braiding necklaces with pink flowers. He loves animals. He doesn’t eat meat. He despises violence and spends nine tenths of every fight ducking and dodging. His only “weapon” is a blunt staff, used more for recreation than combat. Through the show, Aang receives most of his training from two young women – Katara and Toph – whom he gives absolute respect, even to the point of reverence. When he questions their instruction, it comes from a place of discomfort or anxiety, never superiority. He defers to women, young women, in matters of strategy and combat. Then he makes a joke at his own expense and goes off to feed his pet lemur.
Now there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation for all this, and it’s the one that shielded Aang from the heroic limelight in my eyes for ten years. The reasoning goes like this: Aang is a child. He has no presumptuous authority complex, no masculinity anxiety, no self-consciousness about his preferred pastimes, because he’s twelve. He’s still the hero, but he’s the prepubescent hero, the hero who can’t lead the charge himself because he’s just not old enough. The problem is, that reasoning just doesn’t hold up when you look at him in the context of the rest of the show.
Let’s look at Azula. Aside from the Avatar himself, Zuko’s sister is arguably the strongest bender in the entire show. We could debate Toph and Ozai all day, but when you look at all Azula does, the evidence is pretty damning. Let’s make a list, shall we?
Azula completely mastered lightning, the highest level firebending technique, in her spare time on a boat, under the instruction of two old women who can’t even bend.
Azula led the drill assault on Ba Sing Sae, one of the most important Fire Nation operations of the entire war, and almost succeeded in conquering the whole Earth Kingdom.
Azula then bested the Kyoshi Warriors, one of the strongest non-bender fighting groups in the entire world, successfully infiltrated the Earth Kingdom in disguise, befriended its monarch, learned of the enemy’s most secret operation, emotionally manipulated her older brother, overthrew the captain of the secret police and did conquer the Earth Kingdom, something three Fire Lords, numerous technological monstrosities, and countless generals, including her uncle, failed to do in a century.
And she did this all when she was fourteen.
That last part is easy to forget. Azula seems so much her brother’s peer, we forget she’s the same age as Katara. And that means that when we first meet Azula, she’s only a year older than Aang is at the end of the series. So to dismiss Aang’s autonomy, maturity or capability because of his age is ridiculous, understanding that he and Azula could have been in the same preschool class.
We must then accept Aang for what he truly is: the hero of the story, the leader of the charge, who repeatedly displays restraint and meekness, not because of his age, not because of his upbringing, not because of some character flaw, but because he chooses too. We clamor for strong female characters, and for excellent reason. But nobody every calls for more weak male characters. Not weak in a negative sense, but weak in a sense that he listens when heroes talk. He negotiates when heroes fight. And when heroes are sharpening their blades, planning their strategies and stringing along their hetero love interests, Aang is making jewelry, feeding Appa, and wearing that flower crown he got from a travelling band of hippies. If all Aang’s hobbies and habits were transposed onto Toph or Katara, we’d see it as a weakening of their characters. But with Aang it’s cute, because he’s a child. Only it isn’t, because he’s not.
Even in his relationship with Katara, a landmark piece of any traditional protagonist’s identity, Aang defies expectations. From the moment he wakes up in episode one, he is infatuated with the young woman who would become his oldest teacher and closest friend. Throughout season one we see many examples of his puppy love expressing itself, usually to no avail. But there’s one episode in particular that I always thought a little odd, and that’s Jet.
InJet, Katara has an infatuation of her own. The titular vigilante outlaw sweeps her off her feet, literally, with his stunning hair, his masterful swordsmanship and his apparent selflessness. You’d think this would elicit some kind of jealousy from Aang. There’s no way he’s ignorant of what’s happening, as Sokka sarcastically refers to Jet as Katara’s boyfriend directly in Aang’s presence, and she doesn’t even dispute it. But even then, we never see any kind of rivalry manifest in Aang. Rather, he seems in full support of it. He repeatedly praises Jet, impressed by his leadership and carefree attitude. Despite his overwhelming affection for Katara, he evaluates both her and Jet on their own merits as people. There is no sense of ownership or macho competition.
Contrast this with Zuko’s reaction to a similar scenario in season three’s The Beach. Zuko goes to a party with his girlfriend, and at that party he sees her talking to another guy. His reaction? Throwing the challenger into the wall, shattering a vase, yelling at Mai, and storming out. This may seem a little extreme, but it’s also what we’d expect to an extent. Zuko is being challenged. He feels threatened in his station as a man, and he responds physically, asserting his strength and dominance as best he can.
I could go on and on. I could talk about how the first time Aang trains with a dedicated waterbending master, he tries to quit because of sexist double standards, only changing his mind after Katara’s urging. I could talk about how Aang is cast as a woman in the Fire Nation’s propaganda theatre piece bashing him and his friends. Because in a patriarchal society, the worst thing a man can be is feminine. I could talk about the only times Aang causes any kind of real destruction in the Avatar state, it’s not even him, since he doesn’t gain control of the skill until the show’s closing moments. Every time he is powerless in his own power and guilt-ridden right after, until the very end when he finally gains control, and what does he do with all that potential? He raises the rivers, and puts the fires out.
Aang isn’t what he’s supposed to be. He rejects every masculine expectation placed on his role, and in doing so he dodges center stage of his own show. It’s shocking to think about how many times I just forgot about Aang. Even at the end, when his voice has dropped and his abs have filled in, we miss it. Zuko’s coronation comes and we cheer with the crowd, psyched to see our hero crowned. Then the Fire Lord shakes his head, gestures behind him and declares “the real hero is the Avatar.” It’s like he’s talking to us. “Don’t you get it?” he asks. “Did you miss it? This is his story. But you forgot that. Because he was small. And silly. And he hated fighting. And he loved to dance. Look at him,” Zuko seems to say. “He’s your hero. Avatar Aang, defier of gender norms, champion of self-identity, feminist icon.”
What is my legitimity as a white person to write a master thesis about the impact of colonisation on gender norms (in a defined geographical area/country) (would be more of a historical work)
Niezsche has some pretty hateful things to say as well. It is extremely hard to find a well-respected, long-revered philosopher who didn’t have horrible things to say about women. These men are considered geniuses, but never even bothered to question the gender norms and misogyny of their time. This isn’t even touching on the horrible things Freud had to say about women.
Seems remiss to leave out mythology like Pandora and the Garden of Eden, which explicitly blame women for the evils of the world / the introduction of sin. But frankly I think it just boils down to: women were at home because they were often pregnant, therefore men were in charge, so of course they’d invent and/or subscribe to beliefs that they deserve the power and freedom their sex allowed them. It’s like rich people convincing themselves they totally earned those millions with hard work and cleverness. Why would they question gender norms? That threatens their power. And nobody with power wants to risk having to give up even a fraction of it.
December 3rd 2014 was the day 12-year-old Ronin Shimizu,California,decided to end his life.
Why?
Because of the constant bullying he suffered from not adhering to current gender norms. Ronin Shimizu was a kind, polite boy who was passionate about fashion and cheerleading. He was the only male cheerleader with the Vista Junior Eagles Cheer Team and excelled at it. He sketched out his own designs and had an eye for fashion. But the other students at Folsom Middle School would not accept Ronin for who he was. They simply could not forget what they had been taught about how a boy should be. So they bullied and tormented him. They turned his life into a living hell. The constant harassment made him abandon cheerleading, which he loved. They made him leave school to be home-schooled. They made him not want to live anymore.
Gender norms are damaging, so please think critically and be kind!
Topic change — I started looking at men’s fashion, particularly “feminine” clothes. This led me to explore more of stereotypically unconventional gender / sexuality norms: straight men in make-up and dress…
From here I started to design my own clothes! The last 3 photos show an evolution from casual to formal wear. I changed my initial ideas as I didn’t feel they were interesting enough for an exhibition OR to convey my message. I felt more confident with the concluded designs of a suit and dress.
