Fifteen-year-old Hiroshi looked at the family dinner table in a hazy hot pastel pink sweat suit—pointed out with a shiny pink hair barrette. Like most teenagers in Japan, Hiroshi is glued to his cell phone – a metallic pink one from driving records.
A typical teen anywhere in the world, right?
That’s right.
Unless someone does something. Hiroshi is a boy.
Feminine colors are not easily worn as a statement of sexual preference, but the latest among the fashion craze among young Japanese men.
Masculinity and femininity have never been so widely separated in Japan as in the West. For hundreds of years basic clothing for both men and women was the kimono, for example. Even in more recent times, gender differences have been restricted. A study done in 2000 showed that Japanese men and women did not score differently on the Western feminine scale, but the color pink was still reserved for girls.
The latest craze for pink in men’s fashion is part of changing gender roles in Japan, according to an article in the Washington Post from September 2005. Not only are there more women entering the workforce, but more men are embracing their feminine sides. There is also a chain of spastic men, aptly enough called “Dandy House” where people can get facials, undergo weight-loss programs and get their shoulder length hair while making a face in the vanity mirror.
In another male tribute to Actor Shido Nakamura, he also pinches himself in a bathroom mirror The married father gently plays with the calla lily while he plays with the paint under the soft bed.
Even the Yakuza, the Japanese mafia, softened his image. According to the Washington article, members tried to wear women’s sandals and floral-patterned sandals while wearing nightgowns. flocks No one knows why.
Nagami Kishi, head of the Research Institute for People and Corporations, says the trend stems from Japan’s prevailing work ethic stemming from the post-war economic bubble. When fathers are away to work 14 hours a day, six days a week, children are left with female influence. mothers, sisters and aunts.
“When I was young, we were trained not to cry,” said Cishi, who grew up in the late 1930s, “but now men in their teens express their emotions freely and cry even in front of women,” he added. “The young Japanese are light, timid and sensitive; they have turned into a bunch of boys…mama.”
