3 - Redefining Womanhoods

Summary

The beginning of the twentieth century was also an experiment in how to be female, male, or something in between – far beyond the matter of reproduction. Chapter 3, “Redefining Womanhoods,” examines the new roles some carved out for themselves amid the emerging modern mass culture in the early twentieth century. After a long period of nation- and empire-building – largely characterized by the embrace and adaptation of what became construed somewhat monolithically as “western culture” – the 1910s and 1920s experienced a shift to critical attitudes toward the West that was promoted by both conservative and progressive representatives of the intelligentsia. This chapter focuses on just how new women and modern girls (and modern boys) navigated this turbulent time, a period complicated by the dramatically increasing academic interest in knowing and, eventually, controlling women – as well as the politics of gender relations; the antagonistic relationship between nationalism, imperialism, and internationalism; and the multiple inventions of Japanese traditions