Fulfilling your masculinity
Gender Roles: The Never-Ending Cycle of Searching for Ways to Fulfill Your Masculinity
Culture is a web of unconscious practices and ideals, shaping how we think and display ourselves in the outside world. Anne Allison's Nightlife, Sexuality, Pleasure, and Corporate Masculinity in a Tokyo Hostess Club exposes the truth behind hostess clubs, tying everything back to gender roles. A constant circuit is created between mothers' and men's quest to fulfill their longing for masculinity. These clubs construct gender roles and define masculinity.
Allison worked at Bijo, a Japanese hostess club, waiting on, interacting with, and pleasing men by boosting their egos. She experienced first-hand accounts of the types of interactions within the industry; she interviewed men and women and gained insight into the reasoning behind men's participation in these clubs. Allison conducted primary research to support the information in her book, giving more credibility. Everything she uncovered during her time at Bijo revolves around gender roles and the presence of masculinity on the part of men.
Anne Allison sections her book into three sections, an ethnography of a hostess club, a mapping of the nightlife within cultural categories, and male rituals and masculinity. She takes us through every aspect of Japanese culture that contributes to men's image, what defines it, which environments fulfill it, and the construction of gender roles. Allison directly references and illudes to sociologists and anthropologists to give a better understanding of the concepts at hand. Understanding the aspects that go into these concepts before she discusses the actual motifs at the end and the reference to other sociologists allows me to grasp these concepts firmly. Having previous knowledge of the sociologists’ theories and concepts that were referenced gives an advantage to understanding her work.
Allison explains, in great length, how men long to be taken care of, treated like a child, and coddled by women they are attracted to in hopes of replicating the feeling their mothers gave them as a child (137). This is where the roles of prostitutes and hostesses come into play, fulfilling their purpose of caring for and boosting the man's sense of masculinity. She illudes this to the theories of Freud, "as the result of repressing desire for the mother. The drive is there, but because the object of one's lust is socially unacceptable, it is blocked out" (138). Considering Freud's idea of son's sexual desire towards their mothers is very controversial, this is the first real cultural example I have seen that proves this perspective to be true in some cultures. With the material she provides a significant realization can be made. The cultural traits create a never-ending cycle of the development of the same man.
Yet, she fails to recognize the outcome that her points support. The gender roles rule this circuit that I have uncovered in Japanese culture, "… in male-female relationships in Japan, every woman is a mother and every man a son." (170). Women are the primary parent figure the child experience, coddling and caring for the son creates a man who seeks that kind of care from someone other than their wife. While this man is out searching for this feeling, their wife is caring for their son the same way that his own mother did, creating the same type of man that her husband is. Allison provides all the pieces necessary to realize this, but she does not recognize the cycle herself. After receiving this information, I couldn't help but ask myself if women dislike being entirely in charge of the child and having their only purpose be motherhood. It is apparent that women are continuously oppressed in the culture, but they seem to like solitude.
Allison illudes to Judith Butler's theories of gender being a social construct "It should not be forgotten that men are created as a construct of Man as much as women are created as a construct of Women." (181). She says how hostess clubs construct what gender is, and what makes men men, creating what defines masculinity (184). It is apparent that masculinity is quite an ambiguous term, meaning something completely different in each culture. In this culture, one's status in the male hierarchy defines the concept of masculinity. This concept can connect to Marx's idea of the estrangement of labor. Masculinity is determined by what they do with the money they make, having the ability to buy and power over elite women, making them elite by association. Men can buy their masculinity (194), considering it is constructed based on what they can dominate with their power and money. This connection that she is making ties together every aspect of gender roles and the concept of masculinity
The ability of men to prove their dominance and masculinity by degrading women in the hostess clubs shows the extreme level of gender role imbalance (184). The labeling theory is heavily intertwined with the culture's perception of gender roles, specifically within the hostess clubs. As mentioned above, men thrive in hostess clubs, having the ability to create a masculine persona that may only exist within the club walls. However, men can leave the club behind them. They are not shamed for their actions there; they are praised and boasted for them, allowing them to have a strong sense of masculinity. Unfortunately, gender roles do not play in favor of women. Women who work at these clubs cannot leave their identity at the clubs behind them. It follows them into how society views them (187). Women's involvement in hostess clubs makes them appear dirty and sexually used, making them ineligible to become wives or mothers since they already express those traits with men who pay for them (173). The connection she made to the labeling theory exposes a lot about how all of society views gender roles; anyone who deviates slightly is automatically viewed poorly despite the position the judge holds in society.
Anne Allison constructs her book to give you a 360 perspective of the Japanese culture and the concept of hostess clubs. She gives you all the information and references needed to grasp these concepts. Having knowledge of the sociologists and the underlying concepts that Allison referenced allows the reader to understand the concepts at hand on a different level, while someone with no knowledge in this field might be slightly overwhelmed. This book revolves around men searching for ways to fulfill their masculinity, gender roles that hostess clubs have constructed, and last but very not least, the mother's involvement in everything.
Allison, A. (1994). Nightwork: Sexuality, pleasure, and corporate masculinity in a Tokyo hostess club. The University of Chicago.
December 2022
