Paper short abstract:

Through analysis of preliminary fieldwork in Tokyo, this paper explores male beauty practices in Japan focusing primarily on salarymen, how they modify their bodies according to ideals of male beauty and the influence of increased bodily self-surveillance on everyday experience.

Paper long abstract:

Male beauty practices in many countries have been greatly increasing in recent years. Japan is one of the countries at the forefront of this phenomenon with a large and growing male beauty industry. There is accordingly increasing pressure on men in many, diverse spaces to beautify their bodies with a vast array of everyday practices such as plucking excess hair, moisturising skin, and wearing fragrances. Despite these growing social demands, a lack of research on this topic leaves one to ask what sort of impact and effects these expectations have on individuals' everyday experiences and how beautified men are embodying broader changes in masculinities and gender relations in contemporary Japan.

Through an analysis of self-help books targeted at salarymen in Japan and pilot fieldwork in Tokyo with salarymen who report frequent usage of beauty practices, this paper shall explore salarymen's everyday embodied experiences in relation to norms of male beauty. For many of these men, new bodily norms include maintaining a sense of cleanliness (seiketsukan), appearing youthful whilst avoiding aged (oyaji) and unkempt looks. I would suggest that achieving and maintaining these norms bestow upon men impressions of professional competence whilst also appealing to female desire. In addition to these body-proper practices and associated meanings, salarymen are being increasingly affected by feelings of close bodily surveillance. Their everyday behaviour and senses of self are becoming influenced by a constant female and self surveillance, such as constant checking of their skin and body odour, which affects confidence and ability to perform, especially when interacting with others. These salarymen moreover become increasingly sensitive to and judgmental of the appearances of those around them. It is here that avenues open up through which to better understand how one's senses of perception are learned through social demands of bodily appearance.

An analysis of Japanese salarymen's beauty practices offers insight into the relationship between bodily appearance and felt bodily experiences whilst contributing to a better understanding of changing masculinity and gender relations in contemporary Japan.

Paper short abstract:

The paper will offer a critical examination of the recent shift in the focus from men to corporations' management as reflected in the shift in the popularity of the buzzwords Ikumen and Ikuboss. This will be analyzed against the background of the current interest in Work and Life balance.

Paper long abstract:

In 2010 the Japanese government launched the Ikumen project to promote the active participation of fathers in family life as a countermeasure against the worrying declining birth rate. The ikumen fad also attests to the growing cultural interest in new fatherhood or in the re-definition of Japanese family and family roles. Ikuboss was publicly proposed by the NPO Fathering Japan in March 2014, and was soon followed by the government's launch of the Ikuboss Award to recognize corporate managers who provided good and supportive condition for fathers. Since 2015, the ikuboss campaign seems to have gained momentum, the public frequently exposed to new "ikuboss declarations." Employers from the private and public sector declare their commitment to become ikubosses, and to encourage the balance between the commitment to work and the joy of the family and the home. Both terms relate to child raise (ikuji): however, they differ in focus, the latter switching from men in general to corporations, and more specifically their management.

The paper - based on a qualitative research focusing on Fathering Japan and related associations concerned with raising consciousness about the involvement of fathers in child care - will offer a critical examination of this intriguing shift from ikumen to ikuboss in the context of the relationship between the family and the Japanese company. Work and Life Balance has become a hot topic in Japan. It is certainly too early to predict whether the recent ikuboss boom will mark a profound change in the nature of the strong alliance between the company, its loyal male employees and their families. Nonetheless, it is hard to ignore the active involvement of managers in forming modern fatherhood, and the "normality" of giving "managers" public recognition through the media for their role in re-designing fatherhood and caring men. Are we facing a genuine change of the corporate-family balance as it was formed in the postwar years of the economic growth, or merely the reproduction of the educational role of the company, as in the same formative years of the Japanese economy, which produced the normative "ordinary Japanese family."

Paper short abstract:

Rapid social changes lead to middle-aged couples providing elderly care for both set of parents. Men as sons and sons-in-law selectively undertake care practices that reconcile with their sense of masculinity. Such care arrangements result in sons-in-law increased importance in the family relations.

Paper long abstract:

Historically under the ie norm the first son and his wife had the duty to look after his elderly parents. Rapid social changes, such as aging population, decreasing birth-rate, declining Confucian belief, and changes in parent-children relationships, increasingly place pressure on younger people who may even need to look after both sets of parents. Based on fieldwork of middle aged married couples in Hōjō city, Hyōgo, in 2014, I ask how the couples arrange care for all their elder parents, negotiating their roles amongst themselves and their siblings. My main focus is on how men reconcile their involvement in elderly care with their sense of masculinity, as elderly care has been considered a domain of women even when the first sons had the duty of care. Daughters, who increasingly commit to care for their own parents, negotiate support with their siblings, which may lead to harmonious and conflictual relations. The wife also draws her husband, the son-in-law, into providing care for parents-in-law to perform selected activities, 'additional help', such as accompanying to hospital or cutting weeds, which they consider part of the chikara shigoto (heavy work) of elderly care, which allows the husband to reconcile his involvement with his sense of masculinity. In turn, the wife's appreciation for his help supports her performing elderly care for the husband's parents, allowing the husband to fulfil his weakened, but not absent, sense of filial duty to his parents. Thus, although in the discussions of Japanese family relationships sons-in-law are traditionally marginal, my ethnographic research suggests that sons-in-law are increasingly important in the Japanese family relations.