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Paper short abstract:

Based mainly on in-depth interviews with men who "proactively" (shutai-teki) define themselves as "househusbands", and with their bread-winning wives, the paper will lend new perspectives to concepts of "doing" and "undoing" gender, hopefully as a further step in the study of change.

Paper long abstract:

Japan is currently experiencing growing public interest in new definitions of men - especially fathers - and their participation in family life. This discourse is captured by the popular neologism ikumen, which presents fathers actively involved in childcare (ikuji) as "cool" men. Other recent trends relate to the "work style reform" (hatarakikata kaikaku) introduced by the Japanese government in 2016, and to an emerging public discourse, encompassing both the State and the corporate sector, about Japanese society's work-life balance. Against this shifting background, this paper will ask whether an emerging (albeit still a small minority) phenomenon, families who have discarded the strongly embedded gender division of "Men at work, women at home," can be conceptualized in terms of "undoing gender." By bringing forward this particular form of heteronormative partnership, and contextualizing it within the discourse and reality of a search for new balance between family and work, the paper hopes to trouble conventional understandings of masculinity, femininity and gender (Deutsch 2007) - hopefully as a further step in the study of change.

The presentation is grounded in extended ethnographic study of the contemporary ikumen phenomenon. The research draws on multi-sited fieldwork, and incorporates analysis of a range of relevant materials - including increasingly generous child-care leave policies for fathers, and the expanding discourse regarding a more gender-equal and balanced relationship between work and family. The principal data source for this presentation is in-depth interviews conducted with men who explicitly and "proactively" (shutai-teki) define themselves as "househusbands", and with their wives - most of the latter in fulltime employment and the family's main breadwinner.

Proposing an in-depth inquiry of the concepts, division of labor, and ideology that inform this newly-emerging phenomenon, questions will be posed vis-à-vis the "corporate gender contract" that came to epitomize the "standard Japanese family": a contract based on the metaphorical alliance of women as housewives, men as salarymen breadwinners, and the demanding corporate sector (Goldstein-Gidoni 2019). Observing men and women and the evolving relationships between them will lend new perspectives to concepts of "doing" and "undoing" gender.