Female Cross-Dressing and Cross-Gendering in Premodern and Modern Japan Part 1

Numerous illustrations, prints and photographs from premodern and modern Japanese history show women in cross-dress, i.e. adopting garments, hairstyles, accessories and body language that the culture and society of the time associated with men. At the current state of research, female cross-dressing has been extensively studied in connection with ritual, artistic and theatrical performances. While female cross-dressing as a ritual, artistic and theatrical performance has been studied in a systematic manner, female cross-dressing in relation to the assumption of male roles and prerogatives has received only limited attention. The present study aims to fill this gap by studying female cross-dressing as a cross-gendering strategy. In other words, the research will investigate how Japanese women, both real life figures and fictional characters, adopted a male appearance though the wearing of clothes, hairstyles, accessories, language and body language that the culture and society of their time associated with men to refute roles that were projected on them for their anatomical sex and gender performance and to gain roles and privileges that the same culture and society reserved to men. This is the first part of the project's monograph and is published in Open Access as Deliverable D5.4 of the project.