Girls’ Culture: the changing role of women in Taisho era

Abstract

In the late Meiji era (Meiji 35 or 1902), the release of a popular-women magazine, "The Little Girl's World" (Shojoukai, 少女界), has caused a cultural change called "Girls’ Culture" (Shoujobunka, 少女文化) that was widespread from the Taisho era to the Showa era. In particular, to the Taisho era when the Western culture infiltrated into the Japanese society, the modern Taisho era girls tended to have more courage to change themselves. The purposes of this research were; 1) to study the influence of the girls’ culture on women in the Taisho era, and 2) to analyze the changing roles of women in the Taisho era through girls’ culture. The findings revealed that the presence of the girls’ culture through magazines and mainstream media has framed an image of the modern girls (モダン・ガール) particularly in terms of dressing, make-up, and hairstyle. Their lifestyles also changed as they were freer to think and express their opinions. Additionally, the Taisho women received more freedom to love and choose their partners, changing the traditional expectation of their society about appropriate wives and mothers. More importantly, they were freer to apply knowledge to benefit their occupations and to be part of social driving as well as Japanese men.