Masculinity

Masculinity is the topic for this week, being male or female is not only based on biological sex. “Societal values and expectations effect gender role stereotypes in a culture,” and tells males to be “masculine” females to be feminine. In my personal point of view, Masculinity is defined as maleness or showing manly characteristics of the male sex. Although masculinity is mostly recognized as self sacrifice, strength, vigor and power, this idea is also reflected in their style of fashion, clothing are expressed through dark range of colors such as black or blue. Also, this journal would focus on how masculinity is shown through fashion. The tradition muscular outfit usually does not fit Asians such as wearing a normal undershirt and showing off muscles; Conversely, Japanese Masculinity is more suitable for Asians to follow, due to the skinny physical framework which encourages wearing slim cut jeans and clothes. Japanese products always give first impression of high quality to people and of course including the industry of fashion. Japan has had a leading position in fashion trend in Asia and has been a logo of Asian trend for the last decade. As an international student from Hong Kong, where people are highly influenced by Japanese, one of the reasons of this Japanese masculinity being popular is that this Japanese masculinity has a high acceptance of both male and female genders. Masculinity may also be explained to the ability of attracting attention of female. There is no difference between Western and Asians masculinity on this perspective; it is only a different way to show their racial features and just the difference of cultures thus there is no fixed definition of masculinity.

According to Carl Milos R. Bulilan, Japanese youngsters’ fashion goes beyond the boundaries of gender differentiation. In Japan, it is common to see male having a long and dyed hair. In many cultures, men do not have long hair like western people. This long and dyed hair may be presumed as females’ act and Carls Milos R. Bulilan also stated it appears to be so natural among Japanese youth to see men which such hairstyle in day-to-day life. Furthermore, Japanese men like to wear feminine accessories, bags and boots; they would put cosmetics on just to give them that flawless glow, also, they aim to have a pasty and pale looking skin color, thus they are very keen on using a lot of skin care products and even whitening skin care products to look more like a woman.

In short, Masculinity is defined by society and usually other gender related social expectations can be specified which may vary from culture to culture. The western muscular masculinity may not be suitable for all Asian especially to those have skinny physical framework, on the other hand, the new revolution of masculinity in Japan impact the” tradition” explanation of masculinity and create the new value or explanation of masculinity by feminine themselves. This Japanese masculinity has a high acceptance amongst Asian countries or even influences the fashion trend of some western countries.

---