Gender in the Yoshiwara District

Alexandra Walters, Ami Yoshino, Annie Wen, Chala Mohamed, Daria Gileva, Hannah Oh

This digital art exhibition will introduce a variety of work, ranging from woodblock prints to drawings to scrolls, depicting life in the Yoshiwara district during the Edo period. It will explore wakashū, or male youths, and their gender roles and expression as well as the persistance of the Kabuki theater, the influence of samurai, and the glamourization and reality of courtesans.

The wakashū had specific gender roles different from men and women in the Yoshiwara district as young men generally from the ages 7 to 17. They were subjects of desire for both men and women alike and were often portrayed in erotica produced to advertise the Yoshiwara district. They are shown to freely engage in heterosexual and homosexual relationships as they did not have the burdens and responsibilities of adults. With women, the wakashū are shown to assume a more active role, while assuming a more passive role with men. This phase in an Edo period man’s life was crucial as it was seen as a form of apprenticeship in which these young men could learn from older mentors while making a living wage.

In addition, it’s common to see a North American perspective used when evaluating wakashu’s gender expression. Some modern-day LGBTQ+ members could identify wakashū as ‘trans’ or ‘gender-fluid’, but to discuss Edo-period Japan in the context of sexuality and gender, it’s important to know that these roles did not have to deal with individual preferences and what one proclaimed to be. Rather they were a form of power and what was assigned and imposed from biological sex, age, and circumstances. Identified mainly through the shaved portion at the top of their head, wakashū wore clothes similar to young women but were always biologically male. Because of this ambiguity of who they were, wakashū have also been referred to as a ‘third gender’ since they fit into neither of the binary labels of men or women.

The history of kabuki theater is interchangeable with gender and with the pleasure district. It started its existence as an all-female dancing troupe and was established by a shamaness Isumo no Okuni and her troupe of social misfits, courtesans (Hartley, 2019). Despite its success, since onna kabuki and sex work were working hand in hand, the shogun banned women from working as actors. That left the field free for the wakashū and hence the wakashū kabuki prospered. But wakashū were also banned from the theater because the initial problem of sex work and erotic scenes was not solved. All those prohibitions created a new phenomenon of female impersonators called onnagata which is the symbol of the kabuki theater as we know it today (Fujita & Shapiro, 2006).

Throughout the Edo Period, a tight social caste structure developed, with the samurai at the top. Despite the fact that Samurai were barred from entering the Yoshiwara area, they did so on a regular basis. They were just required to deposit all of their weapons at the town's main gate. Within the Yoshiwara area, young ladies, older women, and older men considered teenage males as legitimate targets of sexual desire, particularly Samurai who became fond of him and decided to postpone Wakashu's Coming-of-Age Ceremony. During the fall of the Tokagawa shogunate in the mid- to late-nineteenth century, samurai began to disappear. The wakashū vanished when Japan began to absorb more Western culture. Attitudes domestic Japanese culture and the Western world began to shift (Sartore, 2019).

When considering gender in the Yoshiwara district of Edo, an aspect within this includes the life and treatment of the courtesans residing there. These women, sold into brothels and glamorized by the way they were taught to act and how they were advertised to visitors using the male gaze, showcases how Yoshiwara itself was considered a heavily utopian and idealized life for many outsiders. With this, these women were constantly being put on display in manners such as their rank, how they are showcased through the windows along the streets, and the physical advertisements delivered to potential visitors. These aspects of courtesans in particular hold a major contribution to the ideal of Ukiyo or The Floating World. While many consider this a fantasy land from the outside, such as Dalby (1995), that is not necessarily the reality of the lives of these women.

The reality of the life of courtesans, especially when it comes to the gendered hierarchy, were expected to present a lavish lifestyle to attain an idealized feminine presentation and maintain dignity despite any hardship they experienced. The treatment courtesans received was dependent on the rank they achieved. The higher value to the brothel, meant more attentive care when it came to sickness and well-being, this also meant courtesans of lower rank, especially when business was slow, received more negligent treatment. Direct first-hand accounts from courtesans during this time is rare, and impulse to project a western perspective of modern standards of work onto the Yoshiwara courtesans should be cautioned, as the employment of a courtesan was a cultural norm for the Edo period. However, abuse and violence towards courtesans was a thrilling subject for audiences in the kabuki theater and this filtered into art and literature and unfortunately was an aspect of reality for courtesan life.

Bibliography

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