Session 9
April 27, 2025
Participants: 4
Overcoming Gender Roles
「How History Shaped Our Ideas of Gender」
For our ninth meeting we read Chapter 3, “Femininity and Masculinity as Historical Variables — Gender History,” from Naoko Yuge’s An Introduction to Western Gender History: From Family History to Global History.
Setting aside the male-centered gaze in history implied by “HIS-tory,” we used topics at the crossroads of medicine, developmental psychology, and gender studies to question the gender assumptions that shape our bodies and minds.
Women’s Bodies and Medicine
“Is Morning Sickness Something You’re Supposed to Endure?”
We began with morning sickness, a condition many women face in early pregnancy.
Because modern medicine was long built around the male body as the norm, women-specific symptoms and pain have often been downplayed and under-researched.
While severity is usually blamed on the mother’s “constitution,” some studies suggest the foreign protein in semen also plays a role, meaning symptoms may vary by partner. This echoes the idea that infertility is “the woman’s fault,” and helps us rethink how responsibility is unevenly assigned by sex.
“Sexual Dimorphism and Bodily Sensation”
Next we looked at how socially planted images.
“girls are soft and fluffy,” for example—clash with real bodily feelings.
A lively side track was smell: infant scent, the odor of adolescents, gendered body smells, and how odor can symbolize hierarchy or power. Like other mammals, “the one who smells stronger claims the space,” prompting us to connect scent, gender, and social structure.
Rethinking “For-Women” Design
We centered the discussion on the question “What exactly is ‘design for women’?” and explored how gender differences are framed in design and how the images consumed around them are created.
“Whose Body Sets the Design Standard?”
Many industrial products are engineered around a 170 cm (5′7″) male body.
Car interiors, controls, even the feel of use follow this default.
Compact women drivers report awkward fits, and cars marketed “for women” often overcompensate with pastel interiors, rounded shapes, and an emphasis on “light handling.” Even if easier handling reflects average strength differences, tying soft colors and curves to femininity felt off to several participants.
“Who Creates ‘Demand’?”
Do product colors and features arise from real preferences or from market conditioning?
Pink for girls, navy for boys still lingers, yet one child remarked, “Everyone’s backpack is a different color—how can any hue be a ‘girl color’?”
Anime like Pretty Cure may shape kids’ color choices; what looks personal choices may be media-made.
Historically, the 19th century deliberately sharpened material gender markers—fabric, hue, form—to visually reproduce the gendered division of roles.
Female & Male In-Group Bonds
We shared our own experiences of how friendships develop among girls and boys and how those relationships shift as we grow up.
“Chum and Gang Age”
Around grades 3-4, children enter the so-called “chum” or “gang” stage. Some felt girls forge tight solidarity by sharing secrets or matching accessories—classic “chum” behavior that builds identity.
Boys, in contrast, were seen as regrouping fluidly for each new goal, a habit that may persist into adulthood. Yet many kids never join a clique at all, reminding us that bonding styles are diverse.
We also asked where observation ends and stereotypes begins.
“Women Are Emotional, Men Are Rational”—Really?
The notion that “women are emotional while men are rational” is a gender stereotype we have absorbed almost unconsciously. How deeply have our lives been shaped by this binary way of seeing the world?
“Hysterical Men?”
We explored the emotion–reason split. Empathy and emotional openness are labeled feminine; goal-oriented objectivity, masculine. Society rewards the latter. But some women calmly rein in feelings, some men can’t. Is valuing emotion a flaw?
Examples surfaced: a middle-aged man cursing in public is rarely called “emotional,” while an angry woman is “hysterical.” The word hysteria comes from “uterus,” and some participants said they felt uneasy about the fact that the term “hysterical” is often applied to women.
“Beyond the Binary”
The influence of the gender binary appears to extend deeply into life course decisions such as education, employment, marriage, and childbirth. For example, some women have expressed that prioritizing their careers or taking on the role of a household head feels like a significant challenge.
Some parents in the group pointed out that gendered expectations naturally take shape even within the school system. Children are often expected to hold back on what they like or how they express themselves, and instead act “like a boy” or “like a girl.” There was also a shared concern that, as a result, children might end up feeling uncomfortable or constrained—sometimes without even realizing why.
The gendered framework of “rational” vs. “emotional” has unconsciously narrowed our choices. It may even shape how we understand our own feelings and values. While children today experience the world in ways that differ from ours, much of society still seems to be built on binary ways of thinking.
Notes: Danshiro
References:
"A Beginner’s Guide to Western Gender History"
Written by Naoko Yuge
Chapter 3: “Femininity and Masculinity as Historical Variables—Gender History.”
This book is a valuable introduction to how gender has been constructed across Western history, offering insight into how these ideas can be deconstructed and reimagined today.