Arguments Comparison Essay

According to Bryson’s claim

males in Japan used women as a tool to achieve capitalistic independence. Women were expected to play a passive part so that men, who maintained their subjectivity throughout the entire course, could use them as objects of modernity. While the women continued to take center stage in this exchange for the benefit of their men, the men were to reap the benefits of capitalism. Young, on the other hand, makes the claim that “marketing technologies used in department stores borrowed from Meiji expositions and emporiums.” In this regard, they led to a new culture of consumerism that gave rise to a new stratification symbol of middle class individuals. The best evidence is the disappearance of apprenticeship and its replacement with elite workers as well as high school graduates.

Modernity, according to Bryson

was viewed in the sense self government and independence in line with culture of Japanese men. The foreign minister felt that for Japan to realize this form of independence they had to interact with westerners and the only way this could be possible was by the use of women and monumental buildings such as Rokumeikan. The men would “feel inconvenienced, disadvantage and thereby absorb the western vigorousness.” (Bryson 90) High class Japanese mixed with western visitors in the Rokumeikan, a club where high placed Japanese could meet the Japanese men and women for interaction (Bryson 90) According to Young, modernity in old Meiji could be realized through the enactment of departmental stores which in essence gave rise to a new cultural identity in form of middle class. In this regard, the Japanese could learn from the new commercial culture and the habits of modern consumerism. The only tool that this could be realized was through Japanese held emporiums.

The connection of Meiji emporiums and exhibitions

led to the development of departmental stores which became a symbol for the middle class in Japan. The exhibitions were conducted during the time of European entrance to Japan for the purpose of interacting and enjoying Japanese women. The use of women to enhance this enlightenment and connection was quite evident. “Tenmaya drew on the social capital of its first female employees to enhance the reputation and status of the departmental store.” More importantly the application of interaction mechanism by the application of monumental buildings for the emporiums remains the central connection between the two authors in terms of Japanese modernity development.

Bibliography

Bryson, Norman. “ Westernizing Bodies: Women, Art, and Power in Meiji Yo-Ga.” In Gender and Power in the Japanese Visual Field, edited by Joshua S. Mostow, Norman Bryson and Maribeth Graybill, 89-101. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2003.

Young, Louise. ”Marketing the Modern: Department stores, Consumer Culture, and the New Middle Class in Interwar Japan.” International Labor and Working-Class History, no.55, (1999):52-70.