Modan gāru phenomenon in the history of Japan in the 1920s and 1930s in the age of Modernism and consumer culture

The article discusses the modan gāru phenomenon, which existed in Japan for about ten years, from 1920 to 1930. During this time, many intellectuals, writers, and critics contemplated this phenomenon, as it was completely unprecedented and incomprehensible in Japanese society. In Japan, between the First and Second World Wars, due to technological progress, industrial development, and the accelerated process of urbanization, the way of everyday life was rethought and redefined. Urbanization in Japan in the late 1910s and 1920s occurred with Europeanization. After the First World War, a new wave of fascination with the West rushed into Japan. Social changes of this time caused the dynamization of the image of the Japanese woman. This is how liberated, self-confident, strong-willed, energetic women appeared. In the media, women began to appear in the images of cafe waitresses, dancers, and saleswomen. Having become icons of a modern city, they walked around the shopping malls, had conversations in cafes, went to the cinema, did various sports, and traveled in buses and trams. The modern lifestyle of the 1920s-30s dictated new changes in the appearance of young girls: their clothes and hairstyle changed. Modan gāru , often compared to American flappers, wore colorful European outfits, high heels, short haircuts, and various accessories. Japanese society, trying to preserve the concept of ryo:sai kenbo (良妻賢母, «good wife, wise mother»), did not want to see young girls who were independent and free from family obligations and who spent their free time in the cinema, cafes, and dancefloors. Modan gāru never stood for women's rights, never belonged to the number of suffragists. But, despite this, they did not want to stay oppressed under male control. Modan gāru liberated themselves from age-old conventions and traditions, achieved financial independence, and were no longer inferior to men.

modern girl, new women, consumer culture, modernism, ryōsai kenbo, Taishō period, urban middle class

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