Dohi (2014)

Dohi,I. (土肥伊都子） (2014).
Gender Personality in Japanese Society: The determinants of femininity/masculinity, mental health, female-male relationships, and cultural factors.
日本社会のジェンダー・パーソナリティ
Union Press.
ISBN 978-4-946428-68-5

    This book consists of the following four parts and thirteen chapters in the parts.     Part I presents the concepts of Gender Personality and the determinant model of femininity/masculinity. In chapter1 the abstracts of concepts of Gender Personality, mainly femininity/masculinity are commented. It is hypothesized that femininity, which contains communion mainly, and masculinity, which contains agency mainly, consist of the following two factors; firstly Gender Schema, a kind of frame of cognition about gender, secondly Gender Identity, a kind of ego-identity, orientation for individuality of one’s own life style as females/males by managing needs of self and social expectations. Chapter2 describes about the development of Communion-Agency Scale(CAS) to measure both of positive and negative aspects of femininity/masculinity. In Chapter2 and Chapter3, the validity of the determinant model of femininity/masculinity is also examined. In Chapter4, the hypothesis about development of psychological androgyny, which is supposed to increase in elder people, is tested based on the research.     Part II is described about the relationships between Gender Personality and mental health or social adaptability. In Chapter5, it is clarified that masculinity facilitates Type A behavior pattern, in contrast, that femininity moderates the relationship between masculinity and the Type A behavior pattern in the case of both of females and males. In Chapter6, it is shown that femininity/ masculinity of both positive and negative aspects are severally related to getting social support, self-esteem, depression, etc. These results suggest that various sex differences of broader domains of mental disorder and syndromes can be explained from the viewpoints of Gender Personality. In Chapter7, it is clarified that psychological androgyny can make communication between females and males smoother, and decrease interpersonal stress.     In Part III, Gender Personality is discussed in relation with Japanese culture. In Chapter8, it is proposed that married couples or families are supposed to be minimum units socially, and it is expected that once peoples get married, they should be “one body, one mind”, and they should engage in their own given social roles whether their roles suit for them or not in Japanese society. Such culture may maintain and strengthen Japanese gender society, accordingly may make individuals to be gendered. These hypotheses are discussed and tested. And it is described that particularly in daily and privately situations such as married couple or family life, where socially invisible Shadow Works are executed, gender is easily maintained and strengthened. Concretely, intergenerational gender-related socialization within the family in Chapter9, the influences of Ie (a kind of Japanese traditional family system) and collectivism in Chapter10, the way to share payment for drinking between young females and males in Chapter11, and customs or attitudes toward sleeping behavior in Chapter12 are examined empirically.     Part IV consists in only one Chapter13, in which conclusions for the total book and preview for further studies are shown. Concretely, as distinctive features of Japanese society in related with Gender Personality, family is supposed to be a minimum unit for living in Japanese society. In fact, this normative idea has not already fit for the real society, but many social systems still follow it. Indirectly, Ie (Japanese traditional family system) consciousness and priorities for motherhood are inevitable to understand Japanese culture. By these Japanese cultural features, family-unit orientations, which make intimate male-female relationships such as married couples dependent each other, must become popular. In this chapter these social problems are discussed. In addition, the hypothesized model about the process, in which Japanese culture makes individuals gendered, and facilitates their orientation for family-unit relationships. Concretely, the orientation for family-unit relationships are influenced by social system such as social security, tax systems, marriage, and family resister, which make people dependent mutually. Furthermore, these social systems are previously from Japanese culture (gendered role involvement culture in workplace, accept for power distance, collectivism, etc.). Consequently， influenced by these cultural factors, family-unit orientation makes females feminine/ males masculine.