The Life of Moga (モガ) : Modern Women in Interwar Japan

Following the Life of Moga

Modern girls, Moga, were the symbol of Japanese modernity in the 1920s to 1930s. While men were in charge of working in politics and white-collar works, women who stayed in home were in charge of consuming and enjoying the "everyday leisure" that Taisho Japan provided (as long as they take care of households). Mogas strolled around Ginza area, one of the most prospered entertainment districts in Tokyo, wearing Western clothes and parasols. They consumed luxury products and took their children to everyday leisure. They were the target of objectification from not only men but also foreigners, as a symbol of "exotic Japanese image" of Asian wearing and consuming Western culture.

The Emergence of Moga

The concept of modern girl constructed new social identities for women in interwar Japan. When the notion of "everyday life" and new middle class were built up after the Great Kanto earthquake, the new middle class imported the ideal form of Western families- white collar professional husband, professional housewife, and two to three children. 

Modern Japan not only imported family structures but also female suffrage, giving "equal" education and a bit more freedom of independent choices. Therefore, Moga was a representative of changing, Westernized and modernized norms in Japanese society. In this period of Japan when Japanese tradition and Western modern values coexisted in a odd mixture, modern girls were often described in literature as a symbol of change, compared with women who still stayed in the "traditional" style. 

As Japan proceeds to modernity, modern girls appeared more and more in media, magazines and advertisements, being a ideal model of women in the new Japanese consumerist society. 

Tanizaki Junichiro's Naomi. The character Naomi who appears as a main heroine, is a "Eurasian-looking" and independent girl who works in a cafe. The novel mainly describes the protagonist's obsession of Naomi as a modern girl. Although the novel is published in the 1940s, Tanizaki started writing from 1924.

Moga and Ginza

Modern girls were the main target of, and actually main consumers of entertainment and goods: from everyday household products to fashion and beauty products. Ginza was one of the sakariba of Tokyo, a "bustling place" that is located between home and workplace packed with leisure, shopping and entertainment districts. 

If you want to know more about Tokyo's sakariba, here is another post:
https://hopson5th.blogspot.com/2018/07/sakariba-in-interwar-tokyo.html

As Ginza prospered, the district became a symbol of modernity and westernization, which fits perfectly with the image of Moga. Accordingly, another feature that Ginza was famous of was Ginza's modern girls, walking around with western outfits and parasols, shopping and going to cafes. Why were women, especially married middle-class women who had a western lifestyle, were so significant in shopping and leisure in Ginza? It is true that mainly women were targeted as Ginza's main consumers because they are the ones who stay in home, therefore have more time to do what men don't: Shopping. But Elise Tipton gives another interpretation of it.  

The view of Ginza street and Ginza's modern girls (The Interwar Gender-Bending Glamour of the Beach Pyjama, Pinterest)

She argued that Ginza is more than an entertainment district, a "zone of evaporation" and "escape" for women. Women were educated to follow the state's ideology of "good wife, wise mother," but they got to go out unaccompanied and more frequently in public as middle class women acquired more liberty in opportunities and workforce. 

As a professional housewife (or working women), Ginza was exclusively a place of going against the tradition under the category of "modern girls."  

Moga reaches to numerous topics related to interwar Japanese culture: Sakariba, department stores, consumerism, modernization and westernization, early Japanese feminism, etc. Cafe waitresses, jokyu who wore kimono inside and western apron outside, is still one of the visual symbols of Taisho Japan. It is always fascinating to look at how they are the face of modern Japan, advertised everywhere on the media. 

If you want to know more about Japanese feminism and women magazine bluestocking, here are our other posts about those topics.

Bluestocking: https://hopson5th.blogspot.com/2018/07/bluestocking.html

Hiratsuka Raicho and Ichikawa Fusae: 

https://hopson5th.blogspot.com/2018/07/hiratsuka-raicho.html

https://hopson5th.blogspot.com/2018/07/ichikawa-fusae.html

Hastings, Sally A. "The New Japanese Woman: Modernity, Media, and Women in Interwar Japan." (2004): 499-502.
Tipton, Elise. "'Cruising Ginza': Seekin Modernity in Tokyo during the 1920s and 1930s." Literature & Aesthetics 17.1 (2011).