Re-Reading the Salaryman in Japan

This book uses the figure of the salaryman to explore masculinity in Japan by examining the salaryman as a gendered construct, and is one of the first to focus on the men within Japanese corporate culture through a gendered lens. Not only does this add to the emerging literature on masculinity in Japan, but given the important role Japanese corporate culture has played in Japan's emergence as an industrial power, Romit Dasgupta's research offers a new way of looking both at Japanese business culture, and more generally at important changes in Japanese society in recent years.

Romit Dasgupta is Assistant Professor of Asian Studies at the University of Western Australia.

1. Introduction: Salarymen in the 'Lost Decade' 2. Framing the 'Macro': Historicizing Salaryman Masculinity 3. Men's Stories of Becoming Otoko 4. Becoming Shakaijon: 'Craftings' into Salaryman Masculinity 5. Working With Salaryman Masculinity 6. Working With Heterosexuality: Sexuality, Marriage, Fatherhood and Salaryman Masculinity 7. Working With Homosociality 8. Beyond the 'JTB-Man': Looking back from the 2010s