Geisha: Rebels of Japan

An Analysis of Geisha Culture and Feminism

Feminist is a word not often associated with geisha, and with good reason. In the Western view, a geisha is a woman who participates in an occupation built solely on subservience to men. These women pour drinks and dress in luxurious and direly uncomfortable clothing. They wear thick make-up to accentuate their most feminine features, the eyes and mouth. To the Western eye, they are a serving girl at best, and often times even considered to be a prostitute. However, the views of geisha in Japan differ largely from views in the West, serving verses entertaining, prostitution verses ritual. Because of these differing views, it is made clear that the creation of an image of geisha as subservient sexual slaves stems from a rejection of the possibility that a woman can choose her position in society, which is a view imposed by those Westerners to force this unique subculture to fit into their world view.

A geisha is an enigmatic being. Generally, these women reside within a very closed environment, their practices shrouded by closed doors, their faces hidden from the world. (Allison, 382) To dine with a geisha requires large amounts of money. To understand the significance and skill of what a geisha does takes knowledge and understanding that most non-Japanese do not possess. It is not difficult to understand how perceptions of these mysterious women could come to be so different from the reality. They are strange to their own people; to a foreigner they are beyond alien. A man in an establishment in most Western countries would perceive a gaily dressed, heavily painted woman who flirts with customers to be a waitress, bar wench, or prostitute. Following World War II, U.S. troops occupied Japan, introducing them to these strange women and leaving them not entirely certain what to make of them.

To the Japanese, these women are not entirely mainstream, but they were, at least, understood to be yet another layer of class in the society. Their occupation was understood as that of an artist. “The original geisha evolved out of the performance traditions of the odoriko and tayuu, and their identity within both the traditional arts society as well as society at large is tied to the historical developments of these two female performance traditions, the theater and the Confucian-style control of Edo-period urban society.” (Foreman, 38) Geisha evolved from the arts, and are thus still perceived today by the Japanese as purveyors of art. However, this history of art was not all flower arranging and singing.

Though the geisha tradition first began in the arts, it was not a straight forward path from beginning to end. First on this road were the courtesans, who, after being banned from performing on public stages, took their art to the pleasure quarters. These talented dancers and musicians soon formed an elite class within the system of courtesans, and although this group ceased that particular pursuit after establishing their status, another group, the geisha, took over. At first these artists and musicians were primarily men and the female geisha were referred to as onna-geisha, women geisha. However, as time passed and the odoriko—female dancers—became increasingly popular and bans forced them separate from men, the male and female geisha divided leaving mostly women. Later, the term was reversed when the term otoko-geisha was coined, referring to a male geisha. This series of bans and rebellions within the female system paints a very different picture about these women than would be seen by the West. (Foreman, 39)

At the time, these women were seen as rebellious and as Kelly Foreman says in her essay Bad Girls of Japan, “full control was never achieved” of these women and their performances. In their performances, the women would carry swords, wear crosses, and even dress like men. “Such actions could not have cast these women in any other light other than rebellious, dangerous, and “bad”...and their “badness” derives from several factors. The shirking of feminine duties to family is a key aspect of geisha badness.” She goes on to say: “Geisha epitomize this aspect of “bad-girl” behavior because they remain committed to this “non-female” role, potentially for their entire lives.” This stands in direct defiance to the Confucian ideals of filial piety, which emphasizes the family above all else. To leave one's parents, to renounce marriage and children is to effectively refuse to subordinate one's self to another, which is a key element of filial piety. These women rebelled against all cultural norms at the time. It is interesting, then, that the people of the Western world would so readily agree that these women epitomize obedience, subservience, and femininity.

In the past, the West tended to view women in very specific feminine roles. Because of the pre-modern lifestyle, the sexes were extremely divided. Men did farming, hunting, and other manual labor, and women tended the home and raised the children. Because women did not have a way of supporting themselves in these types of societies, they had very few options. They were either to marry or become a prostitute. Even as European, and later American culture evolved, there was still an underlying belief that the place of women was in the home, and though some women may have been permitted to work, they were still wives and mothers first, and workers or performers last. The view that the West projected onto the geisha clearly reflects their own personal beliefs.

To a Western man, viewing the strange pomp and ceremony of a geisha gathering would make little sense. To see the elaborately painted faces of the apprentice geisha—maiko—and see them dance and flirt and play their instruments introduces the distinct possibility of leaving a foreigner confused. This is precisely what happened following the opening of Japan during the Meiji Restoration. Foreman states on this matter: “Early Meiji-era American officials probably saw the actual geisha, but would have had no aesthetic tools with which to understand the music and dance they saw during banquets at which they were guests, and assumed that the function of such independent, unmarried women must be as sexual playthings.” (Foreman, 36) This assumption would be logical to men living in a society where respectable women were wives and mothers before all else, even their work or arts. They could not conceive of an entire world of women, run by women, in which the members focused only on arts and expression.

A geisha community is, in reality, a matriarchy. Women, usually retired geisha, are considered the mother or okaasan of the house of which they are the head. They apprentice and hire geisha to work in their house and attend parties to bring in money to the house and to repay the vast expenses amassed by clothing and training. Men are a rarely felt presence in these houses, and more often than not act as the servants, tying the obi of the kimono or fixing the elaborate hair styles. The women are also free to take patrons or lovers, which is yet another stigma associated with the geisha. (Dalby, 4)

A young woman who aspires to be a geisha can be taken in as an apprentice, a maiko. The maiko train in dance, singing, conversation, and even walking. In the past, after the completion of their training, the women were involved in a rite of passage ceremony, the selling of the mizuage: the maiko's virginity. This marked passage from apprenticeship into maturity, as well as helped to repay the large sums of money spent to train the maiko and purchase her elaborate clothing and ornaments. To the Western eye, this practice seems almost akin to prostitution. Sex is being sold to the highest bidder in this situation. Compounded with the confusion many of the American soldiers felt when they witnessed “working girls” wearing the kimono following the Second World War, the view that geisha were also working girls pervaded. This, too, can be attributed to an uninformed interpretation.

Soldiers bringing reports of “geisha girls” back to the West had missed vital pieces of information. For instance, though geisha did sell their mizuage, they were not the same as these kimono wearing street walkers. Also, these Westerners were interpreting this information through a Judeo-Christian lens. To a country founded on Christian values, this sale of sex is an abomination. However, Christianity has had minimal influence in Japanese society as a whole, thus removing the stigma of these events. In early Japan, prostitution was legal and there stood set places in cities for these activities. Even still, the geisha sale of mizuage was not considered prostitution, but a mark of passage into adulthood.

Western interpretations permeate our society because of a general unwillingness to view a cultural practice through that culture's ideals. Even today, authors such as Arthur Golden in his novel Memoirs of a Geisha, projects this, whether unconsciously or not, into his story, turning the main character into a pathetic slave girl sold into a geisha house. Even in our society today we seem to be unable to grasp the idea of a matriarchal society where service, and even sex, is a freedom, not an obligation. The West has a particular view of Asian women as either a nymphomaniac or a conniving “dragon women,” or as subservient and delicate flowers, as mentioned in the film “Slaying the Dragon.” The West continually insists on forcing its views and beliefs onto the world of geisha to understand it, instead of understanding it in its context.

Images of geisha still conjure images of slaves or prostitutes for many Westerners today. Despite the geisha's colorful history of rebellion against the bans on the arts and the separation of men and women in order to prevent further learning of instruments, this view is held. Despite the dramatic refusal to obey traditional gender roles by learning the Shamisen, a traditionally male instrument, or by dressing in what would have been considered men's clothing, they are considered a step back from progress. One geisha said of herself and the other geisha with her: “We find our own way, without doing family responsibilities. Isn't that what feminists are?” (Foreman, 45) Though Westerners may continue to reject the geisha as an icon of feminism and freedom from the patriarchically based confines of the family system, the geisha will continue to stand alone and function within their own society. It is clear through history and through attitudes of not only Japan, but the geisha themselves, that this outdated idea of the sexual servant “geisha girl” lives on only in the minds of those who refuse to accept the possibility of successful, independent, and even rebellious women.

Sources:

Allison, A. (2001). “Memoirs of the Orient.” Journal of Japanese Studies 27(2): 381-398

Dalby, L. (1998). Geisha. Berkeley, University of California Press

Foreman, Kelley. Bad Girls Confined. In Bad Girls of Japan..

Memoirs of a Geisha, 2005, Rob Marshall

Slaying the Dragon, 1988, Deborah Gee

“I have neither given or received, nor have I tolerated

others' use of unauthorized aid.”