I’m so excited to research new topic which is gender and fashion. There are some reasons why I chose the area as my Cycle 2 research.
First of all, when I went to the shopping mall with a friend of mine who wanted to buy a gift to her boyfriend, I noticed that there were few options of the store for men than for women. So I’m just curious what made the situation.
Secondly, when I was in elementary school, there was a rule about school uniforms in winter that boys were allowed to wear long jersey pants over their uniform pants, but girls were forbidden to wear pants or tights. I thought that’s literally not fair, and it didn’t make any sense. From those experiences, I have come to have interests in the differences and I would like to look at what exactly made those situation.
I’m not really sure but I guess those situation are strongly connected with the historical backgrounds. People had been wearing kimonos which were unisex from 平安時代, and it has been changing with the times. I would like to divide fashion into some aspects such as education site, dress code at work, and the effects of media.
Here are the questions what I want to research deeply（今のところ）,
What is the impact of dress code?
What do people think about having dress code?
What does the variety of clothes bring?
(235 words)
I found a signature (voice), saying that「女子中学生雑誌No.1『nicola』は”見た目に優劣はなくありのままで美しい”ことを子どもたちに発信してください！」("The No. 1 female junior high school student magazine "nicola" should tell the children that it is not superior in appearance and beautiful as it is!") , then it made me realize that the magazine which I had been reading for more than three years exactly made the readers’ biased beauty standards, which would lead to social stereotypes that certain bodies are considered beautiful.
In addition to that, the stereotype can be felt in various places that we can see in our daily lives such as advertisements and mannequins in the clothes stores. I believe the media has big influences on those things, then I come to know there are mainly two kinds of media, one is called “mainstream media”, especially traditional forms such as televisions, magazines and radios, and the other is digital (social?) media, especially forms of electronic communication that allow people to share information using the Internet or mobile phones, such as instagram, TikTok, and twitter. The former has more focused on the “majority”, and the latter is more like “individual”, so a number of people can easily access those social media and be influenced by them in a positive or negative way. Then I come up with the following questions.
・How is the fashion trend determined?
・Is the fashion ( clothes ) only made by the majorities?
・If so, what about the minorities? Are there any problems with them caused by the social situation?
Now I have many topics that I’m interested in and wanna research in my Cycle 2( fashion and diversity). But, I have to look at fashion in some specific area such as school and workplace. So for the next a few weeks, I’ll focus on the dress code in those public places and find the definition of some words such as “inclusive fashion” and “genderless fashion” and also think what they, especially minorities, really need.
(362 words)
I come to know there are mainly two kinds of media, one is called “mainstream media”, especially traditional forms such as televisions, magazines and radios, and the other is digital (social?) media, especially forms of electronic communication that allow people to share information using the Internet or mobile phones, such as instagram, TikTok, and twitter. The former has more focused on the “majority”, and the latter is more like “individual”, so a number of people can easily access those social media and be influenced by them in a positive or negative way.
I thought that the problem that exists in the Japanese fashion is strongly caused by stereotypes that certain bodies are considered to be beautiful which are socially created by the media. So this week, I focused on social media and researched what its effects actually are. I found two signatures that stated about school uniforms from trans men. The both signatures said “make it possible to choose uniforms, make it optional”. When they were in junior high school, they were forced to wear a skirt just because they were “girls” at birth. They both had pain and regret, saying they could enjoy their school life more and could make a lot of memories if they had options for uniforms. Uniforms with no choice brought big regret in their lives. What I’ve learned from their voices is that uniforms is not just clothes, but the way of showing their identity. Their voices are one of the social media, and they brought some changes in the attitude towards the concept of uniforms.
Here are some questions that I came up.
・How do students feel about the uniforms that can choose?
・How do parents think about the change?
・How do 教育委員会 think?
(291words)
In the last week, I found out that there were two different types of gender-less school uniforms, one is selective and the other is unified. They both are the uniform style regardless of gender, and I really think that’s a good idea, it is interesting to me that they are completely opposite. When I heard about genderless uniforms, all I could think of was selective uniforms. Then, I got interested in the background story of the unified uniform, which is standardized slacks style at 姫路市立山陽中学校. Thus, I started with focusing on how they come up with a unified uniform.
What was the most interesting to me was that students' voices brought the chance of their uniform. Because of new movements in their surrounding schools to introduce blazers, they asked their school to change their uniforms, and then school started discussing the review including the parents of PTA. The uniform was standardized after many criticisms were raised about the inconvenience of skirts and the lack of functionality of the uniforms of the time, which were not in keeping with the times through the discussion. The principal of the school said that there is an atmosphere where it is difficult to express being a sexual minority due to a lack of the understanding of society. When I was in junior high school, I told my teacher the unfairness of the rule of school uniforms between boys and girls, but the answer was that we can’t do anything because it’s a tradition. The real problem is there are still many teachers who are conservative, and that’s exactly why society has a lack of diversity.
Then, I got curious about the historical background of uniforms, so ’m gonna look into the history of uniforms and clarify why schools need uniforms in my presentation.
(299 words)
Tomのヤングケアラーに関するプレゼンテーションでいくつか興味深い点があった。ヤングケアラーの現状を聞いたとき、その数字の多さに驚いた。ヤングケアラーという言葉は、生理の貧困と同様に、コロナ禍だからこそ、余計に顕著になった社会問題であると思う。ヤングケアラーの問題点として、学校生活への影響が大きく、その結果社会的にも孤立してしまうケースがあること、また、ヤングケアラーの多くが周囲に相談しないことが挙げられていた。これらは、そもそもヤングケアラーという言葉の定義が社会に根付いておらず、社会的にはヤングケアラーである当事者自身がそれに気づかないまま、お世話の延長線上という認識が引き起こしたものだと考える。2人のプレゼンテーションを聞いて、どちらもstarting pointとsummaryがあって、プレゼンテーションの内容に入りやすかったし、発表者の意見がまとめられていて、ディスカッションをする際の参考にもなった。自分のプレゼンテーションにもそれらのポイントを含んでいるので、それらが聞き手の理解を促すことにつながるということが分かった。
でも、自分のプレゼンテーションにはfuture interestsが含まれていなかったので、次のセメスターに向けた新しい質問を考えて組み込んでいきたい。 (550字）