1.

Record Nr.

UNISA996248210303316

Autore

Allison Anne

Titolo

Nightwork : Sexuality, Pleasure, and Corporate Masculinity in a Tokyo Hostess Club / / Anne Allison

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Chicago : , : University of Chicago Press, , [2009]

©1994

ISBN

0-226-01488-6

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (228 p.)

Disciplina

394.120952135

Soggetti

Bars (Drinking establishments) - Japan - Tokyo

Entertaining - Japan - Tokyo

Male friendship - Japan - Tokyo

Corporate culture - Japan - Tokyo

Cocktail servers - Japan - Tokyo

Tokyo (Japan) Social life and customs

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Front matter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Prelude -- Introduction -- Part One. Ethnography of a Hostess Club -- Part Two. Mapping the Nightlife within Cultural Categories -- Part Three. Male Rituals and Masculinity -- References -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

In Nightwork, Anne Allison opens a window onto Japanese corporate culture and gender identities. Allison performed the ritualized tasks of a hostess in one of Tokyo's many "hostess clubs": pouring drinks, lighting cigarettes, and making flattering or titillating conversation with the businessmen who came there on company expense accounts. Her book critically examines how such establishments create bonds among white-collar men and forge a masculine identity that suits the needs of their corporations. Allison describes in detail a typical company outing to such a club-what the men do, how they interact with the hostesses, the role the hostess is expected to play, and the extent to which all of this involves "play" rather than "work." Unlike previous books on Japanese nightlife, Allison's ethnography of one specific hostess club (here referred to as Bijo) views the general phenomenon from the eyes



of a woman, hostess, and feminist anthropologist. Observing that clubs like Bijo further a kind of masculinity dependent on the gestures and labors of women, Allison seeks to uncover connections between such behavior and other social, economic, sexual, and gendered relations. She argues that Japanese corporate nightlife enables and institutionalizes a particular form of ritualized male dominance: in paying for this entertainment, Japanese corporations not only give their male workers a self-image as phallic man, but also develop relationships to work that are unconditional and unbreakable. This is a book that will appeal to anyone interested in gender roles or in contemporary Japanese society.