Labor and Gender Roles Postwar

In the photo below the young Japanese girl being caressed by an American soldier in occupied Japan appears wholly dissatisfied. While that may be the case in this photograph, Holly Sanders argues in her article, “Panpan: Streetwalking in Occupied Japan” that the the open street market for sex, driven by Japanese women, helped many single women in the Japanese labor market. Although this girl appears un interested in her male companion she very well may have chosen her life as a Panpan (Sanders 411). Prostitution is not something frequently regarded in a positive light, however in occupied Japan it brought about mixed emotions amongst both Japanese and Americans.

After WWII ended the U.S. left troops in Japan. Prostitution and promiscuity of women had long been a problem in and around military bases, and the military bases in Japan were no exception. The explanation is simple to reason: young men, far away from home, lonely, bored. Sanders also cites a FSA officer who speculated that many women hung around military bases or forts  because they desired to ‘live only in the present’ (Sanders 409). Young women forging sexual relationships with men on duty was not uncommon. Nor, was young woman exchanging sex for other goods or services. What was uncommon about the Japanese Panpan was that they worked outside of salons, bars, or brothels.

The Panpan receive their name Streetwalkers by doing just that; prostituting themselves on the street. Although this does not appear to be a glamorous or a healthy occupation, for many women it was a safe and economic alternative to their previous lives. For women with no family ties or for women estranged from their families for various reasons it was easy for them to leave to become Panpans. Also the pay for Panpan’s was remarkably good. Sanders writes that, “Streetwalking paid more than a woman could earn in virtually any other occupation. Tokyo Panpan could make upwards of 40,000 yen per month, compared to formal-sector employees who took home an average of 2,200 yen for office work and even less for factory work” (411). Since Panpan could directly pocket all earnings and did not have to pay off a pimp or supervisor it was easier to make a profit. Often Panpan made higher living wages than local business men and could therefore afford nicer housing in Japanese cities. This conundrum unsettled the social norm of traditional Japanese society.

The concept of changing social norms was not unique to Japan in the postwar era. Wendy Webster, in her Chicago journal article, “There’ll Always be an England: Representations of Colonial Wars and Immigration, 1948-1968” discusses how the colonial wars shaped representations of the English domestic order. Webster writes, “domestic order became and increasingly important marker of Englishness, and one which was strongly gendered, showing black as a male category, while white women were foregrounded as symbols of a nation under seige” (Webster 561). Following WW2 there was a large flux of black immigrants into England. This unsettled the British and make them question their national identity as well as question their national masculinity. In images depicting women at home in England the imagery was always of white women. Implying femininity was not only domestic, it was white (561). It is interesting to note that along with the rise in black population was a rise in fears of miscegenation in England. However, this was not a fear that occurred between white men and Japanese women it Japan.

England and Japan faced two different outlooks at the end of the war. One was being occupied, while one was struggling to occupy others. This demographic relates back to family and labor relations on the home front. In Japan women expressed new found freedoms and promiscuity. While in England the British tried to reestablish a national Englishness and sense of  unity founded upon strong domestic structure in an era of a dying empire.