Losing the Union Man: Gender and Class in the Postwar Labor Movement

Gerteis, Christopher

Abstract

This chapter narrates the generational contest to define working-class masculine identity that emerged during the era of global youth culture and radical political movements that characterized the 1960s and early 1970s. By analyzing the ways in which middle-aged male leaders of Japan’s Old Left unions perceived politically active, young blue-collar men, the chapter shows how generational conflict influenced the ways in which an increasing number of blue-collar men of all ages identified with middle-class cultural and economic forms. One result was the fracturing of the Old Left’s monopoly on class-based ideals of masculinity, which set the stage for a cascade of class and gender confusions that have shaped popular notions of ‘work’ and ‘manhood’ to the present day.

Citation

Gerteis, C. (2011). Losing the Union Man: Gender and Class in the Postwar Labor Movement. In S. Frühstück, & A. Walthall (Eds.), Recreating Japanese Men (135-153). University of California Press

• Publication Date: Oct 1, 2011
• Deposit Date: May 11, 2011
• Publicly Available Date: Oct 2, 2111
• Publisher: University of California Press
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Pages: 135-153
• Book Title: Recreating Japanese Men
• ISBN: 9780520267381
• Publisher URL: http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520267381