This study will examine Anne Allison's Nightwork: Sexuality, Pleasure, and Corporate Masculinity in a Tokyo Hostess Club. The study will focus on the ways the book portrays cultural differences between Japan and the United States, especially aspects of gender and power. The study will include consideration of the construction of personhood in the three arenas of work, home and club. Allison does not deal directly with the cultural realities of the United States in these arenas, and, therefore, references to those realities will be based on the cultural observations of the writer. However, the author is quite clear in her conclusions about Japanese culture. Her approach is Marxist, so she concludes, correctly, that economics are at the root of the issues explored. Big business and government (through corporate tax breaks for entertainment for workers) work together to encourage club-going: "Its principle is to entertain workers and clients at some place away from work . . . as a means of strengthening work or business relations" (9).
Two other basic facts stand out in her research. First, Japanese culture is male-oriented, with woman cast in the role of service-provider for male client and/or husband. We read, for example, that "Hostess clubs, with their emphasis on service by women, exist primarily to personalize the working relations of Japanese men" (57). Third, the world of men is heavily hierarchical, reflected in both business and entertainment arenas. Although the male camaraderie in Japanese hostess clubs is designed to temporarily equalize the male boss's domination over his male employees, every cue for such temporary equality is given by the boss and received by those employees. Women are not included in such excursions to hostess clubs.
All arenas covered by Allison make clear that men dominate women in Japan. For example, "Work in Japan is considered a male realm." Although more women than ever before work in Japan, ...