As society construct gender identity, gender-specific products such as perfumes react to how gender is identified in society. Brian Moeran demonstrated that through fragrance descriptions and gender identity and ideals seen in Japan through this article. Japan still has a prominent gender gap — seen from their wage gap, sexual harassment, and other traditional gender values — therefore, their ideas on gender is seen in how they market their fragrance products which is still male orientated. These gender constructions limit the growth and understanding of how gender really is as they are placed into an androcentric mindset of what they are presented with. For example, female fragrances are used to either convey innocence or seduction; however it must be noted that women are more than just that. As certain perfume products convey a certain characteristic, many men and women use olfactory products as a way to present themselves in those characteristics. By identifying Japan’s olfactory culture, it shows how fragrances can identify gender identity in Japanese culture. As previous archaeological accounts were based on an androcentric point of view, only in recent times did a more gendered balanced study began to emerge, as seen from Margaret W.Conkey’s article. As Moeran’s article tackles on gender identity in an eastern Asian society, it must be noted that western society follows similar trends in gender trends. By visiting a traditional western department store in the fragrance department such as Nordstrom, the Moeran’s theory is put inaction through observing who — demographic, age, gender, and status — is browsing and purchasing certain fragrances. To understand how we observe gender through Japan’s olfactory culture, we need to first understand how the topic of gender is conceived in archeology after years of being

male-oriented. Through these observations and analysis, the idea of how fragrance is generally

constructed through societal gender norms and what those gender norms are in Japan is shown in Moeran’s Article.

Scent is an extremely valuable sense that set many social characteristics ranging from first impressions, status symbol to even danger signals. (2005: 97) However, in the context of Japan, their culture and history emphasizes on olfactory as it’s presented in their tradition Kōdō incense ceremony to smelling girls’ underwear in vending machines (2005: 99); showing how conscious they are of smells. The Japanese food vendors is a great example of how smell is used in a favourable way as they use certain food scents to attract customers. Recorded in the country’s earliest records, the Nihon Shoki , It was said that local villagers burned a large piece of washed up driftwood to fill the air with its pleasant scent(2005: 99). As a matter of fact, Buddhism was one of the first significant use of fragrance as incense was frequently used in rituals. Through that, the practise was adopted into the Heian court’s daily use — from their clothing, colours and related scents (Morris 1969: 202- 17). Moeran used the famous Japanese novel Genji Monogatari (The Tale of Genji) by Murasaki Shikibu as an example of how feudal japan used scent in their everyday practices. Besides that, the book — going back to the early years of the eleventh century — emphasizes on scent through character development and plot advancement. The people themselves are very sensitive as Moeran states how they rather focus more on being odourless than smelling like the odour. For that purpose, their culture and genetics differ from other cultures and people due to their body chemistry for generally not having body odour. However, they are still very conscious of odour; if not, there won’t be any kind of market for olfactory products. Moeran’s observation of Japan’s supermarket shelves evidence this as they have a wide arrange of product to mask certain smells. Moeran’s main intention in his first

article is to emphasize on Japan’s olfactory culture as he concludes that the Japanese have a long history with fragrance but they mainly focus on deodorizing themselves.

Following this further, as perfume’s main objective is to hide distasteful body odours and emphasize on more delightful odours, Japan has used this purpose to create an entire market that unconsciously displays japan’s gender stereotype. Moeran mentions how most modern societies are very androcentric and many female orientated industry is often ruled by males. This is acknowledged in Margaret W. Conkey’s article as she emphasis how only recently did archeologist started to respond toward gender in the right way (2009: 108). Previously archeology and even anthropology show a very ethnocentric mindset of gender that was set by white, male archeologist. They had notions from their own biases that since prehistoric times, men were hunters and women were gatherers; showing how little respect they had for properly dissecting gender (2009: 113). Conkey mentions how only these kind of studies like Moeran’s are emerged due to the thanks of recent consideration of gender. It wasn’t until 1970’s due to the Women’s Liberation Movement was the topic of gender and sex began to be discussed. (Okely). By recognizing that women were not secondary to men but their counterpart, it helped raise key questions about women and previous and future anthropologist theories. This moves towards Moeran’s article about gender construction and how these constructions respond to perfume description. However, stated by Moeran and on howstuffworks.com’s there is a difference in skin chemistry between men and women — that is important to how we perceive fragrances toward gender. As women have a more acidic skin compared to men and everyone’s skin chemistry is different, fragrances will be different from person to person. Granted that society will always create gender roles for men and women; hence, Moeran states these roles “lead to all

kinds of classifications of women” (2005: 113) In Japanese culture and even western cultures, there is a distinction between innocent women and seductive women. Translating these specification into scent and title, innocence is perceived as having floral notes with names like “Innocents, Angel, Flirt” while sexiness is perceived as having floral and spicy notes with names like “Fetish, Passion, Taboo, Fetish” (2005: 114). This presents a very narrow-minded notion of how women should act — either innocent or sexy. Only much later did the term of “mysteriousness” is replaced with the seductress and sexy, finally showing how women aren’t just sexual objectified objects for men. Men also have their own specifications as the notes is often described as dry, spicy and woody as it derives from the sense of manliness. However, it will be ignorant to only see men as only manly as there are different types of men shown by Moeran. From the image of Gentle men (described as chic, elegant and modern), Natural Man (described as pure, simple and dry) and Dandy men (described as tangy and mysterious). These gender constructions are shown in Japanese society by how they market their fragrance, stated by Moeran. As the Japanese hold scent important, they prefer the odour to be masked than presented. Nonetheless, there is still an appreciation to scents as it is involved in their history as well as in their consumer goods. Another thing to note is how their gender is presented and how it translates into their scent. From distinguishing between the innocent and seductive women, they present how their society wants women to be presented. Conkey argues the same thing as these notions of gender — particularly women — is due to how there isn’t a large discussion and study of what gender is and how it should be perceived in society. Not only that but societies like Japan are particularly male-dominated — unfortunately like many modern societies — as they often see their female counterparts as inferior. Moeran’s article is mainly about Japanese

olfactory culture and how this market shows the society’s concept of gender; successfully displaying how Japanese view certain genders.

As my topic focuses on fragrance, I choose to have my field study at Eaton Centre’s Nordstrom particularly in their fragrance department. So on the 14th of November on a Tuesday afternoon around 3pm, I observed the fragrance department by walking around the area and taking note of the people and their actions. I stayed for two hours but I noticed that there is a typical demographic that visits the area, what their intentions are and the products they were interested in. Firstly, I must note due to the nature of Nordstrom, those who shop there is affluent and privileged in some kind of way. There were three types of browsers that would enter the store; there were wealthy young adults from Asia (particularly China), then there were more

well-off mature adults and finally, there were middle-class everyday people who were there to search/buy a present for a certain purpose. This observation was developed by their clothing and their mannerisms and attitude. There were several observations that was achieved from observing those who were in the area; like those who were more affluent did not put as much thought in their purchases unlike those who weren’t as affluent. Another observation is there intention to buy the fragrances as it was generally people with more money to buy on impulse while those with less bought the fragrance with the intention to give it to someone. Although this may not all be true, these findings were prominent from my observations. As Moeran concludes how fragrance descriptions show a certain construction of gender, this article shows truth during my field study. In Eaton Centre’s Nordstrom, there is 3 sections of fragrances ranging from men, women and unisex. Focusing on women’s fragrance first as there were more different types of selections ranging from floral (conveying innocence) to exotic and spicy (conveying sexiness).

Even in western cultures, women still are pushed into certain gender norms by society as they are judged by how desirable they are to others. From my observations, certain women who act more modest and dress conservatively are more attracted to floral and clean scents while women who show more maturity and dress more alluring and older are more attracted to spicy and exotic notes. Fragrance set how others perceive you and to those women, they want to obtain a certain brand that those fragrances hold. This is similar to men, however, their range of scents is more limited compared to women’s. Mentioned by Moeran, men’s fragrance is traditionally categorized as dry, spicy and wood (2005: 114). Note how men do not have floral or sweet scents as it is typically seen as being feminine as men’s fragrance pushes its scent to convey masculinity instead. This is more based in western culture as there is more emphasis on men fitting into a certain social expectation compared to Japan’s culture. In Japanese culture, there are more scents besides just woody and spicy as they have different types of men — ranging from gentle men, natural men to dandy men. In the light of gender in modern society, unisex and neutral gender concepts are coming more into light. As unisex is for both men and women, they market themselves as generally being clean smelling. With all things considered, Moeran’s article about gender construction and fragrance description remains true as seen from the field study done in Eaton Centre’s Nordstrom. As the scents present a brand that is affiliated to a certain gender stereotype, there are people who want to conform to these stereotypes; concluding my field study as it shows gender is constructed through fragrance description and how it presents in real life.

Bibliography

Moeran, Brian. “Japanese Fragrance Descriptives and Gender Constructions: Preliminary Steps towards an Anthropology of Olfaction.” Etnofoor 18, no. 1 (2005): 97-123. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25758088.

Venzon, Christine. “Why are scents attributed to a specific gender?” HowStuffWorks. September 10, 2012. Accessed November 17, 2017.

https://lifestyle.howstuffworks.com/style/body-scents-fragrances/scents-attributed-to-gender.htm

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Conkey, Margaret W. “The Archaeology of Gender Today: New Vistas, New Challenges.”

Gender in Cross-Cultural Perspective. 5th ed, 2009, 56-65. Accessed November 15, 2017.

Morris, Ivan I., and Barbara Ruch. The world of the shining prince: court life in ancient Japan. New York: Vintage, 2013.

Okely, Judith. “Anthropology of Gender.” Discover Anthropology. Accessed November 17, 2017.

https://www.discoveranthropology.org.uk/about-anthropology/specialist-areas/anthropology-of-g ender.html.