Hormones, Gender, and Fascism: Development and Marketing of Hormone Products in Wartime Japan

Jasmin Rückert

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Chapter 10 Hormones, Gender, and Fascism: Development and Marketing of Hormone Products in Wartime Japan

In: Gendering Fascism

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Jasmin Rückert

Jasmin Rückert
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Type:: Chapter

Pages:: 236–260

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004703766_012

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This chapter explores reporting on hormone research and advertisements of hormonal products in Japanese popular media during the period of the Fifteen-Year War (1931–1945). It analyses various media formats, including popular and niche magazines and newspapers, on the premise that media culturally and ideologically shaped and popularised ideas about endocrinological substances commonly known as ‘sex hormones’. Responding to and fuelling widespread interest in the topic during this particular period, Japanese scientists and popular media spurred hopes and anxieties surrounding these hormones, while commercial companies utilised at times contradictory images of masculinity and femininity to advertise their products. I propose that in this era of tight media control, the possibility to discuss and market hormonal products depended on the creation of a sanitised image of sexhormones, a discursive disconnection of hormones from non-normative sexuality, and their discursive integration into a project of ‘scientific nationalism’. (Sex) hormone research did not only contribute to normalising and pathologising bodies, but it was also used to showcase Japan’s leading role among modern, scientifically oriented nations. In particular, the strategy of highlighting the ‘science-technology’ of sex-hormone research proved useful for gaining government approval for medical and cosmetic hormone products and allowed the discursive embedding of hormone research and production within a techno-fascist agenda.

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Gendering Fascism

Individual Actors, Concepts, and Transnational Connections

Series: Brill's Specials in Modern History, Volume: 9

E-Book ISBN:: 9789004703766

Publisher:: Brill

Print Publication Date:: 21 Feb 2025

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Chapter 10 Hormones, Gender, and Fascism: Development and Marketing of Hormone Products in Wartime Japan

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Gendering Fascism

Individual Actors, Concepts, and Transnational Connections

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