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thedoctorfat · 5 days ago

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How The King Wears Her Crown

I wanted to talk about Naoto’s relationship with masculinity, and how she initially wears it as armor, but then decides to simply wear it as comfortable clothes. My friends read this and all knew this was coming.

Initially Naoto’s relationship with masculinity is rather repressive. Naoto disguised herself as a boy to fit the image of the hardboiled detective that’s so idealized in detective fiction. Now, why didn’t she openly act as a girl?

Well, Naoto would be highly isolated in multiple aspects if she were openly a woman. Being a female detective, and a teen detective, deeply isolates her. Actually, she points this out pretty immediately when she’s asked why she disguises as a boy, but it runs really deep when it comes to police culture and its domination by men in both reality and detective fiction alike.

First, let's start with women's relationship to detective fiction, and how classical detective fiction sets these standards. Most major classical detectives are men. C. Auguste Dupin, Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, are all male detectives, with women pretty much always solely being murder victims. Some detectives are even outright misogynistic. Anthony T. Farah brings this up in his thesis The Mystery of the Missing Half: The Developing Female Investigator Trope in Detective Fiction.

After Dupin, Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes precisely follows the male-dominated, female-bereft milieu of detective fiction. In his original incarnation, Holmes has little regard for women (save, of course, the one-and-only Irene Adler). Rather, Holmes actively disparages women, remarking in The Valley of Fear, “I am not a whole-souled admirer of womankind” (“Sherlock Holmes”). Holmes, whose entire modus operandi rests on the bedrock of logic finds “the motives of women … inscrutable ….How can you build on such quicksand?" (“Sherlock Holmes”). After all, Holmes considers that the “emotional qualities are antagonistic to clear reasoning” (“Sherlock Holmes”). Thus, the genre of detective fiction, if birthed by Poe and reinforced by Doyle, follows a rigid pattern—marginalized and silenced females, a dénouement which ties up all loose ends narrated by a male, and a solution made plain by the pure logic employed by the male detective. Since mainstream scholars believe the genre is defined by Poe’s example, it was clearly conceived as a male-only game, a “gentleman’s club.”

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Furthermore, he discusses how a lot of the men strictly adhere to this standard of masculinity, to the point it can be to their detriment.

A genre where the female population is victimized, silenced, and marginalized by men can only lead to an unbalanced, dysfunctional realm. And the male detectives—who not only lack but despise any female traits—are themselves deeply flawed. A deep inner turmoil experienced by male detectives is manifest throughout the genre, and one can only wonder whether such flaws spring from the repression of the female half of the world. Consider: C. Auguste Dupin (social recluse), Thomas Magnum (ne’er do well grifter living from paycheck to paycheck), Sherlock Holmes (cocaine addict and social misfit), Hercule Poirot (“funny little man”), Mike Hammer (alcoholic misanthrope with anger issues), Dave Robicheaux (recovering alcoholic with relentless PTSD), and so on. These characters consistently deny half of their world by relegating a woman’s role to that of the silenced, marginalized victim and devaluing any contribution a woman might make, unless such contribution springs solely from logical deduction. The half-world/half-truth/half-person perpetuated by these detectives excludes the female from their sphere, except as silent victim. They are unbalanced characters inhabiting an unbalanced, patriarchal world. The Anglo-American tradition of detective fiction, with its imbalance in gendered roles, has not traditionally received serious critical attention. Poe himself considered his creation, Dupin, to be an unbalanced character lacking in diversity.

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Now, let's discuss reality. Female police officers are, first of all, far less common than their male coworkers. An article from Asahi Shimbun dated 2021 states that the record high number of female police officers was that at 10.6%. Only one in ten officers were women in 2021, and one in 20 in 2011.

The National Police Agency said women accounted for a record 10.6 percent of all police officers in prefectural police departments across Japan as of April 2021. The leader was the Hokkaido prefectural police at 12.2 percent, followed by the Ibaraki prefectural police, runner-up at 11.9 percent, and the Saitama prefectural police, which was third at 11.8 percent. The figure had been growing from year to year from about 550, or 5.1 percent of all police officers, in 2011, but Fukuoka still had the lowest percentage of women among its police officers of all the 47 prefectural police departments across Japan.

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I also want to note that the game takes place in 2011. Naoto states that her parents were both detectives who died in an accident, implying that Naoto's mother is the only female detective who was around, and she died before Naoto could remember her.

Furthermore, around the world, there's a fairly misogynistic culture within the police force. In Sexism and misogyny in police culture: red flags, problems and solutions, there's a documentation of such an issue, and the article goes into possible solutions to this problem.

What is apparent however, is the existence of particular traits which form part of this [police] culture. Examples of these cultural traits will include sexism, machismo and solidarity (Reiner, 1992). According to Fielding (1994, p.47), the existence of machismo originates from a culture of ‘hegemonic masculinity’, existing within a predominantly male workplace, where patriarchal views and misogyny are used against women, within a culture identified as physically demanding and one which is perceived as only being able to be performed by men (Waddington, 1999). According to Adisa et al (2019), these patriarchal views are constructed by males and reinforce the view that men are more dominant than women. As a result, the disparity displayed via gender stereotypes and inequality between the sexes, becomes embedded (Adisa et al, 2019). According to Lila et al (2013), a powerful male police culture will support the existence of sexism and will reinforce perceptions that policing is only for males (Wilson et al, 2001). According to Charlesworth and Robinson (2012), the perception that a man can conduct the policing role better than a woman, has also extended to male hostility being displayed towards female officers who have requested to work part time.

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We actually see a little bit of this in-game, with a conversation between her fellow detectives Ryotaro Dojima and Tohru Adachi, both men, where they discuss the murder of Mayumi Yamano, and Adachi says something rather eyebrow-raising, which Dojima does not challenge.

Which is a very concerning thing to not challenge. Getting fired and losing your reputation is a terrible thing to have happen, but it is not nearly as severe as being murdered with your killer running free and nobody knowing their identity.

Furthermore, women are frequently infantilized, which would compound Naoto's predicament of not being treated well as she's only a teenager.

As time progressed, the infantilization of women has become far more apparent in societies around the world. To infantilize someone is defined as treating them as a child, primarily through demeaning actions. Women are usually infantilized by men and treated as children often concerning sexism and misogyny. The most common manifestations of infantilization are through linguistics, such as overly simplifying explanations or using demeaning nicknames. However, it can also be physical such as offering a woman a hug when offering a man a handshake. The infantilization of women often includes policing their appearances and which social spheres they’re allowed to occupy. Infantilizing a person generally conveys a sense of superiority. As a gendered practice, women’s infantilization is related to patriarchal structures that situate men in the default position of power.

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So, it's not that much of a wonder that Naoto chose to pose as a young man. Even if her age could not be hidden, her status as a teenage girl instead of a teenage boy could be. At this point, Naoto's masculinity and perceived maleness is meant to protect her, so that she will not be discriminated against in the workforce. Especially since toxic femininity is a powerful force that would put down women as masculine as Naoto is, but we actually mention that later when we cover her being female out in the open.

But Naoto is forced out of the closet and revealed to be a girl by her own Shadow, Sukuna-Hikona, to which she explains this situation much more succinctly than was explained here. How she heavily implies she has no female detective role models, fictional or real. Not even Aimée Leduc, who I compared her to in an earlier writeup, and would break the image that a detective like Sherlock Holmes had to be a guy, and the elephant in the room of police misogyny.

But Kanji points out she doesn’t know that she won’t be accepted if it’s known she’s a girl. And that’s a good point. Naoto’s own mother was openly a female detective, and there are female detectives in fiction as Anthony Farah and I have pointed out, even ones who fit Naoto’s masculine idea. Furthermore, Naoto's a teenager, and is still hired despite that. So, what does she do now? Well, she openly lives as a woman, but remains decidedly masculine in her demeanor and clothing choice, choosing to keep wearing the male Yasogami uniform. Now, Naoto’s masculinity isn’t forced, it’s just a part of who she is. She doesn’t conform to gender norms because that’s what causes her discomfort—whether it’s the forced invulnerability she puts on while acting as male, or the femininity a woman is expected to have. She is neither, she is a young gender nonconforming woman. More proof of her being comfortable in her masculinity is in the animated series, where when the Investigation Team visits the Amagi Inn, she is depicted wearing the men’s nemaki jacket rather than the women’s.

Now, Naoto states explicitly that she prefers it this way, which portrays a shift in her relationship with masculinity, slowly becoming much more positive. Instead of a mask, her masculinity is simply part of herself as a person. (I’d like to call this her coronation!) Female masculinity is a topic that barely ever gets covered by scholarly literature, but it rarely gets celebrated, often being criticized as attempting to run away from the woman's gender. But this is entirely untrue. A study by Heidi Levitt and Katherine Hiestand interviewed multiple butch lesbians (to my understanding, these are lesbians who are gender nonconforming) and asked about their relationship with femininity versus their relationship with femaleness.

Many respondents described discomfort at the thought of being feminine, which was experienced as a betrayal of their butch gender. Dress codes or external pressures that forced them to appear feminine evoked feelings of embarrassment, weakness, and vulnerability—just as many women might feel if made to wear clothing (e.g., pink frilly dresses) that was discordant with their own sense of their femininity. Despite the high levels of discomfort with femininity, however, all participants expressed contentment with being women. Indeed, their identities as butch enabled them to identify as women by allowing them to be female yet still prize their internal sense of gender. One woman described this process of realization: I was just watching them [other butch women]. I was just like, “Wow. She’s a woman.” You know, she was—but she also was a woman who would get mistaken as a man. … But when I looked at her, I was like, “Yeah. She’s a woman though. She’s a woman.” And that meant something. It wasn’t like sexual or anything of that nature. It was just like, “Wow. I can be a woman and be who I am. I always thought that being who I was meant that I was trying to be a guy; and I get mistaken as ‘sir’ often. But it doesn’t bother me like it used to. Because I know that I am a woman. Just a different kind.” (P-04) By owning their butch gender, participants were able to identify strongly as female and still be authentic to their sense of self. Although a number of participants had considered a sex change at an earlier point in their lives, because they had found a community that supported the expression of their butch gender, these considerations now seemed unnecessary.

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Which is also supported by Naoto herself in that she feels comfortable acknowledging herself as a woman while still wearing the boy's uniform in the game as her link is maxed out. (I note she can wear the girl’s uniform if you meet criteria to romance her and do something specific, but this is a deeply exposing act that she only is willing to do around Yu purely because of her deep trust in him. This is not her natural state.)

This writeup is going to discuss butch lesbians very frequently, despite Naoto's romantic orientation being unknown, as they are the most commonly documented group of women to have their masculinity expressed in adulthood. (If I had to guess, I would believe Naoto to be on the aromantic spectrum, specifically demiromantic, as she is the hardest female character to romance, and for strikingly different reasons than Ai Ebihara, the second-hardest.) There's a history of female masculinity in Japan, and it actually is related to how Naoto is treated by her female peers. Many of them actually express romantic feelings towards her, as shown in Rank 3. This was shown before her unveiling herself, but is still shown afterwards such as the scene where she joins the Investigation Team, where she’s described as genuinely cool for being such an individual.

I'm actually going to touch upon the beauty pageant, of all things, as her victory there covers another piece of how her female peers perceive her because of her masculinity. Her female peers almost universally vote her as the winner of the beauty pageant, likely because of her masculinity (and also willingness to apply but never appearing on stage).

And you notice that Naoto, out of the Investigation Team members, is the most popular with her fellow female students, even more than Yu is. Naoto is, in a sense, a symbol to the girls of Yasogami. And now I'm going to talk about theater. Have you heard of the Takarazuka Revue? It's an all-female performing group in Takarazuka, Japan, in Hyogo Prefecture. There are two major roles: "otokoyaku" (male roles) and "musumeyaku" (female roles. Albeit, the translation is "daughter roles.") The reason for this is the ideals of the creator Ichizou Kobayashi, who wanted to emphasize a daughter's loyalty to her parents, especially her father (he would ask to be called "Father" by the actors.)

A note about Takarazuka is that it is incredibly popular with women, and otokoyaku in particular are widely praised and adored. Chisato Natori, who is a critic, mentions why these otokoyaku are so beloved, and why she enjoys their work.

When I see female actors trying to approach an ideal image of femininity on the stage, I sometimes feel painfully like I am looking at myself. But when I see the otoko-yaku actors in their endless struggle to distance themselves from [their] femaleness, I enjoy the refreshing thrill of seeing the delicate balancing act between possibility and impossibility (1990: 113)

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Which is likely related to why Naoto herself is so beloved. She represents to the girls around her a masculinity beyond what the boys around her can portray, much like an otokoyaku, as Ichiro Kobayashi himself believed, as is quoted in Jennifer Robertson's Gender-Bending in Paradise: Doing "female" and "male" in Japan.

The otokoyaku, Kobayashi argued, participates not in the construction of alternative “female” gender roles but in the glorification of “maie” gender. He proclaimed that “the otokoyaku is not male [sex] but is more suave, more affectionate, more courageous, more charming, more handsome, and more fascinating than a real male." One of the subtexts to his statement is that “real” (that is, anatomically correct) males need not be suave, charming, etc., in the real world, where patriarchal privilege compensates for aesthetic deficiencies. Another subtext is that “male” and “female” gender account for processes of representation and not for the historica! realities of males and females.

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Naoto represents something more to her female peers than most guys around her, being seen as more bold and confident thanks to her willingness to be out in the open. But Naoto isn’t an actress, she is a detective and a student. Her masculinity has always been part of her face. However, Takarazuka’s history does cover how gender nonconforming women partly expressed themselves and their masculinity as otokoyaku, even when Kobayashi (and the Japanese government itself, actually) tried to fight against it, also covered in Gender-Bending in Paradise.

Females acting on their own behalf outside the household were regarded by the state as socially disruptive and dangerously anomalous. The public vocation of the actor, however, reversed the usual association of females with the private domain and, consequently, distinctions between “private” and “public” were neither incumbent upon nor possible for Takarasienne: “One result of this is that although [the actor] is aware of the dominant rules governing the society of which her small dramatic world is a part, her experience permits her to fuse the value-systems, and to bring the naturally secluded private interpersonal sphere of women in the home into the light of public scrutiny." The fusion was manipulated in a number of ways. Whereas Kobayashi sought to use the actor as a vehicle for introducing the artistry (geijutsu) of the theater into the home, some Takarasienne and their fans used the theater as a starting point for an opposing strategy, including the rejection of gender roles associated with the patriarchal household and, as I discuss subsequently, the construction of a style or mode of sexuality. [...] Kobayashi envisioned Takarazuka as a world of “dreams and romance” and named the early tneater complex “Paradise” to emphasize symbolically its idealism. He was inspired by a new genre of literature, shojo fiction (shosetsu), most tenaciously associated with Nobuko Yoshiya (1904-1973), an influential, prolific author and a lesbian. Her widely read stories framed female couples in a dreamy, sweetly erotic lignt. Unlike her fiction, Yoshiya's own life-style was patently political, even subversive, in that she openly rejected marriage, motherhood, and the compulsory heterosexuality of the Civil Code. Kobayashi shared Yoshiya's romantic vision but colored it heterosexual: his dream world was one in which gallant males were sustained by adoring femaies. The irony remains that this idealized vision of heterosexuality was enacted by an all-female cast. (Of course, it is not ironic in the sense that females were regarded as the main vehicles for the representation of masculinity.) It was an irony that, initially at least, was lost on Kobayashi but not on either the performers and their fans or on the critics. Contrary to Kobayashi's original intentions, Takarasienne inverted the image of the shojo and in the process inspired an enduring style for a Japanese lesbian subculture; namely, “butch/femme.”

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Takarazuka, and the nonconformity that came with being an otokoyaku, ended up being a huge place for GNC women to be present, even against the will of Kobayashi, the inventor, as shown with the case of Kuniko Ashihara. A lot of otokoyaku were very much suppressed for nonconforming behavior as toxic femininity is a very powerful force, but Takarazuka ended up being a place where nonconforming women would attempt to express themselves anyways, even with the surprising attempts to restrain their gender expression and have them conform to the standards of toxic femininity.

Top otokoyaku Kuniko Ashihara was reprimanded severely in 1933 by Kobayashi for not discouraging her fans from calling her “older brother.” Ashihara was revered by her fans as “being as refreshing and gallant. and as assertive and resolute as an older brother.” Although these were the very qualities Kobayashi attributed to the otokoyaku, it was not the kind of filial symbolism he had in mind. He argued that the nickname ultimately compromised her offstage femininity (onnarashisa), not to mention the Revue’s reputation.* [...] The naturalization of “male” females continued with otokoyaku Ashiko Kadota's sudden decision to cut off her hair in the spring of 1932. As reported in the press, Kadota was irked by the unnaturalness of having to stuff her regulation long hair under every type of headgear except wigs, for the all-male management had deemed that wigs would give otokoyaku an overly natura! appearance. Takarazuka fans and moga, on the other hand, had sported short hair at least a decade ahead of their idois. [...] The naturalization of “male” females gathered momentum with leading otokoyaku Kaoru Tachibana’s proclamation in February 1932 that “I just don't feel ‘female’” (watashi wa onna to iu ki ga shinai). She went on to dismiss marriage as “the vocation of boxed-in gals” (hako-iri garu no shigoto). One male journalist likened Tachibana to Nobuko Yoshiya, the author of shoujo fiction, whom he claimed “lived like a garçon (garuson).”

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This is very similar to the situation of Naoto, who is a girl that acts and dresses masculine. We can also see through Chie’s arc and through the treatment of otokoyaku takarasiennes that masculinity in women is often shunned. This makes Naoto’s masculinity honestly subversive and powerful, as her masculinity cannot be removed from her as a person, as her passions, she points out, are more masculine than feminine, such as her love of mainly male-oriented media such as tokusatsu and detective novels.

Furthermore, her fellow Investigation Team members are highly supportive of this, such as when Rise calls out when Naoto is injured or ailed, she never uses "Naoto-chan," but the more masculine "Naoto-kun." This is repeated by all of the Investigation Team except Teddie, who funnily enough doesn’t ever actually use “kun” for anyone.

Maleness may not make her happy, as shown by the events of the game. But masculinity does--it's a part of who she is as a person, after all. Her love of detective novels and her aversion towards what is seen as typically feminine. Her Persona, Sukuna-Hikona, is even a male deity, emphasizing that this part of her cannot be taken away as she is the only character whose gender does not align with the inspiration of her Persona. Naoto isn’t trying to make a statement, it’s simply that Naoto’s masculinity entirely deserves to be celebrated and not suppressed. Her masculinity wasn't her enemy, albeit toxic masculinity (the way that police culture is misogynistic) and toxic femininity (the expectations put on women and girls) both played roles in her disguising herself as a boy. But now that the disguise is taken off, we find out that she is simply masculine as is and should be allowed to explore herself however she likes in pursuit of her true self. Which is what her grandfather and butler Yakushiji help her do in her social link.

I do like this message considering that it's a reinforcement of Kanji's arc, where he learned that his traits perceived as feminine do not deserve to lead to discrimination, and that he should allow himself to express himself in whatever way he likes as a man. Naoto is a reversal of this, as her masculine traits do not deserve to be suppressed either as a woman, and she should also be permitted to express herself however she desires.

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