Kamakura vs. Edo Era By Kirsten Rast

Kamakura Era (1185 – 1333) ★ Women who belonged to the aristocracy were allowed to take part in politics. ★ Women could also become samurai warriors but this was not allowed if they were in the aristocratic class. Although women were allowed to become samurai, a male samurai of equal rank could give orders to a female samurai. ★ Female samurai were able to give orders to men of lower social classes like farmers and craftsmen. In the beginning of the Kamakura period women were also allowed to inherit land estates. ★ However, this changed later as the amount of available land decreased towards the middle of Kamakura period.

Kamakura Era (1185 – 1333) ★ Cosmetics in Japan shifted from an imitation of Chinese models to a style more attuned to the Japanese sensibility. ★ Women wore their hair very long and straight, almost reaching the floor; applied white face powder, plucked their eyebrows and repainted them higher on the forehead; and blackened their teeth

Edo Era ( ) ★ During this time, samurai women were treated like semi-slaves by their husbands regardless of the spouses social standing. ★ There was a separation of rank and gender, which influenced the roles woman played in Japanese society and how they were treated in regard to the men. ★ Women were always held below them and were inferior to the superior. Even though a woman may be married to a man of higher social order, her position and ruling did not change based on her new status, but by her gender as a female in Japanese society.

Edo Era ( ) ★ women began imitating the hairstyles of men, and the kind of hairstyle a woman wore often indicated her class and marriage status. ★ There were basically only three colors for make-up: white for face powders, black for eyebrows and teeth and beni for lips. In the Edo period when women married they shave off their eyebrows. ★ The practice of blackening the teeth, a female rite of passage deeply associated with coming-of-age and marriage since the Middle Ages, became firmly established from the middle of the Edo period onward as a symbol of a woman’s married status. ★ Many Japanese women used beni, material made from flowers that looks green when dry bit almost magically turns bright red when water is applied to it. Sometimes the beni was applied in such thick coatings it looked noticeably green.