Past president of the Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association, past co-president of the Coordinating Council for Women in History, current co-president of the Berkshire Conference of Women Historians, and the Walter E. Schmidt, S.J., Professor of History at Santa Clara University, Barbara Molony has lectured extensively in North America and overseas. Her recent works include the coauthored or coedited volumes: Engendering Transnational Transgressions: From the Intimate to the Global (2020), Women's Activism and "Second Wave" Feminism: Transnational Histories (2017), Asia's New Mothers: Crafting Gender Roles and Childcare Networks in East and Southeast Asian Societies (2008), and Gendering Modern Japanese History (2005) as well as numerous articles on Japanese women's suffrage, the politics of dress, and transnational feminist movements. She is a coauthor of the textbooks Gender in Modern East Asia (2016), Civilizations Past and Present (2007), and Modern East Asia: An Integrated History (2012). She is completing a biography of Japan's leading suffragist, Ichikawa Fusae and a co-edited volume, "Oxford Handbook of East Asian Gender History."
In Japan, dress--including clothing, hairstyles, and posture--has signified modernity, gender, class, and power since the late 19th century. Linked to all of these was imperialism. What did clothing and hairstyles often marked as "masculine" or "feminine," or Western or Japanese indicate about the wearer, whether at home or in the public sector, in Japan or abroad (in the West or in Asia)?
