Pink baseball merchandise
Posted by japanstats on 2008 June 19日 Thursday
From the AOL FanHouse post, MetsGrrl.com writes
“No real female baseball fan I know wears a pink hat,” wrote Caryn Rose, a writer living in Greenpoint, on her blog about the Mets, called MetsGrrl.com. “The pink hat exists so that boyfriends or husbands (or heck, lesbian partners of girly girls), who feel guilty that they have dragged their girlfriend to the game, can go to the team store and buy something to placate them: ‘Oh, it’s pink, it must be for a girl.’ Give me a break.”
Of course things are very different here in Japan. Not only are there pink hats, there is pink everything for the female fans, and they’re not designed just for the casual/bandwagon/unwillingly-accompanying-the-bf-to-the-park female fans either, but then again pink is the national colour for Japanese women, and being cute is everything. So, there are hardcore female fans in Japan in the bleachers with the oendan cheer squad who stand on their feet and constantly cheer for their hitters while their team is up at bat.
Here, a couple of Hanshin Tigers fans in their pink jerseys. I bet they’re not fairweathr fans, but I could be wrong.
Do Japanese female fans like pink merchandise because they’re cute? Sure. Are Japanese women oppressed in society? Well, there is definitely still a glass ceiling, but Japanese wives and moms completely rule the household, controlling everything in the household from finance (holding the hammer on what to buy for the house, or receiving the husband’s entire pay cheques only to give him small montly “allowances”) to other matters like deciding on which school to send their kids to. This behind the scenes power sort of balances thing out in Japanese society where women don’t try to compete with men by becoming more like men, but are very good at controlling men anyways.
Japan, Hockey, Baseball, etc. 
westbaystars said
While pink merchandice has been growing the past few years, there is currently a boom in pink merchandice being sold as NPB is promoting breast cancer awareness.
The last time I was at Yokohama Stadium it was surrounded inside and out with pink ribbons. Pink bases are to be used during some promotional games (the All Star game at Yokohama?) this season.
There was a whole section of females in pink SoftBank uniforms at Yahoo! Dome last week for a game, but I didn’t catch what the group was for. I assumed that it was another breast cancer promotion.
As you can see, the advertisement campaign has really sunk in. I now associate pink at baseball games to be a part of the breast cancer awareness campain (Hanshin female fans aside). Knowing someone who had a benign growth found in a recent mammogram has really sent the message home – that pink means more than just cute this year.
simoncurrie said
Good point about the breast cancer awareness program. I’d noticed that it’s been on the rise in Japan in recent years, but not as much as you have, of course. And I haven’t really paid much attention in ballparks for the meaning of various pink merchandise, breast cancer awareness or just fashion.