Edit: explain downvotes and don’t downvote just because you don’t like the perspective. Sure there are men’s kimonos but ask some random person on the street and ask who wears kimonos and men will not be the answer.
For the puritanical American mind it might be offensive to even imagine nudity, but other than that I really don't get it.
Look I don’t make American culture, I’m simply pointing out how a huge chunk of office workers will perceive it.
Anyway, I can tell people can see this perspective, but want to pretend it’s invalid because they don’t like it. those against what they call “cancel” culture then reacting to opinions they deem unpopular by downvoting shows they don’t care about the principal of what they call “cancel” culture in general but only care that what they are used to is being “cancelled”.
Has anyone tried googling the term to see what comes up? Many posts explaining or talking about why the term is problematic. People downvoting are trying to ignore facts they dislike, but that doesn’t make facts go away.
This even comes up https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23549563
On hacker news it may seem like there is little difference in opinion, but keep in mind hacker news readers are a fairy like minded subsample of the population.
https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2014/11/02/360479744...
If you play a word association game, having people say the first word or words that come to mind when they see the word “kimono” what do you think the top few will be?
My guess is that for an average American, the top three would be Japan, geisha and clothing.
What do you think most Americans would say? And what are your top three?
Samurai also wear kimonos, as do priests and sumo wrestlers. Sure, the general public is uneducated but come on, this is reaching.
I seriously doubt most people even make the connection between geishas and kimonos. In fact, most people don't even mean kimono when they say kimono, they mean a vaguely asiatic thin robe, pretty popular in the 80s.
That also makes more sense for the expressions, since they are easy to open. An actual kimono takes 10 minutes to open, it's probably the least sexually suggestive garment in the world.
> “ In fact, most people don't even mean kimono when they say kimono, they mean a vaguely asiatic thin robe, pretty popular in the 80s”
The difficulty in understanding how most people would react to the phrase appears to be because you’re judging it based on your understanding of the term, not on what you yourself said is the general public’s understanding.
It's not implying in any way that women are prone to flashing, that women would be in any way inferior, or that actual women should open their actual kimonos. You are just using the image of a (supposedly) female garment.
Just like saying "like a kick in the balls" isn't sexist. It doesn't imply you want to kick men or anything like that.
But yes, many people in america group "geisha" "oshiroi" and "kabuki" all sort of mix together into this image: https://geishakai.pl/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/HANAFUSA-240...
I would be more than happily to be pulled up to HR if a coworker reported me for saying "open kimono" (not a phrase I would normally say). I'm sure HR would have a wonderful time talking to my lawyer.
You're right, the answer is likely to be "Japanese".
Why does it sound problematic?
As others have already explained: it’s not an offensive phrase and kimonos are certainly not most commonly associated with women, so what’s your goal here?
What’s the point of trying to find offense?
They’re basically t-shirts. The cut differs on men and women as a function of fashion, suitability to body type, and some formal rules (e.g. wearing a family crest historically made it a different kimono subtype).
There was a period during the late 20th century where kimonos were only in fashion for women (men wore western styles except at weddings) but both historically and presently kimonos are for men and women. Random people on the street who say differently are probably just misinformed about a culture they don’t live in.
Tying it back to the phrase used… this cultural dissonance is why it’s generally difficult to import phrases/metaphors from foreign cultures: people simply misunderstand you.
If your mental image of a kimono wearer is a vulnerable Japanese woman, as it may be if you are an American that's still reverberating with echos of WW2 racism, then Ashley's disgust makes some sense.