Voices from the Contemporary Japanese Feminist Movement

141 Pages·2022·6.656 MB·English

by  Emma Dalton, Caroline Norma

PALGRAVE MACMILLAN STUDIES ON
HUMAN RIGHTS IN ASIA
SERIES EDITOR: MIKYOUNG KIM
Voices from the
Contemporary Japanese
Feminist Movement
Emma Dalton · Caroline Norma
Palgrave Macmillan Studies on Human Rights in Asia
Series Editor
Mikyoung Kim, Hiroshima, Japan
This Palgrave Macmillan book series addresses the rising interest in human
rights topics in Asia. It focuses on the largely underexplored territory
of Asian human rights topics highlighting its empirical manifestations,
historical trajectory and theoretical implications. It also goes beyond
the problematic dichotomy between “East” and “West” by engaging
in rigorous case-specific as well as cross-regional comparisons within
South–South context. China’s rise in world politics and its emergence
as a massive donor, for example, has significant yet troubling implica-
tions. The member countries of ASEAN and Northeast Asia, on the
other hand, would have different preoccupations and priorities calling for
context-sensitive diagnosis and prognosis to promote human right causes.
The series is multidisciplinary in nature and open to submissions
focusing on international organization, ethics, criminology, develop-
ment, freedom of expression, labour rights, environment, human/sex
trafficking, democratization, governance studies, disability, reproductive
rights, LGBT, post-/colonial as well as post-/authoritarian critiques and
social movement, among others.
The series publishes full-length monographs, and edited volumes.
·
Emma Dalton Caroline Norma
Voices from
the Contemporary
Japanese Feminist
Movement
Emma Dalton Caroline Norma
Department of Languages School of Global, Urban
and Cultures and Social Studies
La Trobe University RMIT University
Melbourne, VIC, Australia Melbourne, VIC, Australia
ISSN 2752-4310 ISSN 2752-4329 (electronic)
Palgrave Macmillan Studies on Human Rights in Asia
ISBN 978-981-19-2227-5 ISBN 978-981-19-2228-2 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-2228-2
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022
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Acknowledgements
Although Emma Dalton and Caroline Norma appear as the authors of
this book, Voices from the Contemporary Japanese Feminist Movement was
completed only thanks to the generosity of its contributors. The project
would not have been possible without the feminist activists featured in
this book—Kitahara Minori, Yamamoto Jun, Nito¯ Yumeno, Tsunoda
Yukiko, Mitsui Mariko, and Yang Ching-Ja. We especially thank the
managing director of the feminist publisher etc. books (https://etcbooks.
co.jp/), Matsuo Akiko, for her kind permission to translate and include
in Chapter 2 the essay published by etc. books in 2019 titled Konbini
kara onna no ero hon ga nakunatta hi. We also thank its author, Kitahara
Minori, for this same kind permission.
Emma would like to thank the members of the Alliance of Femi-
nist Representatives for their longstanding support of and help with all
her research endeavours over the last decade and a half. Representatives
Aizu Motoko, Katayama Kaoru, and Hinata Misako, to name a few, have
extended their kindness and generosity to offer insights into their organi-
sation’s activities, motivations, and values. Emma is equally grateful to the
director of the Fusae Ichikawa Center for Women and Governance, Kubo
Kimiko, whose welcoming and informative conversations over cups of tea
in Tokyo have provided endless inspiration. The accumulated knowledge
held by, and feminist analyses espoused by the women in these groups
underpins almost every chapter in this book.
v
vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Caroline would like to thank the members and staff of the Anti-
Pornography and Prostitution Research Group (APP), People Against
Pornography and Sexual Violence (PAPS), and No!Self-ID Japan.
While writing this book, both Emma and Caroline worked in the
School of Global, Urban and Social Studies at RMIT University in
Melbourne, Australia. We are fortunate to have enjoyed the support
of our colleagues in the Languages and Translating&Interpreting team,
particularly during the time of writing when we were physically separated
from each other and our colleagues due to various mobility restrictions
in the pandemic. Thanks also must go to Hiroko Levy and Emiko Kurata
for their help at various stages of the writing and editing process.
We are thankful to the RMIT College Human Ethics Advisory
Network, which assessed our project to ensure it upholds ethical integrity
and is consistent with the guidelines contained in the Australian National
Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research and Australian Code
for the Responsible Conduct of Research.
Finally, Voices from the Contemporary Japanese Feminist Movement ulti-
mately came together thanks to the excellent work of the team at Palgrave
Macmillan. Our thanks go to Commissioning Editor, Vishal Daryanomel,
who believed in this as a viably interesting project, to Mikyoung Kim, the
editor of the Palgrave Macmillan Studies on Human Rights in Asia series,
who was similarly enthusiastic about our proposal, and to project coordi-
nators, Aishwarya Balachandar and Aurelia Heumader for bringing it all
together.
Japanese-Language Transliteration
Conventions Followed in This Book
Japanese names are written with surnames appearing first, unless the indi-
vidual is being referred to in respect of an English-language publication
in which their authorial surname is placed last. Japanese organisational
names are transliterated in italics, followed by their English-language
translations in brackets. When an organisation has a recognised English-
language name, we indicate it in the brackets using first-initial capitals
for all major words. When no such name exists, we present the trans-
lation in the brackets with a first-initial capital only for the first word.
Extended vowels are indicated with macrons except for words that are
directly quoted without any original diacritic markings, or when the word
is well known to English-language readers.
Contents
1 Introduction: The Modest but Urgent Voices
of Contemporary Japanese Feminism 1
2 Kitahara Minori: At the Heart of Japan’s Feminist
Movement of the #MeToo Era 15
3 Yamamoto Jun: Survivor-Activist for the Sexually
Abused 27
4 Nito¯ Yumeno: Collaborating for the Rights of Teenage
Girls 39
5 Tsunoda Yukiko: Feminist Activist Lawyer 53
6 Mitsui Mariko: A Feminist Leading Feminists 69
7 Yang Ching-Ja: Seeds of Hope 85
8 Japan’s Feminist Movement Within the Global
Sisterhood 109
References 121
Index 129
vii
About the Authors
Dalton Emma first studied in Japan in 1995 as an exchange student at
a girls’ high school in Kobe. She returned to Japan in 1997 as a univer-
sity exchange student at Kochi University. After obtaining her Ph.D. in
Japanese studies from the University of Wollongong, she was a visiting
professor at Nagoya City University in 2012 and a lecturer at Kanda
University of International Studies for 2 years after that. She has also
held research positions at Rikkyo University and Sophia University. She
now lectures in Japanese studies at La Trobe University. She researches
women’s involvement in Japanese electoral politics. Her 2021 publica-
tion, Sexual Harassment in Japanese Politics, draws on interviews with
women politicians to show the sexist conditions in which women at
all levels of politics work, and the repercussions of these conditions on
women’s rights and democracy in Japan.
Norma Caroline first studied in Japan in 1997, and afterwards was a
student or researcher at Yamaguchi, Hiroshima, and Doshisha universi-
ties. She first met Emma Dalton as a Master of Japanese Interpreting and
Translation student at the University of Queensland in 2002. Since 2010,
Caroline has lectured in the Master of Translating and Interpreting degree
at RMIT University in the Languages and Translating&Interpreting team.
Her research focuses on the ‘comfort women’ Japanese military sexual
slavery scheme of World War II, and she collaborates with Morita Seiya
in research critical of Japan’s contemporary sex industry.
ix
CHAPTER 1
Introduction: The Modest but Urgent
Voices of Contemporary Japanese Feminism
Abstract This chapter introduces the feminist activists whose testimonies
form the basis of the main 6 chapters of the book. It suggests these
testimonies overall show Japan’s contemporary feminist movement to be
modest and limited, but this characterisation refers to its current influ-
ence and reach rather than its future potential. The chapter notes a raft
of English-language books already addressing Japan’s feminist movement,
but not exclusively from the point of view of the activists involved, nor
necessarily those involved in the contemporary movement. Insufficient
attention and support given this movement by the English-speaking femi-
nist world is lamented, and action by the global feminist movement to
rally around local Japanese activists is urged, to support their efforts to
stem further decline in the social position of women and girls in Japan,
which the chapter describes. While the chapter notes a range of problems
these women and girls currently face, it nonetheless suggests the global
feminist movement is pivoting towards East Asia.
Keywords Contemporary Japanese feminist movement · #MeToo ·
#WeToo · Feminist activist · South Korean feminism · COVID-19
pandemic · Ito¯ Shiori · Political alienation among Japanese women ·
Global feminism · East Asia
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1
Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022
E. Dalton and C. Norma, Voices from the Contemporary Japanese Feminist
Movement, Palgrave Macmillan Studies on Human Rights in Asia,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-2228-2_1