Citations may be to the website as a whole, to a particular page (such as the lesson plan for teaching about intersectionality), or to a particular interview transcript (such as this transcript).

Introduction to the Japan Site
of the Global Feminisms Project

Mieko Yoshihama

For the Japan Site, we conducted two sets of interviews. Initially, during the fall of 2021, we interviewed three women who have been active in promoting gender justice and addressing gender-based violence in and after disasters. This initial focus reflected the interest of the Global Feminisms Project in addressing gender and disaster, expanding the range of issues and perspectives addressed by the project.

Disasters, natural or otherwise, are prevalent and have long-lasting impact on the human, natural, and built environments. In 2011, a total of 332 natural disasters took the lives of over 30,000 people around the globe; the Great East Japan Disaster on March 11, 2011 accounted for nearly two-thirds of the worldwide disaster mortality that year (Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters, 2012). Importantly, disasters exacerbate the pre-existing disparities and inequity. The Great East Japan Disaster of 2011—a cascade of massive earthquakes, colossal tsunamis, and devasting nuclear accidents—is a case in point.

Around the time of the Great East Japan Disaster, Japan ranked 98th of the 135 countries on the Gender Gap Index annually complied by the World Economic Forum. Japan’s core policy frameworks paid little attention to gender inequity in disaster. After the disaster, working women, a majority of whom held temporary, contractual, or otherwise tenuous positions, were more likely to lose their jobs and less likely to be rehired or find another job, compared to working men, according to publicly available governmental data. Gender-based violence also threatened women’s safety and well-being. Even though the National Police Agency issued a statement that no cases of rape or aggravated assault were reported as of April 1, 2011, a study conducted by a nongovernmental organization (NGO) documented various forms of violence and harassment against women after the disaster (Yoshihama et al., 2013a, 2013b, 2019).

Ms. Reiko Masai, the director of the Kobe Women’s Net, is regarded as a pioneer who, for the first time in Japan, called out the problem of gender-based violence in disasters. In her interview, drawing on her tireless advocacy efforts, she chronicles the ways in which gender-based violence in disasters gradually, despite much backlash and resistance, has become recognized as a policy-relevant social issue in Japan. It was a long and thorny road, which took nearly 25 years since Ms. Masai first spoke out about violence against women in the aftermath of the Great Hansin-Awaji Earthquake of 1995 (see Women’s Net Kobe, 1996/2007).

Ms. Teruko Karikome and Ms. Etsuko Yahata, direct an NGO in Fukushima Prefecture and Miyagi Prefecture, respectively, the areas that suffered devastating damage by the 2011 Great East Japan Disaster. Ms. Karikome reflects on how her understanding of feminism emerged over time. As the former Director of the Women’s Space Fukushima (formerly, Association Supporting Women’s Independence), she speaks about the multitudes of hardships experienced by women in Fukushima following the Great East Japan Disaster and the horrific nuclear accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. Ms. Yahata, the Director of an NPO Hearty Sendai, recounts the ways in which her personal and professional paths interactively have shaped her understanding of and commitment to feminism, which are embodied in her 30+ years of activism. Despite the damage to the office and personal residences caused by the disaster, members of Hearty Sendai not only quickly resumed their operations but also launched a new project to assist disaster-affected women and families in the hard-hit coastal areas of Miyagi Prefecture. Both of them detail their NGO’s tireless efforts, innovating, implementing, and sustaining programs to support women affected by the Great East Japan Disaster of 2011.

All interviews highlight the tenacity, creativity, and commitment of these three activists and countless other women who have been engaging in the ongoing collective struggles to address gender-based violence in disasters and gender discrimination more broadly. The interviews also illuminate the ways in which policies and system responses not only lack critical gender perspectives but also contribute to the vulnerability of women in and after disasters.

All three women also spoke on a panel discussion organized by the University of Michigan Center for Japanese Studies in March 2021 (https://ii.umich.edu/cjs/news-events/events.detail.html/79859-20509624.html). Both Ms. Karikome and Ms. Yahata are members of the PhotoVoice Project, a participatory action research effort to improve disaster policies and responses; they shared their selected photographs and voices (written messages) during the panel discussion (for additional photographs by them and other women, see photovoiceprojectjapan.zenfolio.com).

Subsequently, during the spring-summer of 2022, we conducted additional interviews with two individuals who have contributed greatly to the development of feminist jurisprudence (Yukiko Tsunoda, esq) and women’s and gender studies (Prof. Chizuko Ueno) in Japan.

In recalling how she chose a legal career when her pursuit of a teaching position was blocked by the gender-based discriminatory hiring process, Attorney Tsunoda, a leading feminist lawyer, chronicles how she gradually and deeply become involved in defending women whose crimes she saw were gendered. In representing women who have endured sexual harassment and sexual assault, Attorney Tsunoda has challenged the legal system and sought to promote feminist jurisprudence. As she describes some of the precedent-setting cases she worked on, Attorney Tsunoda discusses the accomplishments and limitations of fighting for gender justice within the current legal framework.

Professor Ueno, a leading feminist scholar, identifies her experience in both her family of origin and the student movements as factors that contributed to the development of her feminist consciousness and describes her encounter with women’s studies as an eye-opening experience, an affirmation of “making myself the subject of my research.” In discussing her work with Women’s Action Network (WAN), she locates its beginning within the socio-political-historical context—a turbulent period of rising conservative political regimes and widespread backlashes against feminists. In addition to horizontally linking various women’s organizations, Professor Ueno emphasizes her commitment to recording the rich and hard-fought legacies of “elder sisters” and passing them to next generations.

References

References

Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters. (2012). Annual disaster statistical review 2011. https://www.cred.be/index.php?q=node/1280
Women’s Net Kobe (Ed.) (1996/2007). Women talk about the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake. Women’s Net Kobe. https://wn-kobe.or.jp/bosai/eng/index.html
Yoshihama, M., Yunomae, T., Tsuge, A., Ikeda, K., & Masai, R. (2019). Violence against women and children following the 2011 Great East Japan Disaster: Making the invisible visible through research, Violence Against Women, 25(7), 862-881. doi: 10.1177/1077801218802642.
Yoshihama, M., Tsuge, A., Yunomae, T., Ikeda K., & Masai, R. (2013a, December). Saigai fukkoji niokeru josei to kodomo eno boryoku nikansuru chosa hokokusho [Report of a study of violence against women and children in and after disasters]. Women’s Network for the East Japan Disaster. http://oxfam.jp/gbvreport.pdf
Yoshihama, M., Tsuge, A., & Yunomae, T. with Ikeda K. & Masai, R. (2013b, February). Violence against women and children after the Great East Japan Disasters: Results from a case-finding survey. In Japan Women’s Watch (Ed.), Violence against Women and Girls in Japan (pp. 1-24). Japan Women’s Watch.

Resources

This timeline has been prepared by Oliver Smith and Uyen Huynh for the Global Feminisms Project during the 2021-2022 academic year.

Interviews

National Maps and Statistics

Spoken Name Pronunciation Audio

Overview of the Japan Site and Interviews

While the Japanese constitution proclaimed after WWII unequivocally claims gender equality, overt discrimination exists in many areas, let alone implicit and “subtle” forms of discrimination. Available socioeconomic indicators, such as the relative poverty rate of women and gender wage gap, point to the profound and persistent socioeconomic disadvantage of women in Japan. Prevalent gender-based violence, such as domestic violence and sexual harassment, not only compromise individual women’s wellbeing but also impede participation in labor force and political arena by women as a group.

In 2022, Japan ranked 116th of 146 countries on the Gender Gap Index, a composite score across four subindices—Economic Participation and Opportunity; Educational Attainment; Health and Survival; and Political Empowerment (World Economic Forum, 2022 https://www.weforum.org/reports/global-gender-gap-report-2022/). The Japan’s summary index score (.650) shows a decline of -.006 from the previous year, indicating a widening gender gap.

Notably, in a stark contrast to the 1st ranking on the Education Attainment Subindex, Japan ranks toward the bottom on the Political Empowerment Subindex (139th) in 2022. Since 1946 when women cast vote for the first time for the House of Representatives General Election, and 39 women were elected, progress in women’s political representation remains slim. In 2021, 45 women were elected to the House of Representative (occupying 9.7% of the seats), which places Japan 165th of the 190 countries on women’s parliamentary representation (Inter-Parliamentary Union, 2022). The ranking on the Economic Participation and Opportunity Subindex (121th) in 2022 is also dismally low.

The overall and subindex rankings illustrate the dire and persistent vulnerability and marginalization of women in contemporary Japan. Furthermore, a comparison between 2021 and 2022 also illuminates the disparate impact of the pandemic of Covid-19. The decline in the Economic Participation and Opportunity score from 0.604 in 2021 to 0.564 in 2022 is one of the worst changes for this indicator; this sharp decline reflects, among other factors, a larger drop in women’s workforce participation (-19.5 compared to that of men, -15.6) (World Economic Forum, 2022). The dismal 139th position on the Political Empowerment Subindex in 2022 reflects a significant decrease of women’s representation in legislative, senior, and managerial positions (by 9.8%), in contrast to the increase in men’s representation (by +2.6%). These are some of the many examples of how the pandemic has had disparate impact by gender, contributing to widening gender gap in Japan.

Procedures for Producing Final Interview Videos and Transcripts

The interviews at the Japanese site were conducted in Japanese by US-based Japanese-speaking interviewers (Hitomi Tonomura, Professor of History and Mieko Yoshihama, Professor of Social Work, both at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA). All interviews took place online using the Zoom platform. The interviews lasted for approximately 60-70 minutes. All interviews are presented unedited except for the following: 1) deletion of a brief segment at the request of the interviewee for reasons such as ensuring the anonymity of individuals mentioned; and 2) deletion of an opening remark in which an error was made by the interviewer, and thus it had to be re-taken.

The transcripts were reproduced in full except for omitting filler words (AKA pause fillers or hesitation forms) such as English equivalents of “um”, “uh”, “hmm”, “I mean”, and “you know”. The transcripts were subsequently translated into English. Utmost efforts were made to retain the original meaning to the fullest; however, during the captioning process, in an effort to fit the English translation to the limited screen space, summary translation was used on a few occasions.

The Japan country site interviews were completed with a generous project grant from the University of Michigan Humanities Collaboratory.

Introduction to the Japan Siteof the Global Feminisms Project

Resources

Overview of the Japan Site and Interviews

Procedures for Producing Final Interview Videos and Transcripts

Introduction to the Japan Site
of the Global Feminisms Project