Table Of ContentPALGRAVE MACMILLAN STUDIES ON
HUMAN RIGHTS IN ASIA
SERIES EDITOR: MIKYOUNG KIM
Sexual Harassment in
Japanese Politics
Emma Dalton
Palgrave Macmillan Studies on Human Rights in Asia
Series Editor
Mikyoung Kim, Hiroshima, Japan
ThisPalgraveMacmillanbookseriesaddressestherisinginterestinhuman
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
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The series is multidisciplinary in nature and open to submissions
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trafficking, democratization, governance studies, disability, reproductive
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The series publishes full-length monographs, and edited volumes.
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Emma Dalton
Sexual Harassment
in Japanese Politics
Emma Dalton
School of Global
Urban and Social Studies
RMIT University
Melbourne, VIC, Australia
Palgrave Macmillan Studies on Human Rights in Asia
ISBN 978-981-16-3794-0 ISBN 978-981-16-3795-7 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-3795-7
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Acknowledgements
A lot of people contributed to this book, and I apologise for forget-
ting anyone. I am first and foremost enormously indebted to the women
whosevoicesandstoriesrunthroughoutthisbook.MostofthemIinter-
viewed in late 2019 and early 2020. They are very busy and committed
women,dedicatedtotheircommunities.Theydidnothavetotalktome,
but they took the time and effort to open their hearts to me and for that
Iamsincerelygrateful.Someevenopeneduptheirhomestome,fedme,
drove me around, and went out of their way to find other interviewees.
Itisthankstothekindnessandgenerosityofthesewomenthatthisbook
was written. It is also for them that it was written.
I was very fortunate to receive a 2019 Japan Foundation Fellowship,
which generously allowed me to spend six months in Japan collecting
data,withoutwhichIwouldhavebeenunabletogatherinformationrich
enoughoradequateforthisproject.Ithankfromthebottomofmyheart
Elicia O’Reilly in Sydney for her kind support at the time of application
and to Shion Fujita in Tokyo, for her patience and kindness in Tokyo.
During my fellowship, Mari Miura sponsored me at Sophia University,
where I was able to use the excellent resources and facilities to begin this
project. It was thanks to Mari’s patronage that I found my researcher’s
feet in Tokyo. I deeply appreciate being welcomed into the academic
community by Mari.
v
vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This research is influenced and motivated by the activism carried out
by various women’s groups in Japan. The Alliance of Feminist Repre-
sentatives is an extraordinary group of women that does remarkable
campaigning work for women in society generally and for the improve-
ment of the political world for women politicians more specifically. The
grouphasbeenunfailinglykindinwelcomingmeeversinceIpersistedon
beinganinterloperintheirmeetingsandorganiseddemonstrationswhen
I was a Ph.D. student in Tokyo in 2007 and 2008. For this book project
too, the organisation has been patient and generous. Members of this
organisationareanunceasingsourceofinspirationandhopetome.Ialso
continue to be inspired by Kimiko Kubo, director of the Ichikawa Fusae
Center for Women and Governance. I am indebted to her intelligence,
doggedness and knowledge, which she shares readily.
I wrote this book while I was lecturing in my current place of
employment, RMIT University. My colleagues in Languages have been
supportive, warm and friendly—all wonderful qualities, especially helpful
during 2020, when many of us were stuck inside our homes, and when
most of this book was written.
ColleaguesoutsideRMITtoohaveguidedmeindirectionstowhichI
did not realise I needed to go, but which have been entirely correct and
wise.MayumiShinozakifromtheNationalLibraryofAustraliahelpedme
uncover a wealth of information that made me understand this project
was possible and worth pursuing. I will be forever grateful to Mayu-
mi’s intelligence, humility and wisdom. I am immensely thankful also to
KaoriOkano,whohasmotivatedandencouragedmeateverystepofthis
project’s journey and my own journey as well.
I owe further gratitude to Palgrave Macmillan editors Vishal
Daryanomel, Anushangi Weerakoon and Shreenidhi Natarajan, who have
shown great interest in this project and who have been brilliant to work
with from start to finish.
Finally,Iextendthewarmestofthankstothepeoplewhoreadvarious
drafts of the manuscript, or helped in other much-needed ways: Robyn
Matthews, Hiroko Levy, Emiko Kurata, Koji Yoshida, Ryota Nishino,
Laura Dales, Caroline Norma, Alexis Bergantz, James Brady, Catherine
Weiss, Zarique Akanda and Kara Jenkinson. I am so lucky to have them
as my friends and colleagues.
Contents
1 Introduction 1
2 Sekuhara: Framing Violence Against Women in Politics
in Japan 23
3 Coerced Silence 45
4 The Extent of Violence Against and Harassment
of Women in Politics 81
5 Managing Sexual Harassment 109
6 Institutional Responses to Sexual Harassment 125
7 ‘Harassment Paradise’: Tales from Rural Local Councils 161
8 Conclusion 197
Appendix 211
Bibliography 215
Index 235
vii
CHAPTER 1
Introduction
AizuMotokoisoneofthreewomenonthe29-membercouncilofNarita
City in Chiba prefecture east of Tokyo. In 2014 she started complaining
about the council’s practice of inviting ‘companions’ to their annual
reception. A ‘companion’ is a woman who is hired as an entertainer to
pour drinks and engage in light-hearted conversation at corporate or
other work-related receptions. Aizu drew from gender equality norms
to lodge this complaint and to attempt to persuade her colleagues to
cease the practice: hiring a companion or even expecting a woman to
pour men drinks, she argued, went against the pursuit of ‘gender equal-
ity’ (danjo ky¯od¯o sankaku)1—something Narita City Council (and the
Japanese central government)—had pledged to do. Year after year she
continued her campaign urging her colleagues to stop this sexist prac-
tice. In 2019 a frustrated Aizu blogged about this issue asking in bold
font ‘Why do you need women in short skirts to pour your drinks?’
‘Shouldn’tyoupouryourowndrinks?’,and,‘Therearenoothercouncils
in Chiba prefecture doing this. Why does Narita do this?’2 She listed the
typicalresponsesshehadreceivedfromhermalecolleaguestoherformal
complaints: ‘We can’t talk leisurely if we have to pour our own drinks’
‘A companion is a great job!’ and, ‘Do you want to rob them of their
employment?’ (Aizu 2019). The blog post contained another grievance
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1
Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021
E. Dalton, Sexual Harassment in Japanese Politics,
Palgrave Macmillan Studies on Human Rights in Asia,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-3795-7_1
2 E. DALTON
Aizu had with the council: the ban it had recently applied on taking re-
usablewaterbottlesintomeetingsonthebasisthatitruinedtheuniform
appearanceofthemeetings.Thissheargueddemonstratedadisregardfor
environmental conservation.
The blog entry went viral and made domestic news headlines. The
news reports tended to focus however on the issue of the water bottles.
InDecember2019forexampletheMainichiShimbun (Nakamura2019)
reportedthatthecouncilhadreverseditsbanonre-usablewaterbottlesas
aresultofcriticismitreceivedfromothercouncillorsandmembersofthe
general public after Aizu’s blog publication. The ‘companion’ section of
theblogwasnotmentioned.Itappearedthattheemploymentofwomen
in short skirts to pour drinks for male politicians was an issue less worthy
ofraisedeyebrowsthanwaterbottles.Thisbookwhichisanexamination
ofwomen’sdegradedstatusinJapanesepoliticsthroughsexismandsexual
harassmentwill demonstrate why this would be the case
A Gender Equality Laggard
Aizu’s struggle played out against the backdrop of the ongoing unequal
status of women in Japan across most sectors of society. Women born
today in Japan should face a bright future, given the status of Japan as
a democratic and advanced nation where women and men have equal
rights. Indeed, compared to their forebears, women’s lives are brighter
in many ways. Women are highly educated (they are, however, slightly
less likely to graduate from university than men), are employed at high
rates relative to the rest of the world and report higher levels of happi-
ness than men (Steel 2019: 6). The former two indices of women’s
status—education attainment and employment rates—have seen conspic-
uousimprovementoverthelasttwodecades.Whileeducationattainment
levels of men and women have not quite converged in Japanas they have
in most other countries (in fact, women are increasingly more educated
than men in many countries today), there has been a distinct increase
in the education attainment of women. In 2020, 50% of girls went to
university,comparedto56%ofboys.Thisisaconsiderableincreaseinthe
proportion of women seeking higher education and a noticeable shrink
in the gender gap since the mid-1990s, when around 25% of women and
40% of men entered university (Gender Equality Bureau, Cabinet Office
2020a). Women’s entrance into the paid workforce has changed signifi-
cantly in Japan. Japan’s overall female labour force participation rate (of
