Domestic Violence in Japan in a context of Gender and Development

UP684686 University of Portsmouth

Domestic Violence within wider gender inequality in Japan, in a context of Gender and Development

Introduction:

Mcllwaine and Datta (2003) call for a refining of approaches to development which focuses on the

engendering of development. However, is the prevalence of gendered violence an antagonist to this

approach? Despite there being many barriers to hurdle in achieving equality-based development in

what is commonly known in feminist literature as a monolithic patriarchal-capitalist society

(Kandiyoti, 1988., Mohanty, 1988, 2003), global policy and initiatives have been enacted to tackle

the human rights issue of violence against women, which affects 35% of women globally (WHO,

2016). Examples of gender violence policy are such of the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence

against Women (UN, 1993) which was preceded by the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of

Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) (UN, 1979). These enactments are faulted by their enormity

and can often be signed by governments due to necessary compulsion, rather than the intended

overruling discursive. Furthermore, policy recommendations on violence against women on such a

large global scale are difficult to monitor and adhere to strictly, due to the unique drivers of gender

discrimination between countries.

Japanese Domestic Violence Background, a cultural problem?

The discrimination of women in Japan is subsequently unique due to the strong traditional values

that have acted as patrimony to the male soldiers of patriarchal-capitalist-state Japan (Roberson and

Suzuki, 2005). This report will focus on Japan as a context and example of domestic violence. As of

2014, Japan were ranked 17th by the UN Development Programme (Human Development Index) of

187 countries. It can be unreservedly referred to as a developed country, with large corporations like

Mitsubishi and Sony basing their operations in Tokyo. Contrastingly, Japan is ranked 104 th of 142

countries in regard to Gender Equality (WEF retrieved from Kyodo, 2014). For a country with such a

high development index, how can it be so lacking in regards to gender equality? A short history of

development in Japan outlines the post-war explosion of development, and the exponential growth

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of managerial roles filled by the ‘salaryman’ (Roberson and Suzuki, 2005). This salaryman was

birthed from a new capitalist regime in Japan, and instilled male ideologies including being a

household-head and breadwinner figure. Marshall (1967) outlines, however, the existence of similar

values instilled by Japanese capitalism and business in prewar Japan. The result of post-war

capitalism was an army of taxpaying Japanese men contributing to the economy, characterised by

hard work, male-comradery, and all forms of the social, except those that included the family

(Fujimura-Fanselow and Kameda, 1995). However, it also included strong traditional values such as a

modern adaptation of the bushido code (an ancient Japanese code which is strict to honour and

loyalty) (Gilmore, 1990); themes that Chant and Gutmann (2002) refer to as dangerous male

ideologies. This male ideology, produced by the now-corporate capitalist state, fuelled what Elsen

(1995) refers to as a male bias. Where men were contributing to the growing economy, women were

hampered to have no notion of what they want and to fulfil gender endowments that were least

valuable in the market, such as intra-household work. Women were restricted to the home.

It was only after murders by family members; 1996 father beats son to death in Tokyo (Pulvers,

2012), that the media turned its attention onto the previously unexplored domain of domestic

violence in Japanese homes. Rice (2001) describes domestic violence in Japan as ‘a husband’s

prerogative’. Exposure of the domestic violence that had been occurring in Japanese homes for

decades had finally come. The case of hidden abuse in Japan is characterised best by Sen’s (1987)

notation on inequality, “It can be a serious error to take the absence of protests and questioning of

inequality as evidence of the absence of that inequality” (p.3). Culturally defined ideals and

ideologies determine what behaviour is ‘appropriate’ for men and women (Reeves and Baden,

2000), and domestic violence had been observed as normal by the Japanese people.

Statistics:

The National Police Agency surveys note that 1/3 of all Japanese women have experienced

domestic abuse by an intimate partner.

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Half of these women reported to have never spoken about the incidents previously.

1/3 of these women blamed themselves.

(Pulvers, 2012)

1/7 of Japanese women needed medical treatment after experiencing physical domestic

abuse in 1999 alone.

Osaka prefecture (Japan is comprised of 47 prefectures) reported that 2/3 of all women

reported having experienced domestic abuse.

1/3 of Japanese women murdered each year were murdered by their partner.

(Rice, 2001)

10% of women experienced domestic abuse on more than one occasion.

80% of women previously abused return to the same partner.

99% of 60,000 (2007) people refuging in shelters for domestic abuse were women.

(The Gender Equality Bureau retrieved from Tabin, 2012)

Why does domestic violence occur and what is the effect on intra-household gender inequalities?

In a study by Nguyen et al (2013) in which under-graduate students from three different countries

(Japan, China and the United States) were questioned on their views of violence towards an intimate

partner, Japanese students predominantly excused the use of domestic violence. Their reasoning

was based on the hypothetical partner’s non-compliance with their gender roles/expectations.

Yamawaki et al (2009) also found in their study on perceptions of domestic violence that Japanese

people had a greater adherence to traditional values that degraded and derived women, and that

domestic abuse was sometimes necessary if gender values/roles were not condoned to.

Visvanathan et al (2011) urge how the continuation of domestic violence perpetuates the balance of

power between genders and how a change of gender roles and relations within the household are

key to changing power dynamics. Clear and accepted reasons for men acting violently towards their

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intimate partner are sparse, but there are prevailing themes within the literature. Karakoc et al

(2015) note in their study on depressed women in Turkey and the link to domestic violence that

patients’ experiences consistently relate to themes of arranged marriage, male alcohol abuse and

exposure to violence as a child. Furthermore, Archer (1994) outlines how childhood aggression,

when not addressed strictly can develop into male adult violence. He also notes how influential

culture is; the historical, cross-cultural male ‘warrior’ role links to values of masculinity and

dominance that are related to actions of violence. This role draws close similarities to the Japanese

‘bushido’ code (Gilmore, 1990), referred to earlier. Many studies address the theory of poor impulse

control in men, leading to physical abuse of their intimate partner; Rossby (2002) notes in his study

on biological/psychological reasons for violence that men with low serotonin, high alcoholism and

hypoglycaemia are more likely to have no impulse control, making them more likely to act violently.

However, Schechter (1982) argues that psychological and sociological ‘reasons’ for men beating

women, such as impulse control, reducing egos, deprived childhoods and failure to express feelings

are escalated in post-abuse by men in an attempt to regain the balance of spousal control.

Furthermore, she produces alternatives such as stress forcing business men to regain the ‘control’

that work takes away from them by acting violently towards their partner. Just as Schechter (1982)

outlines the perpetrators of this type of violence as being businessmen in the US, the same logic can

be referred to when assessing reasons for domestic violence in Japan, especially throughout the 20 th

century. Schechter’s book was published in 1982 during the acceleration of women’s rights

movements in the US, therefore the aggressive and angry stance towards domestic violence against

women is prevalent throughout.

Karakoc et al (2015) also focus, in their study, on the female economic dependence on men, the lack

of escape from abuse due to this, and the subsequent continuation of physical domestic violence.

Abe (2012) notes that, in Japan, the relative poverty rate of single-mother households is 60%. United

Nations (2000) state in their book on women in the world, “studies generally show that separated,

divorced or widowed women heads are more likely to be economically disadvantaged than woman

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who are still married” (p.43). The lack of positive alternatives (Kandiyoti, 1988) for women leads to

the necessity of intra-household bargaining and acceptance of the unequal order (Sen, 1987). Sen

also discusses the position of women within the home, arguing how their conscious perception of

how much progress they can make has the greatest impact on their position domestically. Agarwal

(1994) disagrees with this, stating that women are merely immobilised by external constraints, and

that given more bargaining power, they would seize greater status within the home.

Nayak et al (2003) note that physical domestic violence against a woman can reduce their

reproductive years by 5%. Fischbach and Herbert (1998) highlight the effect domestic violence can

have on mental health, sexual health and general wellbeing and how surrounding culture often has

the most prolific influence on the effect. According to figures by ‘countrymeters’, as of 2016, females

occupy 51% of the Japanese population. This is mostly due to elderly women essentially outliving

elderly men (ages +64), however, the statistics do show how equally distributed gender population is

in Japan. Women currently (2015) occupy 38% of the workforce in Japan. Therefore, the limiting of

women to intra-household roles, informal sectors and unpaid work such as caring and volunteering

work greatly limits the rate of economic growth Japan can acquire. Momsen (2010) highlights how

women’s roles in productivity become progressively less central and important during capitalist

industrialisation in developing countries; therefore the current conditions can be attributed to post-

war capitalism in Japan.

Violence against women can have many faces and even more outcomes, exist among multiple

geographical-spatial-scales and are often characterised by the conditions of countries. As Dunkle et

al (2004) note, violence against women has serious health effects, such as increased HIV spread in

South Africa. This is an example of a country’s characteristics acting as a platform for negative

impacts on women. Violence against women in Japan has the potential to spread to the cyber; this is

due to its prevalence in the urban landscape of Japan. Marganski and Melander (2015) find in their

study that cyber-aggression from an intimate partner is the only statistically and robustly significant

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form of intimate partner violence than predicts real-life intimate partner violence, in other words,

cyber-violence acts as a gateway to other intimate partner abuses. This is due to the ease-of-access

perpetrators have online, and the lack of repercussions against them, thereby cyber-connections act

as a platform for aggression and cyber-bullying. Ando and Sakamoto (2008) outline the prevalence of

undergraduates in Tokyo and Kyoto that use the internet to make cyber-friends, especially those

with low self-esteem. This further attracts the use of the cyber as a platform for abuse within new

generations. Laws under cyber-aggression are recommended to be stricter and more pronounced,

without being too intrusive to individuals; the implementation of help schemes for individuals who

believe they are being abused by an intimate partner online is advised.

Chant and Gutmann (2002) call for a rearranging of male ideologies that are currently driven by

themes of honour, income and dominance. There is monumental support in feminist literature for

the diminishing of gender roles and allocating of power and resources to women, thereby increasing

empowerment of women and expanding the possibilities of employment, social space and general

wellbeing. However, the diminishing of gender roles may have adverse impacts on men. Chant and

Gutmann (2002) note that in some South American and Caribbean countries, the increased support

for women, only, to succeed has resulted in the marginalisation of younger men. They also note a

detachment of men from the household due to the declining view of them as ‘breadwinners’.

Foreman (1999) notes the importance of women achieving their full strength without relegating men

to insignificance. Welsh (2007) notes the impact of changing gender approaches in Nicaragua,

leaving men without their previous responsibilities; the reaction of these men was not to embrace

the empowerment of women, but to neglect change and struggle to comprehend their loss, all due

to ideas of traditional masculinity. These are the faults of top-down policy change which will be

analysed later. Policy recommendations would be to focus on social policy that changes men’s views

on women and women’s views on men, to acknowledge gender difference but not to operate under

traditional guidelines of gender expectations and values. These unwritten guidelines that

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encourage/do not prohibit gender violence dominate third world countries, and also, with Japan as

reference, the most developed countries in the world.

Policy enacted by the Japanese state to tackle Gender Inequality and the impacts on employment

and development:

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan (2005) outline the key policies enacted by the Japanese

government in the last two decades that work towards gender equity. The ‘Basic Law for a Gender-

Equal Society’ was enacted in 1999, which was followed by the ‘Initiative on Gender and

Development’; main priorities of these initiatives consisted of the participation of women in

education, health, the economy and the social. Furthermore, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs also

stated (2005) that Japan’s Official Development Assistance policy (ODA) would seek to promote

themes of gender mainstreaming in the following years, explicitly including the prevention of all

violence against women. Gender mainstreaming is defined by Reeves and Baden (2000) as “an

organisational strategy to bring a gender perspective to all aspects of an institutions policy and

activities, through building gender capacity and accountability” (p.2). Furthermore, a vital policy

initiated by the Japanese government was the Equal Employment Opportunities Law or EEOL (1986,

amended in 1997 and 2013), of which they have stated has made excellent progress in attaining

equal rights in the workplace. After what was described as a ‘policy window’, Diet-based women’s

groups, bureaucrats and NGOs, the Beijing conference on women’s rights and the Japanese

Domestic Violence and Research Group pressured the implementation of domestic violence policy in

Japan; the ‘Law for Prevention of Spousal Violence and the Protection of Victims’ was enacted in

2001.

Japan has few relief groups (all of which existed before the law on domestic violence prevention was

implemented); examples of these are the Japan Women’s Shelter Network (JWSN), Ikuno Gakuen

and Hyogo Prefectural Women and Family Consulting Centre. The Japanese government has not

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sustained these schemes with financial support, and the majority of shelters reported to be

struggling to maintain without financial support (Gelb, 2003). This provides an angle with which to

assess the government’s tenacity in preventing domestic violence, or lack of. Domestic violence

issues stem from culturally accepted ideals and values, therefore these shelters are short-term fixes

and not solutions to gender inequality.

The AmpoJapan-Asia Quarterly Review (2015) notes that 38% of the workforce in Japan is accounted

for by women. Furthermore, including part-time work, women’s salaries make up 49% of what men

earn for the same job. Ono and Zavodny (2005) outline in their research on gender differences in ICT

skills in the US and Japan that Japanese women have substantially less ICT skills than men,

subsequently leading them to be less employable in the massively growing IT sector of Japan. This

may not intentionally dislocate women from high-paying jobs but it does so nonetheless. It is the

kind of degradation of women which sustains values that encourage domestic violence within the

home; lower contributions to the household economy reduce the status women can achieve

domestically, also reducing their extent of entitlement to intra-household resources (Visvanathan et

al, 2011., Elsen, 1995).

Where the Ampo-Japan Asia Quarterly Review criticises the lack of progress made towards gender-

equal conditions ‘on the ground’, as such, Gelb (2003) highlights how international systems and

regulations can be used to implement local changes by individuals. She notes how international

treaties and conferences do listen to individuals and can be made aware of conditions that do not

meet criteria. For example, ‘Working Women in the Shosha Trading Companies’ have filed many

reports complaining about the government’s opinion that the EEOL has improved working spaces for

women, and these are used as evidence at annual meetings on the Commission on the Status of

Women (CSW), organised by the UN (Gelb, 2003). There are many examples of gender-based groups

filing counter-reports to the Japanese government’s Gender equality CEDAW reports, and these are

taken into account by the UN; they have stated that they are concerned about the extent of gender

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equality in Japan. The domestic violence prevention law can be critiqued as specifying only illegal

physical abuse against a spouse of whom the individual must be married or living with, and permits

protection of the victim for six months, not including psychological or emotional abuse. It does not

take a stance on violence against women in Japan.

Policy recommendations:

Cornwall et al (2007) argue that top-down approaches to gender mainstreaming adhere to political

and bureaucratic commitments, but struggle to ignite or maintain gender empowerment velocities.

They argue that empowerment is now seen as the throwing of money and/or information at gender-

focused initiatives. This ignores the “complex process of self-realisation, self-actualisation and

mobilisation to demand change” (p.7) that empowerment requires. They advise changes to social

policy in an approach to stimulate new gender values, of which do not encourage domestic violence.

Elsen (1995) provides further discussion, noting that improving rights and policy for women does not

necessarily improve their capability of using the rights for personal interest/development. Moser

(1993) emphasises the integration of gender-benefits into new institutions projects; including the

creation of jobs, skills, improved markets and resources that benefit women and other vulnerable

groups. The empowerment of women in Japan is key to improving their employability, reducing

economic dependence on their partner and allowing for alternative options if they become victims

of abuse.

Kandiyoti (1988) outlines the role of patriarchal bargains in the home, describing the necessity for

women to be able to manoeuvre within the social blueprints of gender allocation and expectations,

allowing for some personal movement within the home. Pearce and Jackson (1998) examine

households as sites of reproduction for gender identities and inequalities; they comment on the

power of NGO assistance programmes, and their potential for training women to articulate an

alternative agenda which allows them to bargain for greater entitlement to resources within the

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household. Assistance schemes that Pearce and Jackson (1998) noted would provide greater

progress to preventing domestic violence, through the empowerment of women, improving of

employability and thus allowing for personal progress and alternative options to violent partners.

The National Police Agency provide statistics showing the increased number of domestic violence-

related cases/arrests (fig 1); providing evidence of positive impacts from the domestic violence

prevention law.

Japan within Global Gender and Development:

McIlwaine and Datta (2003) outline the hemispheric divide between attitudes towards gender and

development. Mohanty (1988) critiques western feminism and its attitude towards gender

inequalities in third world countries, claiming they depict women as a homogenous group and use

only neo-classical feminist discourse to advise policy change. She argues how approaches to

feminism in less developed countries should operate differently to approaches in western countries,

preferring organisations such as Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN), who

use bottom-up schemes to nurture empowerment of poverty-stricken women. Empowerment in this

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Figure 2: No. of charged cases of partner induced injury and assault.Figure 1: No. of charged cases of partner induced injury and assault.


structure focuses on equality in agency (Kabeer, 2005), increasing political seats for women and

schemes that prioritise increasing women’s skills and range. Japan may also have been

misinterpreted, like third world women were by previous feminist discourse; Japan’s developed

economy creates perceptions of the absence of pronounced humanitarian issues, reducing

international concern within policy. But there are still prevalent themes of gender inequality,

outlined by the persistence of domestic violence against women in Japan (Pulvers, 2012., Rice,

2001., Tabin, 2012., Gelb, 2003), attitudes towards women’s positions within the home in Japan

(Yamawaki et al, 2009) and the ineffective progress by Japanese policy (Ampo-Japan Asia Quarterly

Review, 2015). Gender mainstreaming is an important sector of international policy and of ethical

priority to the UN (1979), therefore to meet the needs of current development definitions women

must be of equal importance in a country’s development. Japan arguably struggle to fit within this

definition.

In conclusion, when consulting Heise’s (1998) ecological model on violence against women, Japan

fits within the four levels of social ecology that result in violence against women. The macro system

is defined by rigid gender roles, acceptance of interpersonal violence and male dominance as

discussed throughout this report exists in Japan. Japan’s exosystem nurtures the isolation of women

to the home and supports the unemployment of women. Its microsystem is rich with factors

including male familial dominance and control over the household economy, due to lack of

employability for women. Finally, the personal-history social level can be presumed to be flooded

with factors like previously experienced violence within the home and absence of fatherhood figures

for men; as discussed, domestic violence has been considered the norm for families in recent

decades in Japan, and male heads often spent much time away from the family as soldiers of

capitalism throughout the 20th Century.

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Word Count: 3,298

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http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs239/en/