Lesson 5 - Violence against women

Violence against women

WARNING - some of the information in this lesson may be upsetting to read

The United Nations defines violence against women as "any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life."

Violence against women includes two major categories, intimate partner violence and sexual violence. The World Health Organisation suggest that around 35% of women worldwide have been a victim of one of these kinds of violence at some point in their lives.

Intimate partner violence

This includes any behaviour by an intimate partner (i.e. boyfriend or husband) or ex-partner "that causes physical, sexual or psychological harm, including physical aggression, sexual coercion, psychological abuse and controlling behaviours."

In addition to physical violence, this can include non-physical harm such as controlling behaviour and bullying. Therefore the term domestic abuse may be more accurate than domestic violence.

The majority of violence against women is committed by intimate partners or ex-partners. Around 30% of women have suffered violence of this kind. 38% of all murders are a man killing his partner.

Sexual violence

This is "any sexual act, attempt to obtain a sexual act, or other act directed against a person’s sexuality using coercion, by any person regardless of their relationship to the victim, in any setting."

This definition goes beyond rape and groping to include any form of sexual coercion, for example a superior at work using his position to initiate a sexual encounter with a member of staff. In other words, if he tells her she will not be able to get a job or a promotion without sleeping with him.

Causes of violence against women

Although it is difficult to say exactly why one man is violent towards women, there are some clear patterns in the statistics.

Men are more likely to be violent towards women if:

• They have a low level of education (i.e. not graduated high school)
• They were abused as a child
• They saw domestic violence towards their mothers
• They have alcohol problems
• Their society has unequal gender norms (i.e. accepts violence towards women)
• They have a sense of entitlement over women (i.e. they think they have the right to treat women how they want)

Women are more likely to suffer violence from men if:

• They have a low level of education
• They were abused as a child
• They saw domestic violence towards their mothers
• They have attitudes accepting violence, male privilege or women being subordinate (i.e. "below" men in society 

These statistics lead to some ideas about how to reduce violence against women. The first is improving education. The second point is that coming from families that experienced violence against women leads to more violence in future. Therefore reducing violence in one generation can help prevent violence in future generations. Finally, the attitudes of society appear to influence the rates of violence against women. Change societal attitudes can be very difficult. However, they do change over time, and attitudes towards women are improving, if not as quickly as we would hope. However, it is important to realise that New Zealand was the first country to give women the right to vote in elections in 1893, only 125 years ago! Now the only country where women cannot vote is the Vatican.

n.b. this map lists Saudi Arabia as not allowing women the vote, but this changed in 2015.

Lesson 4 - Workplace discrimination

Workplace discrimination

Workplace discrimination is any kind of discrimination, treating people differently due to their gender, race, age etc., which happens in the workplace. It can also include things which do not necessarily happen at work but are related to employment. For example, refusing to hire someone based on gender or race, or sexual harassment which occurs between employees outside of the office are also forms of workplace discrimination.

Japanese law says it is illegal to discriminate based on the following criteria:

Nationality
Religious or political beliefs
Social status (including race)
Gender
Age
Child care
Disability
Union membership
Full or part-time employment

Discrimination can include different pay for the same work, preferential hiring or promotion. Although all of these forms of discrimination are illegal, it is often very difficult to know if a company is breaking the law or not.

Gender pay gap

Although most countries make equal pay for equal work a legal requirement, in every country around the world, women earn less money than men. How is this possible if it is breaking the law? Just because there is a gender pay gap, this does not necessarily mean any laws are being broken. The gender pay gap describes the average money that men and women earn in their lives. If a woman stops working to have children, or chooses a lower-paying job or part-time work, this will increase the gender pay gap. The gender pay gap is a very contentious issue. Some people argue that such factors mean there is no real gender pay gap, but this is a fairly extreme view. Others may argue that the existence of a wage gap shows we still live in a male dominated society. Like most things which cause such arguments the truth is complicated. Women working fewer hours in their lives does account for some of the wage gap, but not all of it. Women choosing jobs which pay less is also a factor, but this raises the question, should people be paid less for these jobs?

Hiring practices

It is also illegal in most countries to discriminate when hiring new employees. However, how can the government be sure if this is happening? If a company chooses to hire a man over a woman, how is it possible to prove that the man was not just better in the interview? Another issue here is that much discrimination happens unconsciously. The people who are discriminating do not realise they are discriminating! One study in the US found that a resume with a name that sounded white was more likely to be chosen than a resume with a name that sounded black. However, this does not mean that the companies were consciously choosing white people over black people. It is possible that they made this decision unconsciously. Some studies have shown that interviewers unconsciously make a decision in the first 30 seconds of an interview, and then reinterpret what interviewees say to fit their decision.

The "glass ceiling"

The "glass ceiling" is a phrase to describe the fact that women find it harder than men to get promoted at work. Like the gender pay gap the glass ceiling can be a controversial issue, with some arguing it doesn't exist, because some women do become company presidents and political leaders. However, many more men than women reach these top jobs. For this reason it has been suggested that a labyrinth or maze is a better metaphor. Even though it is possible for women to reach the top, it is harder than for men.

Harassment

Harassment is also a type of discrimination. The most commonly known form of harassment is sexual harassment, which can include unwanted advances, physical contact or language. Other kinds of harassment which are common in Japan are power harassment, a manager bullying their staff, and more recently maternity harassment, towards pregnant women and recent mothers. Like other forms of discrimination it can be difficult to define when behaviour becomes harassment. Behaviour that some people find upsetting may be considered a joke by others.

Lesson 5 articles

Article 5a - The dubious cost of sexual assault in Japan
Article 5b - #MeToo movement confuses media in JapanJournalist in alleged rape case calls for change in Criminal Law
Article 5c - #MeToo, say victims of sexual harassment in Japan
Article 5d - Violence against women
Article 5e - '#MeToo' campaign spreads in Japan, but some sexual violence victims face backlash
Article 5f - Saying #MeToo in Japan

Lesson 3 - Media representations of gender

The Media

One social institution which has a large effect on the socialization of gender is the media. The media is the social institution which gives information to the members of a society. Print media includes newspapers, books and magazines, while TV, cinema, radio and the internet are called digital media. Three important parts of the media for socialization are news, stories and advertising.

News

Although the news tell us about true events which have happened, objective facts, it also gives information about how a society feels about these events, subjective opinions. When we see a story about a man being arrested for stealing, we also see that our society considers stealing to be a bad thing. In this way the media promotes social norms.

Because some of the information in the news is subjective, it is possible for different people in the media to have different opinions about a news story. In general the bosses of news companies will hire and promote people who have similar opinions to themselves, and so companies tend to have a set of values held by most of the employees. When these values affect the way companies tell the news this is called media bias. To see examples of this, look at any policy in the news and how differently it is reported in the Asahi and Yomiuri newspapers. The Asahi has a left-wing bias and the Yomiuri has a right-wing bias. In reality, all people, and therefore all news companies, have some kind of bias. When we read or watch the news it is important to understand that this bias can affect how the news is presented to us.

News can influence gender norms in very subtle ways. For example, if a report says that someone is a "woman doctor", it suggests that a woman being a doctor is in some way unusual or not normal. It is very unlikely that a news report would talk about a "man doctor" in the same way. News can also influence norms by the choice of adjectives used for men and women. Women in the news are more often described by their physical appearance than men, which reinforces the idea that a woman's value is more based on how she looks than what she does.

Stories

We watch, read and hear many stories through books, radio, TV and cinema. Novels, movies and TV
dramas are all stories which can reinforce social norms. For example, there are many TV shows and anime series which show mothers as housewives and fathers going to work. Many stories show women as being victims who need rescuing by the male hero. It is very unusual to see a movie where a woman or girl is a strong leading character, although some movies like Pixar's Brave have opposed this trend recently.

An American cartoonist called Alison Bechdel created a test, called the Bechdel test to show gender inequality in stories. A story passes the test if two female characters have a conversation that is not about a main character. Only about half of movies pass the test, and in those that do often the conversation is about marriage or children. These trends in movies and TV reinforce the idea that it is men who do things and achieve things, while women's job is to be either mothers or a romantic prize to be won by the male hero when he completes his task.

Advertising

Advertising can influence gender norms in many ways. By showing boys or girls playing with a toy the company selling the toy is telling society which toys are normal for boys and girls to play with. This can in turn affect what boys and girls think are normal jobs for themselves in the future. For example, if a toy tool set is for boys, this tells children that a job which uses these tools like a carpenter is a man's job. If a toy oven is for girls, it tell children that cooking is a woman's job.

However, advertising can have much deeper affects than this. The most successful adverts don't just tell potential customers "buy this product because it's good", they say "you need this product for your life to be complete", "if you buy this product your life will be great" or (more often) "if you don't have this product you are a failure!" In this way advertising can influence societies' ideas of what means success and failure for men and women. In general it seems that for men success is seen as having a good career and making lots of money, whereas for women it is being attractive to men and having children. These differences can be seen in these two adverts from TBC.

The idea of pink is for girls, blue is for boys was originally an advertising strategy. If both boys and girls can wear the same clothes, parents don't mind giving their younger son the clothes their older daughter wore when she was younger, but if pink is a girl's color that boys don't wear, parents will have to buy new clothes for the younger boy, giving more money to the clothes companies who ran the adverts.

Lesson 4 articles

Article 4a - Workplace bullying widespread at fire departments, survey shows
Article 4b - Rising 'power harassment' scourge now affects 33% of workforce_ survey
Article 4c - Japanese women suffer widespread 'maternity harassment' at work
Article 4d - Still a struggle for working women
Article 4e - Sex harassment in the workplace
Article 4f - Japan to define workplace LGBT discrimination as sexual harassment