Sexual Harassment in Japanese Politics, 1st ed. 2021 Palgrave Macmillan Studies on Human Rights in Asia Series

Sexual harassment in Japanese politics examines a problem that violates women?s human rights and prevents a flourishing democracy. Japan fares badly in international gender equality indices, especially for female political representation. The scarcity of women in politics reflects the status of women and also exacerbates it. Based on interviews with female politicians around the country from all levels of government, this book sheds light on the sexist and sometimes dangerous environments in Japanese legislative assemblies. These environments reflect and recreate broader sexual inequalities in Japanese society and are a hothouse for sexual harassment. Like many places around the world, workplace sexual harassment laws and regulations in Japan often fail to protect women from being harassed. Even more, in the ?workplace? of the legislative council, such regulations are typically absent. This book discusses what this means for women in politics in the context of a broader culture whereby victims of sexual violence are largely silenced. 

Introduction: Context and organization of book.- Chapter One: Everything being unequal: Gender and Japanese Politics.- Chapter Two: Sexual harassment as legal and cultural categories.- Chapter Three: Sexual harassment in local level politics.- Chapter Four:  Sexual harassment in national level politics.- Chapter Five:  The women speaking out.- Conclusion.

Emma Dalton is a Japanese lecturer in the School of Global, Urban and Social Studies at RMIT University.