Japan’s Age-Old Problem Despite Public Campaigns, Sex Harassment Has Intensified

Before Japan knew the term “sexual harassment,” Yuko Watanabe put up with her boss’ back-room maulings as part of the job. The Tokyo hotel executive would call Watanabe, then a 20-year-old information guide, to the VIP lounge, throw her on the couch, cover her with kisses and laugh as she struggled.

Three years later, in 1989, the nation’s first sexual harassment case hit the courts, sparking widespread media coverage that finally gave this age-old problem a name: “sekuhara.”

But despite the public campaigns the case prompted and the deluge of educational materials produced, experts say the problem appears to have intensified. Incidents range from men groping women on crowded commuter trains, to political bosses making journalists the target of sexual jokes, to company recruiters asking college students their bra size during interviews.

Masaomi Kaneko, a Tokyo city official, says little progress appears to have been made since he opened a hot line for female workers in 1989 - and was astounded at what he found.

“There was sexual harassment everywhere. There were also lots of office rapes,” he said. “I learned from these interviews that the people doing these things were not unusual men. They were normal men who loved their wives and children.”

The huge scope of the problem has only recently come to light. Studies show as many as three-fourths of women in Japan report having been sexually harassed.

Experts say Japan’s economic slump has made things worse by silencing women who fear for their jobs and emboldening men who exploit this vulnerability.

And law enforcement, courts and corporations prefer to cloak the problem in euphemisms, calling office rape “love in the workplace” and sexual harassment a “communication gap,” attorneys say. They add that legal standards to win a case under sexual harassment laws are hard to meet - and that society discourages lawsuits, anyway.

Most corporations dismiss the problem as insignificant. The Ministry of Labor has produced pamphlets to raise awareness about sexual harassment since 1992 but does not distribute them to companies.

Nude calendars have come off most office walls, and women say the publicity given to the issue has helped them realize harassment is not their fault. But, experts say, this has not led to a transformation in public attitudes or behavior in a society that has traditionally expected women to serve men and brighten the workplace as “office flowers.”

“For me there is no difference between an office and a nightclub,” says Toshinori Okubo, a securities company executive in Tokyo. “All Japanese companies prefer beauty rather than the capability of women. In interviews they ask, ‘How large are your breasts?’ “

A Shimane University study this year at four college campuses also showed the problem’s pervasiveness. It found that 89 percent of the respondents had been sexually harassed and more than one-third suffered ensuing mental problems.

What’s more, a survey by Osaka’s Independent Feminine Lifecycle Research Institute showed that about a third of Japanese women were victims of sexual abuse as children.

Despite the startling data, experts say few changes have been made because of powerful social taboos on the subject.

Rigid traditional gender roles leave women feeling socially isolated, deeply ashamed over sexual incidents and worried about being branded hysterical if they react emotionally to unwanted shoulder massages or nude figures on computer screen-savers.

Watanabe said she did not report her boss’s back-room fumblings to her father, a police officer, because she would rather die than discuss anything of a sexual nature with him.

Weak laws and what attorneys call a built-in bias in the legal system contribute to the problem. Although Japan now has a sexual harassment law, activists say the burden of proof is nearly impossible to meet.

“In sexual harassment cases, there is great emphasis on intention,” says Kaneko, the Tokyo city official who was so scandalized by the problem’s scope that he spent a year studying the issue in the United States. In Japan, he said, a man must state that his motive was sexual harassment to be found guilty under the new law.

Most cases that win instead use an obscure loophole in the civil code that entitles a woman to a comfortable working environment.

The first successful case in 1989, in which a woman won $13,000 for sexual slander by her boss and male colleagues, was filed under other civil codes.

The lenient legal climate encourages companies to treat the problem with laxity - if at all. Kyoei Mutual Fire and Marine Insurance Co. produces a video on sexual harassment required for all employees going overseas, but has no video for workers at home.

“Sexual harassment cases are not yet a financial liability in Japan,” said Taketoshi Kawano of Kyoei’s risk management and engineering department. “Sexual harassment victims here don’t have many rights, so cases aren’t likely to occur.”

Without legal incentives, few companies actively seek to change company behavior. Some argue that Japanese companies’ “soft” approach is more effective in a society that places supreme value on harmony. But it actually undermines the cause by depriving the problem of the gravity it deserves, and distracting public attention from weak and insufficient laws, says Alison Wetherfield, a legal scholar who spent a year comparing Japanese and American sexual harassment laws.

Experts say the current slump has aggravated the situation, because men prefer to hire men in hard times, and they know women will put up with more to secure scarce jobs.