Under pressure and voicing up: Japanese youth tackling gender issues

Journal article

During and since the #MeToo Movement in 2017, Japan, especially Tokyo, has experienced a surge in activity from grassroots groups like Voice Up Japan and Chabudai Gaeshi Joshi Action as well as student-driven sexual consent projects at universities such as Waseda. These groups work to tackle the issue of sexual violence on campuses and beyond. The category ‘gender issues' (or gendaa mondai) encompasses many conversations Japanese youth are having now, particularly regarding changing gender roles and expectations in home, work, and school spaces. This article will examine the current discourse around gender issues contextualised in precarious Japan to examine youth community building and meaning making assigned to spaces of both passive and active participation. I suggest that ‘voicing up' in Tokyo is defined not so much by ‘loud and proud' or ‘post-closet discourses' (Ueno 2022, Seidman 2002), but by local discourses adapted around trending terms and raising initial awareness. This article shows that smaller-scale community involvement, rather than styles of protest activism, is shaped by both institutional and individual narratives. The ‘passing on' of such narratives is essential for youth to enact ‘survivance' (Vizenor 2008) and find belonging in different groups. In addition to my fieldwork which begun in September 2022 and will end around September 2023, I will engage with existing literature on how precarity in Japan is usually discussed in terms of irregular work (Allison 2013), intimate disconnections (Alexy 2020), and queer narratives. I will use these sources in combination with the personal experiences of my interlocuters to unpack how youth ‘voice up' and become involved in groups focused on preventing sexual violence against women, LGBTQ awareness, and anti-discrimination.

Authors: Cherry, P

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Anthropological Society of Oxford
• Journal: Journal of the Anthropological Society of Oxford Online
• Volume: 15
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 194-217
• Publication date: 2023-12-19
• DOI: 10.5287/ora-n1b7njvp5
• ISSN: 2040-1876
• Language: English
• Keywords: youth; sexual consent; social movements; LGBTQ; grassroots activism; gender issues; JASO