Women, social change and realising political ideals - Religion and Politics in Contemporary Japan - page 153

of the noodle shops at SU campus, she re ected on the UNRC in relation to

the issue of gender.

It [UNRC] was established by Ikeda-Sensei, for the sake of students
learning about international problems, for the sake of learning to con-
tribute to humanity, that is for k - sen-rufu. We are currently studying
about discrimination against women. I really want to create an environ-
ment where both men and women can work equally. If we don ' t change

the awareness of both men and women, if we don ' t break the current

social system based on traditional values, we can t create a good and

equal society. It is not only a question of legislation; I want to achieve
actual equality within society, so that women don

'

t stand alone, and to
raise awareness for men not to do bad things [to women].

'

While Hiromi showed a stronger feminist awareness compared to some of the
other young women not in the UNRC, she also believed the prevalent
assumption in Japan that women have to be protected against men. This
belief was behind, for example, Komeito supporting night trains for women
only, or for their involvement with getting the anti-stalker legislation passed
in 2000. On the other hand, many women, including myself, who have
experienced being groped on a crowded train, may welcome women-only
trains as a more relaxed way of travelling home late at night (although the
groping I experienced was always during early-morning rush hour). Apart
from the immediate relief from drunken men on a late-night train, such leg-
islation had the potential to bring gender issues into the sphere of public
debate. Hiromi wanted to change sexist attitudes and believed that education
was essential to this. She also wished that she could

nd a way to take more

organised action. Her future dream was to find a job where she could work on

gender issues. When the previous Prime Minister Mori had made public
comments about the rape of a Waseda female student as being due to the way
she had dressed, Hiromi, like many others in Japan, had been outraged. The
UNRC members discussed Prime Minister Mori

s beliefs that women are only
born to give birth to children and should remain in the role of kanai (person
inside the house, i.e. housewife) as being sexist and anachronistic.
Hiromi campaigned for Komeito despite not being satis

'

ed with the party ' s

e orts to increase the number of female lawmakers. However, the gender

division in Soka Gakkai was closer to home.

I really want people to be judged according to their individual merits and
not according to their gender In Soka Gakkai, men have a strong

awareness of their role to protect women, which is natural perhaps. But if
you look beneath that view people are not looked at as equals or judged
according to just being human

…

Many people are just used to the way
things are and live without questioning [gender roles], because it has
always been like that. People are beginning to question [the structure of

…