01. Newsの最近のブログ記事

CGS will be closed from July 23rd to August 5th. We apologize for the inconvenience this causes.
Except those days, we are open through Monday to Friday, 11:00am to 5:00pm. Please visit us!

ICU graduate
【The article below is the same as the article that appears in the eighth issue of the CGS Newsletter.】

“You are pregnant. The expected date of delivery will be December 1st.”
Wow. Toiling through the new personnel training this spring, it had never occurred to me that this larger-than-life episode could happen to me. I was quick in deciding to go ahead with my pregnancy, but my decision was obviously not met with a warm reception at work. In my subsequent dealings with the company, I was brought face to face with the harsh reality of the Japanese working environment for women and witnessed firsthand the unenlightened views of the Japanese corporate world with regard to pregnancy and child rearing.

The Initial Working Group of The Japan Association for Queer Studies (JAQS)

Members of the initial working group towards the establishment of a queer studies association are pleased to announce the formation of The Japan Association for Queer Studies (JAQS), which will be inaugurated in the autumn of 2007. The association aims to provide a forum for dialogue and the interdisciplinary exchange of ideas, in part through an annual JAQS conference and the publication of an annual refereed journal. We welcome membership from not only academics of diverse backgrounds but also from all engaged in discussions of the body, sex, sexuality, gender, and desire. Please see the JAQS website for further details and updated information on membership and forthcoming events.

The Center for Gender Studies (CGS) will be closed from April 29th to May 7th,2006.
The reading group held every Monday (12:40-13:50) will take place as usual on May 1st at CGS.

The Centre for Gender Research (CGR), or in Malay, Pusat Penyelidikan Gender (PPG), is a research center under the administration of the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities at the Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. CGR was established on July 1, 2003. The mission of CGR is to become a center of excellence that seeks to enhance knowledge and expertise in the field of gender studies so that information gathered and the skills acquired through its activities will contribute to the improvement of the quality of life of the peoples of Malaysia and Southeast Asia.

In spring, the Center of Gender Studies at ICU will commemorate its second year and the first students of the Program in Gender and Sexuality Studies (PGSS) will graduate in March, with many more interested students in line to take their place. All this is due not only to the passion and energy of the many lecturers and professors but also to the high quality and motivation of about thirty dedicated student staff members who have voluntarily organized reading groups and enthusiastically communicated with people from other countries.There cannot be many other university research centers which depends so much on the energy of students.

“Gender free” has become a target term for bashing in political and educational fields in Japanese society. The term is a Japanese coined one for the idea of “setting oneself free of socially imposed gender structure”. The term attracted controversy in sex education discourse. In classroom activities, “gender free” is widely used, but the opposition group has raised the argument that education based on the discourse of “gender free” is too radical and destructive of traditional values. In 2005, senior political figures such as Ms Eriko Yamatani, LDP Upper House Member, and Mr Hosoda, the then chief Cabinet secretary and the Minister for gender equality made comments: Mr Hosoda stated that “the government does not use” nor “term its social significance” of “gender free” in the context of “reforming” the social implementation of gendered views, and the use of “gender free” is “undesirable in this context”. Interestingly, the limited nature of Mr Hosoda’s disapproval is ignored by the opposition group. This is the general context for the present pressure on the use of “gender free” and its retrospective influence on the argument surrounding the Basic Act for Gender Equality.

n recent years there have been many voices raised in opposition to gender-free education. In this paper I discuss some of my own concerns regarding the claims of gender-free education which have been criticized by the backlash groups.

The gender-free argument that certain traditional rites such as Girls Day and Boys Day impose standards of femininity and masculinity have conversely been criticized for introducing a new standard of "correctness." Although I agree with this criticism, I also think that there is a fundamental problem with the actual structure of the argument itself and the idea that arguments must begin with a "reason" or "rationale".

Firstly, if one must always begin with a rationale, does this lower the value of statements without a rationale? Secondly, beginning with a rationale can often shift or narrow the scope of the argument. If the persuasive power of the rationale is suspect, is it not only the rationale which loses effect but also statements which are made without a rationale? If so, will I be unable to speak out? Finally, can one stir people's hearts by simply lining up rationales?

ICU Graduate School : Naomi SUZUKI

Women from poverty-stricken countries are lured to Japan by promises of good jobs and brought into the country by traffickers who supply them with false passports. After detention by a criminal syndicate, the women are sold off to sex clubs or other sex-related businesses and called upon to pay back a debt for various expenses allegedly incurred, such as for transportation. The amount ranges on average from 3 to 5 million yen. Victims are not informed of how much of their so-called debt they have paid back and are trapped into forced sex labour, continually sold from one shop to another.

The question of ‘Loser Dogs’ has been hotly debated in Japan since Sakai Junko’s bestselling volume of essays “The Distant Howl of the Loser Dogs,” prompted the coining of the new term to refer to unmarried, childless women over thirty. Almost concurrently in neighbouring China, debate has centered around the question of ‘Winning Dogs’ - marital relationships and what it means to be a ‘wife’ – largely due to a television drama serial called “Chinese-style Divorce”.