From February 7th, 2018, the website from International Christian University's Center for Gender Studies (CGS) has moved to this very website.
http://subsite.icu.ac.jp/cgs/en/
You can still check CGS's previous website "CGS Online" and its content before August, 2015 here: http://web.icu.ac.jp/cgs_e/
We will close from December 23 (Sat.) to January 8(Mon.).
The following days CGS will be temporarily opened for ICU Festival.
Oct. 21(Sat), Oct 22(Sun).
We are now accepting papers for the 13th volume of the Journal of the Center for Gender Studies, Gender and Sexuality (to be published in March 2018).
We are accepting contributions for the Research Section (research papers and research notes) and also for the Fieldwork Section (field reports).
Deadline for submissions: August 31, 2017 (postmarked).
Researchers, activists and anyone, irrespective of rank, is eligible to submit a paper, so come and send your manuscripts!
You can download the Gender and Sexuality Journal Regulations for Vol.13 here.
For additional information please contact CGS.
The Journal of the Center for Gender Studies, ICU Gender and Sexuality is an international academic journal published for the first time in 2005, founded on the wish to become a central "place" to the generation and transmission of fresh knowledge with regards to gender and sexuality. This journal also aims to serve as a bridge between scholars and activists, theory and practice, and advance cooperation between both sides.
Besides distributing the journal among academic institutions in Japan, this journal may be also downloaded from the CGS online website: http://web.icu.ac.jp/cgs_e/journal.html (Here you can also download past volumes).
The journal articles are also registered in databases administered by the National Institute of Informatics and the Japanese Institutional Repositories Online (JAIRO). This is a free and open-access journal.
The summer recess of the center for gender studies is as follows.
July 24 (Mon.) - August 14 (Mon). in 2017
The following days will temporarily open for the open campus.
July 15(Sat.), Aug 5(Sat.), Aug 12(Sat.).
CGS (Center for Gender Studies, ICU) would like to express strong oppositions to a series of remarks given by Toru Hashimoto, a co-representative of Japan Reformation Party and the Mayor of the City of Osaka, on "comfort women (sex slaves)" during World War II and sex industry in Okinawa since May 13, 2013, as well as to other remarks by his political colleagues supporting him. We regard these remarks are the insults to the dignity of all human beings, especially of women in neighboring Asian countries and Okinawa.
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 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.
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".
When I was in junior high school, I heard the story of a girl called Rosario on TV. She was one of the so-called `street children,` abandoned by her parents and by society, a drug-addict spending the nights on a heap of garbage. She lived in Olongapo, one of the cities in the Philippines with a thriving sex industry. She worked as a prostitute to survive and had continually been subjected to violations by sex tourists. She died after suffering for three months with a vibrator stuck inside her body. Her case certainly revealed the sordid side of the sex industry. This one incident triggered my interest in issues concerning the commercial and sexual exploitation of children. It is a very complex problem, involving political, economic, social and cultural factors. My senior thesis traces the development of the "Sex and Travel Industries" in Asia and suggests possible solutions to the situation. As this is a problem which I would like to devote the rest of my life to, I did not think that I should leave my research hanging as a mere armchair theory. Thus, after submitting my thesis, I travelled to Thailand and the Philippines for three weeks to have a look at the real state of affairs.
On March 28, 2004, the Osaka District Court ordered Sumitomo Metal Industries Ltd. to pay roughly 63 million yen in compensation to four female employees. The women claimed they had been subjected to sexual discrimination in wages and promotions. In a series of sexual discrimination suits brought against the three companies of the Sumitomo Group, this is the first time that a court has ruled in favor of the female plaintiffs. However, Sumitomo Metal Industries has remained firm in their decision to lodge an appeal, and do not appear to show any signs of expressing an intention to reform their internal personnel management. This is an issue which reflects the dark side of certain Japanese corporations and demands urgent reform.
ICU Graduate School : Hirano, Ryo
In 2004, the Japanese Diet enacted a judicial reform law for a jury system to come into effect by the year 2009. Paving the way for public participation in the judicial process is a significant breakthrough for the realization of democratic ideals. However, there are still a number of unresolved problems with the jury system itself, one of which is the lack of a gender perspective. Legal gender research has called attention to the 'masculinity of the law'. The framework and the practice of law is based on male ideology and there is insufficient implementation of human rights policies for women or sexual minorities. Thus, a jury system must be gender equal and care must be taken not to allow the influence of gender bias in trials. Our group has actively pushed for the government to formulate legislation to address these issues. Although the legislation was not established, we have succeeded in increasing awareness and instigating debate regarding gender issues in a number of meetings of the Lower House Committee on Judicial Affairs.
Senshu Univ. Graduate School : Tamura, Naoko
ICU Center for Gender Studies marks its first anniversary this April, having grown to a large membership with twenty faculty members and thirty students involved. Our center space has also grown to be functional place for students and members to get together. Our activities for the last year have been various. We organized many lectures and casual lunchtime meetings with splendid lecturers invited from inside and outside the university. Our first international workshop was held 25-27 November 2004 on Human Security and Gender in Asia, and saw lively and reciprocal discussions by researchers and activists from 10 Asian countries. Though, the definition of security may differ according to one's cultural and historical background, we agreed upon the mutual understanding that women's security have been overshadowed by the concept of national security and its emphasis on military power. We are glad that we have created an intimate network among gender researchers regardless of language and nationality. This experience will prove valuable for CGS. In June 2005, CGS is going to attend the women's conference, WW05, in Seoul, and to host a panel discussion on the possibility of cooperation between academia and activists.