01. News: April 2004 Archives

Download The first issue of the CGS newsletter

The first issue of the CGS newsletter has been published on April 1. You can read abstracts of many articles in newsletter and full-texts on the webpage. First newsletter features the profiles about twenty CGS staff members who are interested in Gender Studies from various academic fields. There are also many articles about Japanese law, ordinance, trial and TV drama from the perspectives of Gender Studies.

We plan to publish newsletters biannually. Your comments and reactions will be welcome.

Tanaka, Kazuko : Director of the Center for Gender Studies [CGS NewsLetter 001]

The Center for Gender Studies (CGS) at International Christian University (ICU) opened in April 2004.

The CGS has three primary goals: (1) to facilitate a network of Asia-based researchers in the fields of women's studies, men's studies and gender studies, (2) to go beyond the mere absorption and translation of Western-based studies and to make Asia-based studies available worldwide, and (3) to develop a tri-fold genderstudies model that incorporates not only the social sciences and the humanities but also the natural sciences.

h031313: Nitta, Yuko [CGS NewsLetter 001]

"The local volunteer Mitaka citizen group is currently making a tentative plan of City Ordinance of Equality of Both Sexes. This ordinance aims to make a society where both men and women can equally demonstrate their individuality and it includes an Anti-Domestic Violence and an Anti-Sexual Violence Clause. In February, some students from ICU Gender Legal Study Group participated in the group's conference and discussed the tentative plan with other members.

s051470: Shimizu, Yudai [CGS NewsLetter 001]

Introduction
On the plenary session of Diet held on July 10, 2003, the ruling and opposition parties voted unanimously to pass the “Special Law on Gender Identity Disorder” that would allow people with gender identity disorder to change their officially registered gender in their family registries under certain conditions. This law will go to effect from July 16 of this year. In this article, the author will give a brief introduction on the enactment process and the content of the law, and point out the problems of it in order to clarify the relations between the GID patients and law as well as society.

ICU Student: KUBOTA, Hiroyuki [CGS NewsLetter 001]

To bridge the gap between Gender Studies and Legal Science, the First Annual Conference of Gender Legal Studies was held at Waseda University, Tokyo, on December 6th and 7th of 2003. A large number of judical practitioners, scholars and sociologists participated and discussed legal issues through gender perspectives. I saw the possibility of the newly emerged Gender Legal Studies.

s051470: Shimizu, Yudai, i052005: Kubota, Hiroyuki [CGS NewsLetter 001]

The lawsuit of Sumitomo Electric Industries Ltd., a widely watched women’s labor suite over the Equal Employment Opportunity Law, reached an out-of-court settlement in January 2004 with an overall victory of the plaintiffs. And it is considered a landmark for the women’s labor issue as far as the content of the settlement is concerned. In this lawsuit, two female employees of Sumitomo Electric Industries sue the firm, alleging it discriminated against women in terms of pay and promotion, as well as the government, who had turned down the mediation. They had demanded a compensation of some 160 million yen, including the salary difference between them and male employees who had worked at the firm for the same length of time.