Passage Four
Japan’s old imperial army never went into the field without a group of "comfort women" for the troops. Many male office workers in modern Japan (and in Japanese branches abroad) seem to think they are still at war. Women workers, even those with university degrees, are expected to do all the humble tasks: greet the visitors, make the tea, tidy up the office afterwards and then leave the firm as soon as they get married and have a child. Come party time, they are often pressed into behaving like bar hostesses.
The fort of Japanese male chauvinism—the old guard of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party—has unintentionally done more than most to change all that. The sex scandal that marked the brief prime ministership of Mr. Sosuke Uno last summer outraged many women, and helped the opposition to its success in the upper-house election in July. Mr. Uno is forgotten, but the resentment (怨恨) of women about their treatment at the hands of men lingers (逗留) on. Over the past few months Japanese women have started campaigning much more vigorously for laws to protect them from sexual bothering at work.
Japan’s first lawsuit claiming sexual bothering opened last week in a city court in Fukuoka. A 32-year-old woman, whose name has been kept from being known (another first), is seeking about $ 26 000 in damages from her former boss and the publishing company she worked for. She claims his sexual hints forced her to leave the company and give up her career. She stakes her claim on the ground, among others, that her rights under Article 14 of the Japanese Constitution were violated; this guarantees equal treatment for the sexes.
Women’s lobbying groups have been springing up all over Japan. The lead has been taken by lawyers at the Second Bar Association in Tokyo. Last month the association held a call-in for women to expose their grievances. Its telephone lines were jammed for six hours. By the end of the session, some 137 formal complaints had been registered. "Nearly 40% of them were from women who had been compelled to have sexual relations with their superiors at work," says Miss Shizuko Sugii, a lawyer with the bar association. Ten of the cases have since been classified as rape or attempted rape. |
What is Article 14 of the Japanese Constitution
A．Men should enjoy just treatment in Japan.
B．Women should enjoy just treatment in Japan.
C．Women’s rights should be guaranteed in Japan.
D．Both sexes should be treated equally in Japan.
