Abriael said:
Lol, ain't you condescending?
Just to make a few examples, how he described Japan as a patriarcal society that never changed, and it's political class as elderly.
That's a grossly outdated stereotype, as there has been a strong movement in the Japanese government to include younger politicians and women into the seats of power.
Mind you, since we're talking about rape, the Minister of Justice is a woman, and she's not the only one in the cabinet. Also, several members of the cabinets are in their fourties and early fifties, which, for a politician that reached the seat of a minister is definitely young.
So yeah, looks like the "expert" might have to look into updating his information.
Sorry for condescension, but it really struck me as hypocritical that you're complaining about CNN misrepresenting Japan while you're doing essentially the same thing with Koreans.
Anyway, you're right that recently Japan has had more women representatives holding positions of power, but that doesn't make the expert's statement a "grossly outdated stereotype". Japan still still has very few women representatives when compared to other industrialized nations (http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20090129f2.html), and in a 2010 study it still ranked only 95 out of 136 in terms of female parliamentary representation (http://www.ipu.org/wmn-e/classif.htm#2). You may have a point about the average age of politicians (I couldn't find any statistics, so for the sake of argument we'll just assume you are right), but we're mainly talking about sexuality and gender politics here, and Japan is definitely still a patriarchal society.
Now, let's look at some of the other statements made in the article that you conveniently overlooked:
"There are whole sets of non-issues that are not raised for political debate in Japan, so they don't filter into the consciousness of most Japanese people"
Yup, this is pretty much true. There are things here that are never brought up for debate because culturally they are a "non-issue".
"Japan has ways of expressing sexuality that are practically indecipherable to a Western sensibility but that are so normalized in Japan that the Japanese don't often understand or acknowledge the critiques that are made against them,"
Again, true.
"What provokes people about Japan is the cultural distance which inclines people to see Japan as exceptionally lurid or perverse simply because it expresses sexuality in ways outside of Western norms. Japan is in some ways not that different than other cultures, including the United States, which has its own gender problems that are quite apparent."
Yup, true. Might I add that this is also basically the same argument Nogami made in his letter. That's why I don't really understand why Nogami is complaining about the expert -- they essentially hold the same opinion.
In the end, I can understand people's outrage at the way CNN covered this issue, but the expert in the above article is still no where near as "biased" as people here claim he is. People should really read the original sources before jumping on the Nogami bandwagon. I saw far more stereotypes and mis-representations in his letter than I did in the expert's quotes.
