WHEN a female reporter for TV Asahi told Shukan Shincho, a magazine, that Junichi Fukuda, the finance ministry’s top bureaucrat, had repeatedly sexually harassed her, the reaction was galling. Taro Aso, the finance minister, said he had no plans to investigate Mr Fukuda. When the reporter provided audio recordings as evidence, Mr Fukuda said he couldn’t be sure the voice was his. “I only hear my voice through my own body,” he explained. For its part, TV Asahi apologised for the fact the reporter had told her story to the magazine—failing to note that she had done so only after she had come to one of her own managers and he had advised her to keep quiet. (The company did eventually lodge a formal complaint with the ministry.)
The #MeToo movement has barely touched Japan. “This is a land of men,” says a (male) former official, who says there are “many, many” such cases. The imbalance between men...Continue reading
from Asia https://ift.tt/2I3GIoU
EmoticonEmoticon