ABSTRACT
This chapter recapitulates the main areas of social conflict on sexual abuse and gender harassment issues and the possibilities for positive social change. It reviews the efforts of extremist groups to express male hysterical subjectivity through control of women’s bodies and control over the narrative of wartime sexual violence. This conservative revisionism works to reinforce the silence of female victims of sexual abuse. The negation of historical crimes relating to wartime sexual violence is seen to have detrimental effects on those who support victims of sexual abuse in contemporary society. This is evident in relation to legal issues such as laws on rape and penalties for sexual harassment. Comprehensive reform is required in the area of education, whether with regard to the hiring of staff and choice of textbooks, to the disciplining of offenders and provision of sexual harassment programs on university campuses. Contributions from study participants paint a somber picture of social sites where training for sexual harassment prevention and response is meager, where young women feel unsafe in their social environment, and where victims of sexual abuse find scant institutional support from individuals in authority. In spite of these negative factors, there are also reasons for guarded optimism. The chapter’s final reflections point to signs of transformation through the influence of feminist ideals on Japanese society.
