1. How are Sexual Minorities Affected by Japanese Society?
The problem that I was interested in the most when I joined this seminar was equality for the sexual minority. That was because I thought in your seminar I could solve what made LGBTQ people live uncomfortably.
The moment when I got to think of it as the problem in my inside was when working a part-time job two months ago. I worked as an engineer in our office with some co-workers. One day the newer came to my office. “She” was German, much taller than me and had a skirt.
On the second day since she came she introduced herself with a low voice. The voices suggested that she might be a man from the viewpoint of biologic meaning. If she had been a man it would have been the first time when I met LGBTQ people. Her desk was next to me, so I met her every day, greeted her and got a low voice response. We talked about the problems that occur while working. I often talked to her because she had a good skill for working and I am a beginner for it. Every time when I had questions that I couldn’t solve by myself I asked her to solve them and she mostly easily solved them. However, I couldn’t ask her only one question: “ Are you a man or a woman? “. I was always worried about the question, especially about the necessity rather than the answer from her. I assumed I had gotten the answer, but and then? If she had not been a woman biologically she was a co-worker and a good adviser of me. Furthermore, if I had gotten the answer I would have felt good because I had solved just one question but for her, it might be enough big problem to work uncomfortably from that moment. I tried to stop thinking about how to ask the question. However, every time I saw she come to our office wearing lady clothes and middle-high heels, the thought showed up and stuck in my head. I considered where the question comes from, but I couldn’t get concrete clues for solving it.
I left the job because I would go to Thailand for sightseeing.
Actually, I worked for making some money to travel to Thailand. The reason why I selected the country was that prices are cheap enough for students like me to stay for a long time, a nearby country from Japan and recommendations from my co-worker. I traveled throughout the country for two weeks and it was the first time to travel abroad and do alone. One day I ordered some food in a restaurant for a beautiful waitress lady. “She,” said “OK, just a minute” in response to my order with a low voice.
I felt the exact same thought with one while I first met my co-worker, in other words, I was wondered if she is a man or a woman. I used to be unpolite and lack of thinking, there was a difference of language and nationality between us, so I asked unconsciously her the question when she came back to serve the dishes. She answered “Yes, I’m a ladyboy.” with her smile. It surprised me that she didn’t hesitate to answer with some confidence because I had thought the question could have hurt the answer and had been hard to answer like one that needs a while time to say that. Since then I realized they were everywhere in the country, in a kitchen, in the reception of a hostel and in a street. I hadn’t run into the situation since I was born in Japan and never seen them in Japan though I lived in Japan for about 20 years. I wanted to know the reason why there are a lot of ladyboys in the country. I thought first it was due to the religion because I knew some religions made sanctions on them. However, as everyone knows, Thailand is Buddhism country as same as Japan. So, I started to research the history of Thailand because I thought I might get clues for solving it. I haven’t yet reached the answer for it, but I’m in researching.
I had an unusual feeling when I met the lady who might be a man biologically. I think that is because it is hard to find them in our society Japan and so she looked something special for me. In Thailand, there seemed to be lots of LGBTQ people but in Japan, there are few, why? My hypothesis is that they are everywhere in the world potentially but something in their country makes them live uncomfortably. I want to know what it is so I chose the seminar.
2. How are Sexual Minorities Affected by the Law in Japan?
Why I’ve researched about the equality of transgender people
I went to Thailand and stayed for two weeks. I was surprised that there were a lot of transgender people in the country.
I had an unusual feeling when I met the lady who might be a man biologically. I think that is because it is hard to find them in our society Japan and so she looked something special for me. In Thailand, there seemed to be lots of LGBTQ people but in Japan, there are few, why? My hypothesis is that they are everywhere in the world potentially but something in their country makes them live uncomfortably. I want to know what it is so I chose the seminar.
Conditions that are too difficult for transgender people to overcome
According to the Hiroyuki Taniguchi, a professor at Kanagawa University pointed out how the law makes it difficult for transgender people to change their gender legally in Japan's 2003 Gender Identity Disorder Act: The Sex Reassignment Surgery, No Marriage, and No Child Requirements as Perpetuations of Gender Norms in Japan. The law related to transgender who wants to change their gender legally is "Act on Special Cases in Handling Gender Status for Persons with Gender Identity Disorder" from the ministry of justice. He pointed out three problems in the law.
A. Transgender people need reassignment sex with surgery to change their gender legally.
The surgery needs high cost and could cause them identities corruption because there are transgender people who don't want to change their bodies corresponding to the gender of their mind.
B. Transgender people must be single to change their gender legally.
This means that if they got married already before they try to change their gender they have to get a divorce. Furthermore, because the current family law doesn't allow marriage between the couple who have the same gender on a family register, they can't get married to a partner they love.
C. Transgender people need no children to change their gender legally.
This means although that is too extream speculation, that they need the death of their child. The government said they build the rule for the identity of their child because children got confused one day when their parents change their gender to the opposite sex. However Mr, Hiroyuki criticized that they don't change their gender one day suddenly and the government should leave the problem of children's mind corruption to their family. The situations around their children could get worse if they had their parent who wishes they could be the opposite sex and imitate to be the gender they don't actually.
Is the third issue of the article (sex reassignment surgery) constitutional?
On 2/9/2018 a transgender person took his action to sue the issue has the potential to violate the freedom of human beings. About a year after on 13/1/2019 the decision was made.
Judgment: 合憲
Content: All judgments agree "It couldn't be said that this condition currently violates constitution article 13, 14."
Reasons:
1. A relationship between parents and children might be caused when their child are born before sex reassignment surgery.
2. Society could go chaos otherwise.
3. It prevents the change of sex suddenly.
Supplement:
But a judge, who is Onimaru, adds more information.
裁判官鬼丸かおる
「本件規定の目的，当該自由の内容・ 性質，その制約の態様・程度等の諸事情を総合的に較量すると，本件規定は，現時 点では，憲法１３条に違反するとまではいえないものの，その疑いが生じているこ とは否定できない。」
理由
・体はそのままで性別を変えたいという人の自由を制約している
・社会の変化に伴い特例法の見直しの必要性が高まってきた。（特例法施行から14年、７０００人の取扱い）
・国際協調（WHOの反対、欧州人権裁判所の欧州人権条約違憲）
The need for education
I’ve understood that there is a difficult situation in Japanese society for now for transgender people to overcome through this research. Although as the judge said above the thought about it is changing to suit transgender people, the understanding of Japanese society for transgender people is lack. I thought, in order to make our society familiar with transgender people, we need education.
3. How are women affected by the work environment in Japan?
Problems for working women in Japan?
I'm sometimes wandered how women workers modify their careers to persist their careers after giving to their children. I want you to just imagine a certain couple who hope to have their child, and one day the wife, fortunately, gets pregnant. That must be a memorial moment in their entire life before and from that time. This seems to be an entirely happy life without any unsatisfaction at all, but in fact, they have several problems: they both are working and the wife wants to continue to work even after giving birth to their child. The bigger the wife's stomach is with the vibration of life, the bigger her worry about what her career will be like after giving to their birth is: will I be able to return to their previous same office?, will the blank span on her workplace affect her career?, and will I get the same wage after that? and so on. Women have physical constraints to give birth to their children, compared with men. Men can continue to work as long as they want even while the bigger their child is. On the other hand, women in most cases have to leave their workplace to prepare the birth and raise them right after giving birth.
I think the physical boundary of women might cause an unfair on the job worker career between sexes. I can say it is unfair if the circumstances exist around women job worker change after giving birth at the points like wages, status, and reputation from their boss.
So I chose this topic and researched to confirm whether the unfair exists or not.
Can women take maternity leave?
Women, of course, men too, are people protected by the law rather than workers under a specific company. So, if the Japanese law protects the right to take maternity leave, women can execute the right without any regulation by the company they work in, and Japanese law does protect the right of the worker. The law for maternity leave is named as "Act on Childcare Leave, Caregiver Leave, and Other Measures for the Welfare of Workers Caring for Children or Other Family Members" on Chapter 2 Childcare Leave, Article 5-10 within labor section 育児休業、介護休業等育児又は家族介護を行う労働者の福祉に関する法律/Japanese law translation . Points of articles related to maternity leave are below;
Maternity law summary is:
Full-time Employees can take maternity leave for a year at least.
Temporary-job worker has to continue to work for a year to take it.
Employer endeavor to specify information related to the worker who will or did take maternity leave.
The information mentioned in the last one above includes:
Treatment for a worker during childcare
Working conditions after the Childcare Leave ex. Wages and assignments.
What is specified by the Ministry of Labor, Health and Welfare?
The first one is the very right of the worker to take maternity leave freely without any constraints from a company they work in. The second one is interpreted as support for the employers by stopping their workers from overusing the right to take maternity leave because the purpose of hiring temporary job workers could be to give their easy jobs or to make up the jobs until they can afford to hire full-time job worker. The last one represents what the employer 'endeavor' to specify like on a company regulation. 'endeavor ' is called "Duty to Strive" according to the lawyer Hidenori Asano and it has the almost same meaning as 'make an effort'. He said that is why employers aren't taken sanction on by grounds of law if they are against it.
The information employer endeavor to specify includes if divided into two big categories, aftercare for workers who take maternity leave and the regulation by the Ministry. The last one, a regulation by Ministry, is interpreted as the one Japanese government intends to put under their control to conduct any regulation afterward but for now, nothing has been conducted. I want you to notice the kind of the first category information, that is it includes what workers will have concerned about when they hope to contribute to their company: treatment during childcare, wages, and assignments.
The Japanese law system around maternity leave is said to ensure that full-time job worker can take maternity leave freely without any constrains by their company although temporary job worker has to satisfy the requirement that they have to continue to work for a year at least to take it.
How extent do working mothers take maternity leave?
The number of women accounts for the temporary workers' rate the most and has increased. According to 総務省統計局, at 2018 the ratio of regular jobs worker and temporary job worker is 6:4 in both sexes. The number of regular job worker keep the same level for a decade, but on the other hand, the number of part-time job worker has risen up by 20%. We’ll see these by gender and can find out the rate of increase in temporary job workers of both sexes overwhelm the rate in fulltime job workers for a decade, especially the rate of women has risen up by 1500 million more.
Women have an intention to work temporary jobs. According to the statics (R-c) conducted by “Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications” (内閣府男女共同参画局, 1997), the third biggest reason why women choose temporary jobs are to support their family including their children. They are 2.47 million people and have increased by 190,000 and the rate is 17.6%. Compared with men’s one which is 70,000 and only 1.1% to the whole, we can realize how extent supporting family makes women select a temporary job for a living.
More and more women quit their job after giving to their first child. 総務省統計局 in 2010 researched what choice on their career women worker select after giving to their first child. From 2005 to 2009 the rate of women who chose to quit their jobs after giving birth accounted for 43% to the whole and the rate had risen up by 6% for two decades. On the other hand, the rate of women who chose to continue to work after giving birth accounted for 26% and the rate had risen up just by 2%. Although the law around maternity leave got in enforce in 1992, the usage of maternity leave by women has stayed at a low level since the enforcement.
We can find out temporary job worker use maternity leave less than full-time worker when we changed the way to look at the data used above conducted by 総務省統計局. The rate of women full-time workers who continued to work after giving birth to their first child had risen up by 30% since two decades ago. On the other hand, the rate of temporary job workers had declined rather by 16%.
4. How are children affected by the environment around them in education?
My experience OR My experience of the effects of the educational environment
The reason why I chose it as a topic is related to my experience in high school. I started working soon after graduating from high school. My decision to starting working was strongly affected by other factors except for myself. Teachers told us that you studied technical things so that you could be a better worker who have professional skills. More than 80% of all students started working like me. I didn’t come up with going on a university partly because I was surrounded by an environment were going on the university was a minority. Through this experience, I thought children who are young enough not to have mature thinking are strongly affected by the environment around them in Education.
What are other factors in children’s education?
According to the research of Diaz, there are three major factors that influence children’s education: Teachers, Parents, Children themselves. I’ve focused on the first two things because I wanted to narrow down the factors to other factors around children rather than children themselves.
How do teachers affect children in education?
A fast conclusion is that children get higher scores as the ability for teachers to teach students gets higher. Benesse that is Japanese private institution of Education conducted research to decide if the ability of teachers has a relationship with the children’s ability to study. The research was conducted in the way that they asked them questions that had three major sections in the questionnaire: Foundation, Approach, and Navigation. And then they made three groups of teachers by the ability of teachers: Low, Middle, and Hight and checked the deviation value of children who were taught by the teachers to find relationships. The children include elementary school students to high school students.
The result was that children who were taught by teachers that had a high ability of teaching by definition of them could get high scores. The deviation value of children gets higher by 13 points from Low to Hight. The result suggests to us that the ability of teachers has a relationship with the ability of children to study.
How do parents affect children in education?
A fast conclusion is that children get a higher score as the family gets a high salary. According to the research conducted by Benesse to research the relationship between the amount of salary of parents and the children’s score of the skill of language and mathematics in school who is a 6th-grade elementary school. The salary level of parents was from less than 2 million yen to more than 15 million yen.
The result is that the score of children gets higher as the salary of the parents goes up. Children who have parents who get a salary at the lowest level, get also lowest correct answer rate of questions: 50% and children who have parents who get a salary at the highest level gets highest correct answers rate: 70%. There is a proportional relationship between the salary level and the correct answer rate: the salary level of parents higher, the correct answer also goes up. The result also suggests to us that the ability of teachers has a relationship with the ability of children to study.
Summary of the factors that influence children in school
There are two major factors that influence children’s ability in school: Teachers and Parents.
Children get a higher score as the ability for teachers to teach students gets higher. Children get a higher score as the family gets a high salary.
If I have my own child I would like to remember this research.
5. Conclusion
Through this research journal I've focused on how people are affected by the environment because, when they face some problems, it could be difficult to overcome by themselves and they deeply depend on the environment.
6. References
1. Taniguchi, H (2013). Japan’s 2003 Gender Identity Disorder Act: The Sex Reassignment Surgery, No Marriage, and NoChild Requirements as Perpetuations of Gender Norms in Japan. Asian-Pacific Law & Policy Journal.
2. 最高裁判所（2018）第２６９号 性別の取扱いの変更申立て却下審判に対する抗告棄却決定に対する特別抗告事件
3. Japanese Law Transition 育児休業、介護休業等育児又は家族介護を行う労働者の福祉に関する法律/Japanese law translation
4. 労働調査力調査/総務省統計局 (https://www.stat.go.jp/data/roudou/sokuhou/nen/dt/pdf/index1.pdf
5. 内閣府男女共同参画局/ http://www.gender.go.jp/about_danjo/whitepaper/h25/zentai/html/zuhyo/zuhyo01-00-11.html
7. FACTORS AFFECTING STUDENTS’ ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE IN COLLEGES OF EDUCATION IN SOUTHWEST, NIGERIA