From: masuda@fcs280b.ncifcrf.gov (Michiaki Masuda)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.japan
Subject: Re: Violence against women....
Date: 28 Sep 92 22:01:37 GMT
Organization: Frederick Cancer Research and Development Center

In article <1992Sep24.150513.5659@acuson.com> miklg@acuson.com (Michael Goldman ) writes:
>masuda@fcs280b.ncifcrf.gov (Michiaki Masuda) writes:
>
>>  I think that someone mentioned
>>that there was a poll in Japan and that the result indicated that 85% of
>>Japanese men believe that women enjoy being raped.
>>  Would anyone on the net be able to give more detailed information on this
>>poll? Who did this poll? And how? What was the actual questionaire in 
>>_Japanese_?
>
>	The poll was mentioned in connection with an article stating
>	that Japanese schools would start teaching "sex education" to
>	heighten awareness of how relationships _should_ be.

    It may not say anything about the validity of the poll. 
   
>       The
>	motivation behind this was the poll stating that over 85% of
>	Japanese adolescents believe women enjoy being raped.

    "Japanese MALE adolescents" might be more precise if that's what the poll
showed.

>>  Everyone is free to assume that 85% of Japanese men justify rape.
>>However, unless you cannot demonstrate that this assumption is scientifically
>>valid, significance of any discussion or conclusion based on it would be at
>>stake.
>
>>  Let's be more rational.
>
>	Since the Japanese govt took the poll seriously enough to
>	alter the educational curriculum, the rationality seems to
>	have been sufficient to convince the education ministry.

    Sorry, but the Japanese government is not always so rational as you 
think it is.  

>	Since roughly 15-20% of Japanese graduate from a University,
>	and the net is drawn disporportionately from that group,
>	I don't think a poll of netters would be "scientific."

   This is the very point that I wanted to make clear. Who answered the poll?
All the male Japanese between age 15 and 18? Randomly chosen high school 
students? Why is the poll more scientific than a poll of the netters?
   I'm not saying that the poll was bullsh*t. Comparing with my personal 
experience, I cannot help feeling that the result of the poll is too weird to 
believe. Of course, the new young generation might have a totally different
value system, and "85 %" might be a real number. However, I just feel it 
uncomfortable to believe it unless I see something scientific enough to
convince me.

>	Also, adolescents are notoriously ignorant of sexual
>	relationships and we can hope that the rate for adults
>	is considerably less than 85%.

   If they are so ignorant, how could the result of the poll that they
answered regarding such a complicated sexual relationship as rape be reliable?
Unless the questionaire was good enough to give the responders a preliminary
and unequivocal nunderstanding what "rape" is, the result would be hardly 
valid. That's why I asked if someone could provide me with the actual
Japanese expressions in the questionaire.
   If they had shown a video with a dramatized rape scene and asked, "Do you
think that the woman on the screen was feeling happy?", the result might
have been different.

   Looking back my past, I don't think there was anything between my 
adolescence and adulthood that considerably changed my attitude towards rape.
I don't think that college education makes such a large difference, either.
Your hope might be too optimistic. Or I might be still in the middle of 
adolescence...

Michiaki Masuda