When it comes to mass media like video games, appealing to cultural sensibilities is always a tricky operation. Whether they choose to snip fragments of potentially-offending material, or whether they outright refuse to release the game abroad, game companies often self-censor to avoid bad PR or low sales in regions whose general populace (or, in most cases, a vocal minority) will be offended. It’s not a particularly new phenomenon, either. Companies like Nintendo and Square Enix (rather, Square and Enix), for example, are infamous for having censored out references to Christianity in their games during the early-to-mid 90s, an era in which hardcore religious groups viewed video games as society’s untamed devil.
But when touchy matters like female representation in video games reach the ears of the United Nations, censorship becomes something far more than simply defending a company’s sales. Last month, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) conducted an investigation into Japan’s record on women’s rights. Among the topics they explored was the “banning the sale of video games or cartoons involving sexual violence against women.” Gamers who have been keeping track of the issue may think of the eyebrow-raising Senran Kagura series, or they may recall the media controversy that stormed around Illusion’s highly-offensive visual novel, RapeLay, back in 2006.
Indeed, the CEDAW’s report on the discussion indicates that they asked Japan the following question:
Please indicate the measures taken to ban the sale of video games or cartoons involving rape and sexual violence against girls and women and to raise awareness among the producers of such materials, in line with the Committee’s general recommendation No. 19 on violence against women.
To which Japan replied that it currently takes measures to clamp down on offensive media:
Concerning video games and films, self-imposed regulation by the industry and its independent rating organizations have been carried out through ratings and reviews of such media containing sexually explicit and violent scenes or scenes including anti-social behavior, to ensure that ethically inappropriate games and films are not distributed.
The meeting then faded from the public eye. But in a particularly damning statement last Sunday, Kumiko Yamada, Representative and Designer of the Japan Women’s Institute Of Contemporary Media Culture, lambasted the UN for its proposal to ban popular media that depicts sexual violence. The full translated post can be read below.
“Our Formal Opinion on the UN Committee for the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women’s “Protecting Women’s Rights in Japan – Proposal to Ban the Sale of Manga and Video Games Depicting Sexual Violence”
Introduction:
This year, on February 16th, 2016 the UN Committee for the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women held a “Protecting Women’s Rights in Japan” conference. We would like to share our opinion on the “Proposal to Ban the Sale of Manga and Video Games Depicting Sexual Violence.”
Opinion Summary:
We are absolutely in agreement that the protection of the rights of women in Japan is important. On the other hand, we think it should be carefully and seriously evaluated whether the measures taken to ensure those protections are valid ones or not. If we are asked to consider whether “Protecting Women’s Rights in Japan” requires us to “Ban the Sale of Manga and Video Games Depicting Sexual Violence,” then we must reply that that is an absolute “no.”
Reasons for Our Opinion:
Reason #1 – The so-called sexual violence in manga and video games is a made-up thing and as such does not threaten the rights of actual people; therefore, it is meaningless in protecting the rights of women.
Reason #2 – In Japan, and especially when it comes to manga, these are creative fields that women themselves cultivated and worked hard by their own hand to create careers for themselves. If we were to “ban the sale of manga that includes sexual violence,” it would do the opposite and instead create a new avenue of sexism toward women.
Detailed Explanation of Reasons:
About Reason #1 – It goes without saying that the rape and other crimes of actual real people who experience sexual acts from partners without consent is an actual violation of their rights concerning sexual violence and should obviously be forbidden by law, and that it’s necessary to protect and support victims. However, the figures in manga and video games are creative fictions that do not actually exist, and thus this is not a violation of any real person’s human rights. We should focus on attacking the problems that affect real women’s human rights as quickly as possible.
About Reason #2 – In Japan, and especially when it comes to manga, these are creative fields that women themselves cultivated and worked hard by their own hand to create careers for themselves.
Already in the 70s there were women-focused manga magazines and many talented women manga writers came from them.
In this way, before the Equal Opportunity Employment Act for Men and Women passed in 1986, there was already a space where women flourished and had established the “shoujo manga” genre. And of course, within women’s manga, sometimes the topic was of romance and sex.
Among the manga for women in our country, there were titles that took up the history of women’s sexual exploitation and slavery. “The Cliff For Those Would Be Parents” by Fumiko Sone was one such work. Against the backdrop of the real history, it is a work that paints the life of a girl who lived in poverty and was sold into service as a prostitute for the Bakusai Harem in Hokkaido’s Muroran, and how she lives through the experience.
For the people who live in these times, it is manga like this that creates an opportunity for people to imagine the pain of women living in that era. However, because this work contains depictions of sexual violence, if we employed a ban on the sale of “manga that depicted sexual violence,” it would go out of print and eventually people would lose that chance.
If we were asked to give similar examples of manga that would go out of print and be unavailable if the ban on sales of “manga that depicted sexual violence” were in effect, there would be no end to the examples we could give, but “The Poem of the Wind and the Trees” by Keiko Takemiya and “BANANA FISH” by Akimi Yoshida would probably be listed among the examples. (Note that while both listed works contain sexual violence toward men, sexual violence is not a problem limited to only women, and therefore should not be treated as exclusively a women’s rights issue.)
In this way, it can be predicted that if we were to ban the sale of “manga that depicts sexual violence,” a great deal of publishers would cease publication of a huge amount of works. In the creative field of manga, the effect would be that women who have worked so hard to create a place for vibrant careers would have that place shrink right in front of them, as well as have their efforts negated. In addition, if we were to put ourselves in the places of manga readers the chance to know about the history of the sexual exploitation of women would be lost, as well as a method for them to come to know about it. If the creative fields of manga were attacked, trampled on and destroyed with such prejudice, it would damage not only the women manga writers, but also spread to other women creators in the field, as well as the female readers. This would be a sexist punishment that only narrows the career possibilities of Japan’s women.
It is noted that on the other hand when it comes to “manga that depicts sexual violence” a certain segment of people are going to find it unpleasant. Nevertheless, to ban expression and commerce unilaterally based on feelings of whether or not something is unpleasant, or viewpoints on what should be moral, is a practice not to be condoned. The basis for feelings about what is or is not repulsive, and moral viewpoints, will differ based on the individual or their region and that culture’s segmented local society. The basis for the values in Local Society A and the basis for the values in Local Society B are not necessarily going to match.Therefore it stands to reason to suddenly use one local society’s standards as the standards of a society as a whole would only prompt a massacre of discord in conflicting values among the people in the greater society.
If we are to aim for the smooth operation of society as a whole, then there might be workarounds we can implement so that a certain type of person can avoid suddenly running into “unpleasant expressions” they don’t want to see, but these should be limited to regulations in zoning and circulation only. We should not ban any manga that depicts “unpleasant expressions” under content guidelines that enforce moral standards unilaterally on society.
Conclusion:
As stated above, we cannot say that banning the sale of manga and video games that “depict sexual violence” is valid, even if we were to agree that the goal of protecting the rights of women is correct.
There is nothing to be gained from regulating fictional sexual violence. However, while you’re trying to fix the rights of fictional characters, you’re leaving the human rights of real women in the real world left to rot. As well, in Japan, the entire reason we have a media genre such as manga that developed to take on themes such as the sexual exploitation of women came from an attitude to tolerate “drinking the pure and the dirty without prejudice.” It’s because we had the freedom to express our views and with that to express the view of a world of humans that live and die, that there are pure and wonderful things and dirty and nasty things mixed with each other.
Manga is a field where women have put in their hard work and effort to cut forward paths and cultivate a place of their own. We believe that in order to protect this place from being trampled on, it will need our continued hard work to pass it on to the next generation, and it is this effort that will link to the greater freedom and rights of women.
The End
February 28th, 2016
Kumiko Yamada, Women’s Institute of Contemporary Media Culture Representative and Designer”
Yamada-san makes several salient points regarding sexual violence in fictional media. She asserts, first and foremost, that creative media like manga offers women a space for self-empowerment. Fiction provides us with constructed worlds where authors can ask readers to explore the very body politics that the UN was trying to address in its original investigation. By restricting the possibilities for women to explore gender roles through media, the UN would, ironically, shunt women back into a sexist social framework.
If we were to put ourselves in the places of manga readers the chance to know about the history of the sexual exploitation of women would be lost, as well as a method for them to come to know about it. If the creative fields of manga were attacked, trampled on and destroyed with such prejudice, it would damage not only the women manga writers, but also spread to other women creators in the field, as well as the female readers. This would be a sexist punishment that only narrows the career possibilities of Japan’s women.
She then reminds us that sexual abuse is not exclusively a women’s issue, and that we should consider individuals of all walks when we explore the topic.
Note that while both listed works contain sexual violence toward men, sexual violence is not a problem limited to only women, and therefore should not be treated as exclusively a women’s rights issue.
Yamada-san also claims that by focusing so heavily on gender representation in fictional media, the UN precludes the ability to address real-world, physical abuses of women’s rights that occur every day.
There is nothing to be gained from regulating fictional sexual violence. However, while you’re trying to fix the rights of fictional characters, you’re leaving the human rights of real women in the real world left to rot.
Whether or not you agree with Yamada-san’s position, it’s undeniable that she has made a bold move in the realm of gender representation in fiction, including video games.
Let us view Yamada-san’s statement not as an attack on Western views of women’s rights, but as an invitation to discuss the means by which individuals of different cultures can negotiate and reinterpret their social boundaries.
Credits go to reddit user RyanoftheStars for translating the original Japanese document, which can be found here.