Category Archives: International Soc

For an equal society in India

Posted on by

by Natsumi Ichioka

After reading the article “Arnold Schwarzenegger, ally mcbeal and arranged marriages: globalization on the ground in India,” I wonder why women in India are not equal with men. In India, after independence from England, a new constitution was established in 1947. This constitution succeeded in mentioning that all Indians are equal legally. In Japan, it is said that women and men are equal, but there are some obstacles to saying that all situations are equal. I know the gender problems are so complicated and unsolvable problems. Like Japanese situation, there are also problems in India for a truly equal society. I think India has to change three things for the equal society.

First, India has to divide politics from religion. It is not a simple problem to think like this, but I think the problems which India has are all related to the religion, especially Hindu caste. Caste has caused many problems and prejudice for Indian women in the society. India is developing these days, they try to take in many developed ideas from foreign countries. I think there is a limit to coexistence between the traditional Indian culture and the developed culture, because developed cultures have a trend for the equal gender, for example, the equal employment, equal education system and so on. If India continue to change modernization, it is necessary to separate the thinking from religion.

Secondly, Indians have to solve the problem of employment for women. India is developing and women are going to work in the society. In developing society, the workforce for women is needed. Though the welfare programs are established, for example, securing time for childcare, prohibiting illegal layoffs for women and so on, these systems are not always secured. Government research states that the wages of women are lower than the wages of men. In addition, the rates of women’s layoffs are more than four times compared to men’s rates, in the same research. In this way, there is still discrimination against women laborers. These welfare systems are secured truly for the equal employment. Though they are established legally, it is nonsense that they are not adopted for all women.

Finally, the system of the marriage is too burdensome for women. From the traditional culture in India, the bride needs to give financial aid for the groom. This system is too burdensome for the bride’s family. Because of this system, girls are not welcomed. Sometime, girl babies are killed because of this prejudice. On the other hand, boys are welcomed and treated preciously. These prejudices are caused by the thinking of the religion. If these prejudices are continued, India will run into difficulties. If these prejudices are solved, the thinking of the equal between the men and the women are made. Then, Indian society is going to change for the equal society. There is no discrimination against women.

I think India need to change dramatically in these three points, the thinking of separation of politics and religion, the employment for women, and the system of the marriage. The problems which India has are so complicated. They cannot be solved easily. But for the equal society, especially for Indian women, they need to change dramatically. The women’s rights are secured in many field, India will be more powerful country in the future.

Reference

Kyoto Univ. UNICEF Club (1997, November), Retrieved December 16, 2012, from http://www.jca.apc.org/unicefclub/research/index.html

Globalization and Westernized Japanese Women

Posted on by

by Anonymous

Today, the world is more globalized, and more and more people, culture, religion, things, and money are spreading over the countries. We can find cell phones, TV, computers, and also McDonald’s in almost every country. So, what is globalization? For me, globalization seems like the westernization of the world because it spreads things that are made by western countries in most cases. Moreover, westernization reaches people, like many people including Japanese want to be like western people. Especially, recent Japanese women are westernized by globalization.

In Japan, many women dye their hair and wear makeup and they envy long legs or arms. I think these features come from image of the Western. Unconsciously, we came to have the idea that western outlook is good and beautiful, bright skin, blond hair, big eyes, blue eyes and nice shape of body. In fact, models in magazines for young women often look like westerners, and it might be one reason for westernizing Japanese women. However, we have to remind ourselves that this phenomenon sometimes brings health damage. For instance, some Japanese women put colored contact lens in their eyes to make them blue or big, but it sometimes hurts their eyes. And there is the way to make eyes bigger that put eye liner as close to mucous membrane as possible, but it also hurt their eyes.

While Japanese women mimic western women, it is a famous story that western men like Japanese women. It is said that they are fascinated by black hair and sharp eyes, but also they are surprised at too much makeup Japanese women do. So there is the gap about pretty Japanese women between themselves and others. However, many of Japanese women have complex with their outlook especially small eyes and flat faces so they cannot stop using makeup, and I think these complexes are come from the adoration of the West.

I cannot say “stop westernizing your face” because I am one of the women who want to make eyes bigger. I think western women who have big eyes, sculptured face and long legs and arms are beautiful. Globalization might change concept of beauty in Japan. It means that women who have small eyes and round face like otafuku were considered as beautiful women in Japan in the past. On the other hand, the image of beautiful women in today’s Japan is like western women, and the concept flowed into Japan with progress in globalization. Although I think the Western is cool, it is sad that if we totally lose Japanese beauty. So I think we should find reconsider about Japanese beauty and figure out Westernized Japanese beauty as a new concept.

Social Networking

Posted on by

by Julia Helbing

“Social networking … it’s the way the 21st century is communicating today!” (WISN 2011)

A social network is a social structure of individuals or organizations. You can find them between people, like families and friends, but you can also find them using the internet on for example social networking sites.

I think that this quotation became a very true quotation over the last years. Nowadays, people all over the world use social networks, especially social media, to communicate or trade all over the world. They became very famous because every action and interaction is happening in the very same minute. If you order a book on Amazon in England, but you are in Japan, the seller will still get a notification about your order just some seconds after you placed it. Social networks are also very important in the product of designing, e.g. a new shoe. I saw a report on TV about the Adidas Designer Team. They have laboratories all over the world and still manage to work together hand in hand. If the work in America is done at nighttime, the design and all progresses are forwarded to Europe. In Europe, it is daytime so the work can be continued without any delay.

Social networks bring the world closer together. It is very easy to communicate with business partners even if you are located far away. In some business branches it became very common to hold business meetings online, especially with Skype. You can talk to each other in real time, and thus can make urgent decisions in the blink of an eye. This is very important concerning that some business transactions need such urgent decisions to react to changes in the environment. But Skype also became a very useful tool for everyone. I use it to talk with my family in Germany. I also spoke with my family via Skype when I was in Germany too, because you cannot just call, but also video chat with your partner.

With the expansion of the usage of social networks, the usage and the number of social media has also increased. Millions of people have created a Facebook account, to share their thoughts with friends and families and to stay in contact with them. The same happened to Twitter, many people set up their accounts to tell the people what they are up to or what is just happening. Many musicians or politicians also use social media nowadays, which is ought to bring them closer to people that are interested in following those people.

In my opinion, the world today could not work without social networks like it is working now. Many business processes would take a lot more time, which will affect production process in the end. It would also affect the life of every people. We are used to the usage of social networks every day. If they would be limited or very hard to reach, I think many people would have to change their lifestyle.

Sweatshops and Foreign Investment

Posted on by

by Yukari Deguchi

Economic gap is the defect of capitalism. Thanks to its benefit, certain companies have grown up, the rich became much richer, and the poor became much poorer. That’s why there are many sweatshops. In free market, some big companies pursue cheap labor force to reduce the cost. The famous fashion brand GAP is one of the examples of such companies. GAP doesn’t have any own factories. All products are made by subcontracted factories in developing countries, which have many cheap labor forces, and loose labor regulation. The majority of these workers are young women and children from poor households because they weren’t educated and they have little sense of human right. When the fact of exploitation was exposed by NGOs in 1990th, GAP canceled the contracts with such factories.

The victim of exploitation is not only human, but also animal. The world’s famous McDonald’s industrialize the food and animals to reduce cost and to pursue the quantity and speed. MacDonald’s modify the genes of chicken to grow up bigger and faster. The chickens are reared by confined to so narrow cages with many others. Farmers who contract with these fast food companies have to purchase new expensive machine to obey the companies’ command. So the farmers carry a huge debt loan. The exploitation can be seen easily in everywhere in supply chain.

Thanks to the NGOs and civilian resistance, these big companies cancel the contracts with the factories to eliminate exploitation. But when the factories fold up, where will the workers go next? Who will employ them? How they live? It’s not the solution to cancel contract to protect the companies brand. We can easily imagine what will happen to the workers; they will be employed in other sweatshops.

Why did they choose such works? Why the companies can get cheap labor force? The answer is that the workers have no choice to live because of many various kind of gap. So that would be pointless to criticize only the factories and companies. It’s not the only simple problem about human rights.

Then, we have to face to a question; what’s the difference between sweatshops and foreign investment? Why are there sweatshops while other developing countries get benefits of foreign investment? I’d like to explain this question with the information from other classes.

Do you know Great Mekong Subregion (GMS) Project by the Asia Development Bank? It is one of the biggest economic blocks and includes six countries around the Mekong river; Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Burma, Vietnam, and China. To make logistics more efficiency and to promote free trade, the big economic highways were built and the countries are trying to achieve the elimination of tariffs through AFTA (Asia Free Trade Association). There are many business chances in GMS, and companies and business persons all over the world pay attention to it. Some big companies have already expanded into it, and these businesses are not exploitation, of course.

So what is the difference between these countries and those which have sweatshops? I think these successful countries are now playing a part of world free market as good partners of big companies and countries. So companies can’t ignore their voice. On the other hand, areas and countries which have sweatshops―such as poor African countries, Latino countries, and some less-developed countries in Asia―are usually excluded from world free market.

The cause of sweatshops is in the structure of world economy. It’s deep and difficult problem to solve. But what we, the consumer, should do is to know the process of making and carrying the products, I think.

References

『大メコン地域地域協力―経済回廊が変える国境経済―』工藤年博、2007

Food, Inc. American Vista, 2008

The Risks of Globalization

Posted on by

by Noriko Abe

I have studied various effects of globalization in class. I always have a good image of globalization and I often use the advantage of globalization in my policy recommendations. However, I saw many risks brought from globalization in this class. Therefore, I focused on various risks brought from globalization.

First, I raise the advantage of globalization. Globalization promotes economic liberalization. India actually developed their economy because the country changed their economic policy from controlled economy to liberal economy. It is thought that the variation of strategy which companies take has broadened. Also, new information technologies have proliferated. People’s lives have been made more convenient all over the world. More and more people go to foreign countries for business, sightseeing, and other reasons. I think that each human in the world gradually has his mind to try to know humans in other area and country because of globalization.

On the other hand, many experts fear the dangerousness which globalization causes. I pick up the report written by the World Economic Forum (WEF). The World Economic Forum is an independent international organization committed to improving the state of the world by engaging business, political, academic and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas. The World Economic Forum showed the Global Risks 2012 report on January 11th, 2012. The Global Risks reports are showed every year and the reports, which focused on the findings of a survey of 469 experts and industry leaders, outlined top five global risks in terms of likelihood in the next 10 years. This year’ s report says severe income disparity, chronic fiscal imbalances, rising greenhouse gas emission, cyber attacks and water supply crisis from a higher rank. This year’s report shows a shift away from worries about the environment to concerns about a breakdown in society and economies. I think this means that effects of globalization have become more serious from superficial problems. Also, the report believed these risks threaten global growth as they drive nationalism, populism and protectionism at a time when the world remains vulnerable to systemic financial shocks, as well as possible food and water crisis. It is strange that the world, which has originally nationalism, populism and protectionism, do globalization in pursuit of the progress and the result return to nationalism, populism and protectionism.

The usefulness of globalization is large, but we also have to look the measure for the problems which globalization cause. The measure goes to protectionism. We may not change our today’s life, so we have to rethink ourselves in globalization.

Reference

‘Global Risks 2012 – Seventh Edition’, World Economic Forum, <http://www.weforum.org/reports/global-risks-2012-seventh-edition&gt;

Sources of preferences for whiter skin

Posted on by

by Kana Masaki

The main discussions in the chapter by Lynn Thomas are the use of and opposition to skin lighteners in South Africa. Skin lighteners were used by people in America at first to conceal blemishes and whiten their skin tone, and skin lighteners spread to South Africa too. Skin lightener advertisements in magazines spread it even more. South African women bought skin lighteners for higher status. In interwar South Africa, segregationist emphasized white skin supremacy. This led to the racial categories and this historical background is the reason why some women in South Africa bought to get a higher status. On the other hand, some people argue that they use skin lighteners, because they simply want to look beautiful and attractive and tend to prefer lighter skin traditionally. The author says that it’s difficult to discern whether lighter skin preference comes from precolonial conceptions of beauty or they come from racial hierarchies brought during colonialism. There are political opposition and medical opposition. The political opposition was using skin lighteners are a racial betrayal and self – loathing. The medical opposition was a health concern. People knew that these whitening or lightening creams contain toxic ingredients such as ammoniated mercury.

Same as South African women’s case, Japanese women also prefer white skin. Does white skin preference in Japan also come from the country’s historical background, or is just a traditional conception of beauty? Japanese women spend a lot of money on buying so–called bihaku cosmetics. Why do they spend so much money on such cosmetics? I guess having white skin was a traditional conception of beauty. There is a famous proverb, “irojiro wa hichinan kakusu,” meaning having a white skin can make you look attractive even though you have other faults. In other words, white skin can hide your faults and make you attractive. Also, it’s said that geisha has a really white skin as an exaggeration of Japanese beauty. These may prove that a white skin preference is just a traditional conception of beauty. On the other hand, I guess maybe it is not. The introduction of westernization during Meiji period could be a cause of white skin preference in Japan. The government tried to westernize everything in Japan at the time. For example, they made all men cut off chonmage to catch up with the West. They tried to westernize Japan to make a civilized Japan. I guess this made people think that looking like western people are cool, therefore having a white skin is the best.

Tomorrow in class, Karen and I want to have a discussion about whether light skin preference in South Africa comes from precolonial conceptions of beauty, racial hierarchies during colonialism or the mixing of both.

Globalization and social movements: a revolt for globalization.

Posted on by

by Wataru Yukita

Globalization gives us many interests in many aspects, financial system, investment, free trade, communicate with people around the world and so on. Therefore, we can get news in the world and culture in our house. Products of TOYOTA or SONY influence wasting life in the world. However, globalization has negative aspects and they raise some social movements.

For instance, in 1980’s, IMF(International Monetary Fund) support developing countries in order to introduce open markets, easing of regulation and cutting government spending. They promoted globalization. By these political measures of IMF, investments for these counties had increased, not only traditional direct investments but also investments to stock and bond certificate for free and international financial markets. They had firm effect on economy in developing countries.

However, after economic crisis in Asia in 1997, IMF forced East Asia counties to pursue fiscal austerity. By this tight budget, these counties must take measure of cutting social welfare, unemployment, inflation of basic goods. What is worse, downturn of economy causes social disorder and political confusion. In Indonesia, Rebellions popped out by reason of cutting subvention for food and fuel. In Thailand, jobless workers in urban area pour to rural area. By these unsteadiness and confusion, the measures of IMF to East Asia introduce social movements for anti-globalization to oppose globalization.

In 1999, NGO of development and environment and labor association worked large social movements for anti-globalization in a conference by WTO at Seattle. The crowd became about 50 thousand people. These movements argued that liberalization by WTO result in much damage in many aspect, people health, environmental pollution and labor condition in many societies. Thanks to these social movements, WTO could not set up new round and create new agenda to support developing countries. In 2001, through these amendments for some policies, WTO was able to establish new round. Today, WTO is biggest regime by join 153 countries and region. WTO address to equity of trade rule and deal in development by reflecting developing countries opinion. It shows that recognition that developing countries should get benefit by free trade is shared around the world in spreading globalization rapidly.

I think that globalization give people many opportunities to progress civilization. In addition, it needs governance that control negative aspects of globalization. So, globalization requires making rule and policies that take care of wealth gap and environmental pollution in international, region and nation level. Social movements take a important role to frame these rules.

Reference

Koji Murata, “Catch International Politics”(Japanese), YUHIKAKU,2009.

Social Movements by the Government

Posted on by

by Naoko Yoshida

As we learned in the class, social movements are the effective methods to change the society. And almost always, those social movements are started by people in lower position against the authority such as the government. For example, people in Fukushima have been taking action in order to stop the use of nuclear power plants in Japan against Japanese government, and in the US, many labor movements are launched by workers against people in high positions. However, there are another kind of social movements which are intended by the government to make people start. I have two examples here. One of them is China, and the other is Korea. Chinese government and Korean government intended to have social movements inside their country for the same reason. That reason is to distract their citizens’ attention from the problems inside the country.

Firstly, Chinese people had a huge social movement against Japan. And that movement is still remaining a little bit. This social movement is started by Chinese people in order to be against the Japanese possession of Senkaku-islets. But this movement is not simply because Japan claimed their ownership of those islets but because of many complex causes. One of those causes is Chinese government’s anxiety of antigovernment movement. We can say there are many problems inside China such as a huge gap between social classes, and slowdown economy. In addition, they were facing a once-a-decade transition of political leader on that time. Therefore, Chinese government made people act against foreign enemy by using mass media in order that Chinese people do not notice the problems inside China, and enhance nationalism for upcoming election. In short, Chinese government made people start social movement against foreign enemy in order to discard people’s attention from problems inside the country and to enhance the nationalization.

Secondly, in Korea, there has been a movement about Take-shima/Dokdo against Japan. Korean government also made people act against Japan in order to enhance nationalism, and distract their presidents corruption because they also have an election.

In conclusion, although many social movements are started by people in lower class against people in higher class or authority in order to make their living better, there are also social movements which are planned by the government in order to discard their citizens’ attention from the problems inside the country and to enhance the nationalism. We should not be deceived by that movement by the government.

References

Beech, H.(2012/10).The madding crowd: Beijing inflames popular sentiment against Japan, but it could get burned.Time, 50.

Yokota, T. (2012/9). You say Dokdo, I say Takeshima… let’s call the whole thing off. Newsweek, 16-17.

To be familiar country with women

Posted on by

by Sungryoung Yoon

Women’s social progress has been wider since the government decided the Equal Employment opportunity law in 1980. Until then, I guess there was a stereotyped against women that work in society as same as the men. After the Equal Employment opportunity law, the society is getting familiar with the women because some laws were introduced like the law for child-care leave. I can say 1980’s was a big factor of starting the new society for the women. From the reference that I write below page, the number of the household that is made by only men’s employee has been clearly decreased since 1980. I can guess there was effect of the Equal employment opportunity law as I stated upward. The number of the household that is made by only men’s employee decreased around half number from 1980 to 2006 but the number of the household that is made by both men and women’s employee has been increasing since 1980’s. We can see the situation from the reference that the number of the household that is made by both men and women’s employee is more than he household that is made by only men’s employee.

The number of women’s social progress has been increased and the system of society is getting g familiar with women than before. However can we say is the Japanese society really familiar with the women? After the globalization, depression, women would go out of house to work in the society but if they do, who care their children? I think that child care is the biggest problem in women’s social progress because lack of the child care makes declining birth rate and actually the declining birth rate is deeply getting decreased today. Today preschool is one of the big factors for the women’s social progress. A lot of family/ household need preschool to leave their children to work in the society however lack of the preschool is getting serious. Today, the reference says that number of the children who have to wait for entrance to preschool is around twenty thousand every year. If parents cannot leave their children to the preschool, how do they care their children doing work?

One solution to care children is expansion of the preschool but it is not easy because of the lack of nurse also. I think that our society have to start to do new project for women and their children. Second solution I guess is focus on the elders who retires from their work. As I stated below, Japanese society has a problem of the declining birth rate, and we are having increasing elders. I guess there are so many elder people who want to work after their retirement of their work. If we can do this project, it would be good for the women who want to work and the elders who want to work more. However I guess that this project still has problem. Actually preschool needs a license to take care of the children but if we focus on the elders, how should we care them? We cannot let elders do full-dress style of preschool. Also we have to find the elders who have enough strength to take care of children. We still have a lot of problems to care the children and that connects to the women’s social progress. To be more familiar country with everyone, I think we have to try to find the solution.

References

“男女雇用機会均等法”http://law.e-gov.go.jp/htmldata/S47/S47HO113.html  (accessed 2nd on December )

“平成20年度版　厚生労働白書”

http://wwwhakusyo.mhlw.go.jp/wpdocs/hpax200801/b0055.html (accessed 2nd on December)

“平成21年　人口動態統計月報年計（概数）の概況　厚生労働省”

http://www.mhlw.go.jp/toukei/saikin/hw/jinkou/geppo/nengai09/kekka2.html (accessed 2nd on December)

“「保育園不足」を見て見ぬふりの文科省” http://facta.co.jp/article/201003008.html (accessed 2nd on December)

Social Movement and Power in Media

Posted on by

by Chika Yamamoto

The video we watched in the class shows that a woman confessed the frustration towards authority and media. I watched the demonstration for the nuclear power plants in Japan on media several times on TV; however, it was not as detailed as the video we watched. Media just shows what the demonstration was like and tells the fact that there was a demonstration in media’s point of view. I think what makes it really difficult to deliver the purpose of the demonstration and feeling of people joining is the power of authority and media. Historically social movements experienced those difficulties. But, I guess we in 21st century have to change this and beat the power inequality to make social movements more meaningful and powerful. So, how should media be and other people who rely on the news be?

One of the historical examples of social movements is civil right movement in United States of America. This movement caught huge attention both in United States and foreign countries. Around late 1950, some of the people in the north part of America, who watched news about the civil right movement and noticed what was happening in the south part of America, realized they have to do something to solve this problem. So, people in the north part of America especially students came to the south and took part in the sit in movements and so on. Also, during that time America concerns a lot about how other countries look at America because of cold war. If this cruel reality of racism were spread all over the world by media, it would have strong influence on the situation of cold war. So, the federal government was really afraid of spreading terrible image of America having racism and tried to solve the problem as soon as possible by protecting activists and participants of demonstration from the violent oppression form states government in the south. I think foreign media and other media telling about the situation played really important role in this case. It increases the awareness about the racism in America and brought people to solve this problem. But, the framing of that situation in the south was really different. They felt that the federal government was occupying their places and robbed the right of their self-government. The way media in the south explained about this situation would have been really different from the way other media did.

From this example, I think media plays really different role about social movements depend on the framings. And I believe the media always tell news in how the media wants to deliver considering the benefits. In the case of nuclear power plants, media may have huge pressure from the government and electric power companies. If that tie is really strong, the media cannot say positively about the demonstration. Of course I think media should fairly tell the truth without being based on their benefits, but it has its own framing either negative or positive. So, I think we should not rely on news delivered by one particular media. It sometimes is better to look at the issues in Japan from foreign media that probably has different framing. Probably there are some organizations trying to tell the truth based on the real voice like the video we watched. Framing from authority which has power still has huge influence on media, so we should change the way we look at the information and develop our critical view and analyzing skill of framing.