Japan is currently 121st out of 153 countries on the Global Gender Gap Report and has the largest gap between genders when compared to other developed nations. A special type of harassment has developed in Japan, known as matahara. The term comes from the English phrase ‘maternity harassment’ and means that women are harassed because of pregnancy, childbirth, or childcare, and are consequently treated unfairly.
In my dissertation, I first introduce the expression matahara, explain the various forms it can take, and present some statistics about the extent of this problem. In the next chapter, I cover some of the possible reasons behind the existence of matahara. I divide these into two groups: traditional gender roles and the operations and hierarchical structure of Japanese companies. In this part of the thesis, I also include the answers of a questionnaire carried out by the non-profit organization Matahara Net, which has been spreading awareness of maternity harassment and helping victims since 2014. In the third section of my dissertation, I focus on the existing legislation regarding discrimination and harassment because of gender or pregnancy. The Equal Opportunity Law of 1985 was the first law to prevent such discrimination at work but was largely insufficient until further revision. I also describe some of the consequences of matahara on both an individual and societal scale at the end of my thesis.
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