Health, Risk & Society

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Constructing sexual risk: ‘Chikan’, collapsing male

authority and the emergence of women-only train
carriages in Japan

Mitsutoshi Horii & Adam Burgess

To cite this article: Mitsutoshi Horii & Adam Burgess (2012) Constructing sexual risk: ‘Chikan’,
collapsing male authority and the emergence of women-only train carriages in Japan, Health,
Risk & Society, 14:1, 41-55, DOI: 10.1080/13698575.2011.641523

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/13698575.2011.641523

Published online: 18 Jan 2012.

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Health, Risk & Society
Vol. 14, No. 1, February 2012, 41–55

Constructing sexual risk: ‘Chikan’, collapsing male authority and the

emergence of women-only train carriages in Japan
Mitsutoshi Horiia* and Adam Burgessb
a
Faculty of Tourism and Business Management, Shumei University, Yachiyo, Chiba, Japan;
b
School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research, University of Kent, UK
(Received 15 July 2011; final version received 10 November 2011)

Women-only train carriages have been introduced in Japan as a response to

widespread groping (chikan) by men. In August 2007, 155 young women
completed a survey at a variety of locations in central Tokyo, mainly at the
popular meeting places, Shinjuku and Shibuya. The survey involved face-to-face
interviews conducted mainly by young female interviewers. The numbers involved
are insufficient for rigorous statistical analysis and in this pilot study we were
principally interested in further refining ideas and hypotheses for further
investigation by considering results in the context of significant contemporary
social trends. This article starts by considering a particular cultural context in
which the issue of groping resulted in the introduction of women-only train
carriages and this official antigroping measure which has been widely accepted.
The article then examines women’s responses to the availability of women-only
train carriages, using surveys carried out in Tokyo. It concludes by considering
the specific and anomalous targeting of primarily middle aged ‘salarymen’, a
focus understood in the context of the collapse of the ideological power of the
patriarchal corporate figure associated with the end of the Japanese economic
miracle. Women’s use and support for women-only train carriages is not solely
dominated by anxiety over the risk of chikan. Our survey indicated that it was a
symbolic rejection of a particular type of masculinity, rather than the physical
separation from a risk of being groped.
Keywords: chikan; groping; women-only; Japan; risk

Introduction
In late 2000, women-only carriages (women-only train carriages) were introduced on
late night services in Tokyo by the Keio Railway Company in response to men
groping female passengers. Other train operators followed Keio’s gender segregation
initiative. In 2001, the West Japan Railway in Osaka became the first to offer them
during the morning rush hour and the Hankyu Railway became the first to run them
all day. Train operators in other major cities followed and by 2005 most Tokyo
operators, including the subway system, followed suit. Women-only train carriages
are typically located at the end of the train, which may require women to walk the
length of the train, along a busy platform, in order to use them. Women-only train
carriages are not available on all trains and at all times, however, and segregation

*Corresponding author. Email: m.horii@kent.ac.uk

ISSN 1369-8575 print/ISSN 1469-8331 online

Ó 2012 Taylor & Francis
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13698575.2011.641523
http://www.tandfonline.com
42 M. Horii and A. Burgess

remains ultimately voluntary. Women do not have to use them, while no legal
sanction can be given against men who enter women-only carriages.
The Japanese translation for ‘groping’ – uninvited sexual touching – and for a
groper is chikan. In train company surveys, a large percentage, often a majority, of
women indicated they had been groped, with most incidents occurring on commuter
trains. It is young women, especially school and university students, who appear to
be the most common victims. According to the Gender Equality Bureau’s survey
(2000), 48.7% of women over 20 years old had at least one experience of being
groped. Other surveys vary, with between 28.4% (Okabe 2004) and around 70% of
young women indicating they have experienced chikan (Anka et al. 2001, Ishibashi
痴漢 語源 最近？
2003).
Public nuisances were reported on crowded commuter trains in early twentieth
century Tokyo. The capital’s main newspaper, Yomiuri, for example, reported in
1912 that female students were being touched by men (Yomiuri On-Line 2001).
Women-only trains began operation in Tokyo in the same year. Nicknamed the
‘Flower Train’, they remained in service until the Second World War and trains with
carriages reserved for female school students reappeared in 1947. One of the main
commuting lines in Tokyo offered carriages reserved for women and children until
1973, when they were replaced with ‘priority seats’. Historical continuity, however,
should not be overstated. These earlier cases of transport segregation were not
exclusively or even necessarily associated with the fear of sexual touch. Rather, the
sense was that these female ‘flowers’ needed to be insulated from undue public
attention and, more basically, that the generally overcrowded condition of the
commuter train was believed to be unsuitable for women, children, and the elderly.
The recent introduction of women-only train carriages is an altogether more
determined response to the very particular problem of chikan.
Existing literature of groping tends to focus on the psychological consequences
upon victims. In this context, the issue of women-only train carriages will be
incorporated into the normative discourse of how to reduce the risk of chikan
victimisation amongst women. Importantly, there has been little academic discussion
on the cultural context in which the idea of women-only train carriages becomes
socially acceptable in some countries, while not in others. In addition, no previous
study has investigated the construction of support and use of women-only carriages.
This article discusses a particular cultural context of contemporary Japan in which
the introduction of women-only train carriages has been somehow widely accepted
as a measure to protect women from chikan on public transport. It also argues that
the construction of both support and use of women-only carriages is not directly
associated with chikan per se, but closely with a decline of a culturally specific type of
masculinity in contemporary Japan.

Cultural selection of a Chikan risk and women-only train carriages

The issue of groping is a distinct kind of safety issue on public transport, in the sense
that it is usually facilitated by crowded conditions. Groping on the train may be
physically harmless and almost always committed by strangers. This makes
victimisation from chikan less traumatic than other ‘more serious’ sexual crimes
such as rape. It is far less likely to result in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
than other negative sexual experiences (Uji et al. 2007). Another study shows that
chikan victimisation is not essential for the development of an eating disorder, while
 Health, Risk & Society 43

it is more likely to be the case for other sex crimes (Nagata et al. 1999). These may
explain why there is little attention to the issue of groping within the academic
discourse on sex crimes. Nevertheless, Kirchhoff et al. (2007) indicate that
victimisation from chikan crime causes heightened risk perceptions amongst the
victims. While they argue that chikan victimisation is unlikely to cause the sense of
shame amongst the victims, Kirchhoff et al. conclude that chikan victimisation is
likely to damage victims’ sense of self-control over their own environment and make
them believe that they live in a dangerous world. This constructs women’s fear of
crime victimisation greater than men’s (Loukaitou-Sideris and Fink 2009).
Consequently, greater fear of crime discourages women from using public transport,
therefore, making women disadvantaged in this sector.
Given these problematic implications of chikan victimisation, in practical terms,
women-only transport can give women a greater sense of safety, empowering them to
travel to work or schools. Spain (2005, p. 1) argues that voluntary segregation in
urban settings can enhance women’s access to the public realm. By providing safe
public space, it is argued, voluntary segregation can provide women with
opportunities and identity beyond the home and thereby greater independence.
Kawase (2004, p. 253) found that unmarried women in the Tokyo suburbs spend
longer time commuting than unmarried men, ‘because of the traditional Japanese
idea that parents do not allow their daughters to live alone’. Some of them ‘quit or
changed jobs because they could not bear long distance commuting’. In such a
context, the availability of specially designated carriages might be seen as significant
in making commuting bearable and thereby, fuller participation in social life possible.
It should be noted, however, that there are misgivings about women-only train
carriages as a strategy to challenge public sexual harassment. There are suggestions
that women-only train carriages make those choosing not to use them or simply
forgetting to avoid ‘normal’ carriages, more vulnerable to attack (Japan Probe 2006).
Media debate indicates some public feeling that an originally justifiable measure of
introducing women-only train carriages has now gone too far (Japan Today 2005,
Sugiyama 2006, Valenti 2007). Further, women-only train carriages can be seen to
affirm a passive, victim-centred stereotype of women. In her discussion of the first
women-only train carriages, Freedman (2002, p. 31) presents them as a manifestation
of the cultural belief in female vulnerability, with society paternalistically taking on
responsibility for their protection. Women-only train carriages may, paradoxically,
remove attention from male aggression and its causes, instead subjecting the public
female presence to social control and informal regulation. In 2009, it became
apparent that men were using online chat rooms to arrange when and where to target
women and the police dispatched undercover officers across Tokyo to arrest gropers
in the act (McCurry 2009). The police’s response indicated that there are other
solutions to chikan and that it certainly cannot be argued that women-only train
carriages have effectively solved the problem, nine years after their introduction.
These accounts of women-only train carriages, however, do not explain why such
services appeared at a particular time and space, namely, contemporary Japan.
Women have been exposed to the risk of being groped on public transport in many
different countries as long as urban public transport has existed. This issue of
groping has been ‘selected’ as a problem in Japan. It was during the 1990s when ‘the
sexual fate of the passengers received more candid attention’ (Kirchhoff et al. 2007,
p. 2). While it is not widely discussed as a social problem in many other countries, in
Japan, ‘intense debate in the public arena, both in newspapers and similar mass
shut women up, blame for crowd
 44 M. Horii and A. Burgess

media’(Kirchhoff et al. 2007, p. 2) resulted in the introduction of women-only train

carriages in 2000.
In New York and Hong Kong, for example, the issue of groping on commuter
trains has not led to gender segregation (Beller et al. 1980, Hartocollis 2006, Chui
and Ong 2008). While in the contemporary US specific security strategies for women
may be accused of ‘reverse discrimination’ (Loukaitou-Sideris and Fink 2009), the
call for women-only train carriages in Hong Kong was dismissed since ‘there would
be enforcement difficulties in controlling passengers moving between train
compartments’ (MingPao 2004 quoted in Chui and Ong 2008, p. 11).
Even though the issue of groping enabled the introduction of women-only train
carriages, the continuation of the service could be very difficult to achieve. In 1909, for
example, women-only train carriages were instituted in the Hudson and Manhattan
Railroad, which ran between New York and Jersey City. This male-free space was
advocated ‘to assure that women were not forced to cope with ‘‘the fearful crushes,’’
and with sexual insults, and that they would not have to safeguard themselves from
men’s sexual aggression’ (Schulz and Gilbert 1998, p. 551). While the service was
popular amongst upper-middle class women, other less privileged women were
‘concerned that such ‘‘special privileges’’ would erode the rights they had only
recently achieved’ (p. 552). However, because it ‘immediately became enmeshed in the
class-based politics of the times’ (p. 552), this lasted only from April to July 1909.
list reason for rejection To some extent, the unpopularity of women-only train carriages in some countries
is related to competing concerns, particularly around the politics of discrimination. In
the US, Loukaitou-Sideris and Fink (2009, p.20) point out that train operators fear
being ‘. . .accused of ‘‘reverse discrimination’’ if they develop specific security
strategies for women.’ The idea has been floated in the UK; by one of the candidates
to be mayor of London in 2008, for example (Taylor 2008), but implementation
remains constrained in the Anglo-American context. Research in the late 1980s found
that the idea of women-only train carriages was unpopular in the UK, despite fear of
violence and harassment on public transport being widespread amongst women. One
research paper found that, ‘women-only carriages were not favoured; women did not
necessarily trust all other women and a segregated section could positively attract
attention to women travelling alone’ (Lynch and Atkins 1988, p. 270).
In contrast, segregation on trains as a response to groping on public transport is
not confined to Japan. In what may be the first contemporary example, women-only
train carriages were introduced on the Mexico City subway in 1978. The same kind
of service was introduced on Cairo’s metro in 1990 in order to protect women from:
‘one of Cairo’s unrelenting perils, sexual harassment of women by men on
overcrowded public transport’ (Cowell 1990), and Mumbai in 1992 because
commuting women ‘often found that they cannot travel from one station to the
next without having their bottoms pinched, their bodies being grabbed or pushed
against, or if they’re lucky, just being leered at’ (Asian News, 4 July 2009). Other
countries have followed, including South Korea, Russia, Indonesia, Taiwan and
South Africa. In 2009, their introduction was discussed in Beijing as a means of
curbing sexual harassment and alleviating overcrowding (The China Post, 6 May
2009).
When we take an overview of the development of women-only train carriages in
various countries, it becomes obvious that economic growth has encouraged
increasing numbers of women to enter the public realm. As more and more women
enter employment and education, for example, more and more women are on streets,
 Health, Risk & Society 45

in cafés and restaurants, and importantly on public transport such as buses and
trains. As Koning (2009) argues in her study of gender and public space in Cairo, the
emergence of segregation measures in the name of female safety is a consequence of
persisting male domination of public space. In this kind of social condition, women’s
urban trajectories rely on gender-specific spaces. Creation of various women-only
train carriages in Japan may also be functioning as ‘fleeting room for maneuver’
(Koning 2009, p. 552). This indicates that although more and more women have
been in the public realm in Japan, they cannot command defence in Japan’s public
space including the public transport system. Women-only carriages represent the
assumption that women can be secured only through confinement.

Women’s perceptions of women-only train carriages

In August 2007, 155 young women completed a survey at a variety of locations in
central Tokyo, mainly at the popular meeting places, Shinjuku and Shibuya. The
survey involved face-to-face interviews conducted mainly by young female
interviewers. While the numbers involved are insufficient for rigorous statistical
analysis, this pilot study is principally interested in further refining ideas and
hypotheses for further investigation by considering results in the context of
significant contemporary social trends.
The structured interview schedule included questions on participants’ personal
background, such as age, occupation, and nationality. It included a series of specific
questions related to the issue of women-only carriages.

. How often do you use the train in a week?

. What kind of factors would make your train travel worrying/uncomfortable?
Please also tell us in as much detail as possible, why these make you feel so.
. Do you use women-only carriages? (If yes, how often?)
. Please give us reasons why you do, or do not use women-only carriages.
. Would you like to see a more extensive service of women-only carriages?
. Please tell us why you would (not) like to see a more extensive service of
women-only carriages.
. Have you ever been groped on a train?

Some of them were open questions, in which interviewees were asked to give their
personal opinions and comments. These questions were asked to further explore the
nature of feeling about women-only train carriages.

Findings
All the interviewees were women in their 20s or younger but older than 16. Around
73% used the train four days or more in a week and 84% have been using the train
regularly for two years or longer. A significant majority of the interviewees were
long-term frequent train users. Survey responses confirmed earlier findings of a wide
discrepancy between generally high support for the idea of women-only train
carriages but much more limited actual usage (MLIT 2002, p. 24, Okabe 2004,
pp. 58–59). Although 54% (n ¼ 84) of young women would like to see a more
extensive women-only train carriage service, only 7% claimed that they were using
the women-only train carriages ‘very often’. A majority claimed they were using the
 Text
46 M. Horii and A. Burgess

women-only train carriages ‘rarely’ (27%) or ‘not at all’ (39%). Although much of
the ‘approval but non-use’ is explained by the limitations of the service available and
individuals’ use of relevant train services, it also indicates that chikan has not been
the sole determinant of individuals’ choices about how and where to travel.
Many of the interviewees were motivated to use women-only train carriages by
reasons unrelated to chikan per se. In spite of the fact that 48% (n ¼ 75) of
respondents had been groped on the train previously, out of all the comments made
in this survey, only 14 explicitly mentioned chikan as a cause of their worries and/or
discomfort on a commuter train. It is also indicated that other factors such as ‘bad
manners (of men)’ and ‘drunken men’ were as likely to make female passengers
anxious on the train, and were suggestive of a deeper reaction against men rather
than only guardedness about possible groping. In some respects, there were extreme
reactions against men as physically repulsive, which were expressed through the
language of female ‘hygiene’.
Rather than chikan, other more general concerns dominated the responses. They
were usually concerns over personal safety which included terms such as: ‘feeling safe
(anshin)’, ‘feeling at ease (ki ga raku)’, and ‘safety (anzen)’. Comments highlighted
female ‘cleanliness’ and complaints about the physical presence of older men (ojisan/
oyaji) and their smell. Such sentiments cannot always be clearly distinguished from
the more basic issue of space – in terms of the appeal of sometimes relatively empty
women-only train carriages or, in other cases, the crowdedness of women-only train
carriages helping to account for their unpopularity. Respondents can be loosely
divided into four categories in relation to their approval and use of women-only
train carriages, even though there is a striking continuity of responses, irrespective of
this division.

Approving users
Approving users support the idea of a more extensive service of women-only train
carriages and they ‘very often’ or ‘sometimes’ use women-only train carriages and
consist of 20.6% (n ¼ 32) of all respondents. In this group, 62.5% (n ¼ 20) have
been previously groped on the train; the highest in the four groups. This may have
made individuals of this group more aware of the risk of being groped as well as of
more general male aggression. There are three mentions of chikan as a reason for
regular use of women-only train carriages, and four mentioned it as a reason to
support a more extensive service of women-only train carriages. As reasons for
regular use, personal safety concerns were not key issues and there was widespread
pragmatism evident in comments such as women-only train carriages being: ‘more
comfortable’, ‘more spacious’, and ‘less crowded’. Some others reported that they
use women-only train carriages ‘sometimes’, rather than ‘very often’, because of the
limited availability of the service in terms of time and space.
reversely some
are deemed as Safety concerns were dominant among ‘approving users’. This particular group
inharasseable
saw themselves as more vulnerable than any other group in a mixed-sex transit
environment. For these young women, sexual segregation provided a greater sense of
safety and there was some sense of feeling safe and even empowered by being
segregated from men. Most comments made by this group claimed that a further
expansion of the service would provide women with a safer public transport
environment. In both use and support of women-only train carriages, there were
hygiene-related comments which indicated a preference for women-only train
 Health, Risk & Society 47

carriages because of their cleanliness without men’s sweaty smell, without the physical
proximity to older men, and, generally, without their physical presence. The sense of
vulnerability was constructed by the language of unhygienic men, while ‘female
cleanness’ was felt to provide these approving users with a sense of security.

Approving nonusers
Approving nonusers use women-only train carriages ‘rarely’ or ‘not at all’, yet
support the idea of a more extensive service of women-only train carriages. They
were the largest of the four groups, making up 33.5% (n ¼ 52) of all the respondents.
Half of this group (n ¼ 26) had been previously groped on the train. Like approving
users, their support for an extension of women-only train carriages was expressed in
terms of ‘personal safety’, ‘pragmatism’ and ‘hygiene’, while their motives to not use
women-only train carriages are largely shaped by pragmatism.
A significant majority of these approving nonusers highlighted the practical
inconvenience of the service to explain their nonuse. They complained of a lack of
availability of women-only train carriages in time and space. Some reported that
women-only train carriages were out-of-service during the hours they commuted,
and others explained that they would rather use normal carriages than have to walk
along a busy platform to an end carriage. In the latter cases, women prioritised
securing access to their preferred exits at their arrival stations in order to secure a
smooth flow in everyday commuting. They claimed that they would use women-only
train carriages if there were more of them and they were much closer to the carriages
they always board.
‘Approving nonusers’ expressed a sense of female vulnerability in the public
transport space to justify their support for the idea of more women-only train
carriages. This group indicated a sense of vulnerability to male aggression in the
public transport system, yet were dissatisfied with the level of availability of services
for their protection. As well as seven references to chikan, a significant majority of
approving nonusers express their belief in women-only train carriages providing
them with protection from male aggression and with a greater sense of security. In
this light, they claimed that women-only train carriages should have an extended
availability for a greater number of women. In addition, six women reported their
repulsion specifically against older men and that women-only train carriages would
provide them with a ‘clean’ commuting environment free from ‘dirty’ men and their
bad ‘smell’. In this context, support for women-only carriages was expressed through
the discourse of unhygienic men, and the notion of safety became almost equal to
‘female cleanness’.

Disapproving nonusers
Disapproving nonusers made up 29.7% (n ¼ 46), the second largest group after
approving nonusers. 30.4% (n ¼ 14) had been previously groped on the train,
making this group the one with the smallest proportion of women with the
experience of being groped previously on a train. Reasons for their nonuse were
dominated by pragmatism, again citing the inconvenience of walking to the end of
the train. These women, however, would not have used women-only train carriages
even if the service was much more easily available for them, rejecting the idea of
women-only train carriages altogether based upon their strong individualism and
 48 M. Horii and A. Burgess

optimistic bias. A few mentioned chikan but did not really imagine it happening to
them, suggesting an underestimation of the risk of being groped on the basis of past
experience. In contrast to members of other groups, they did not mention
‘unhygienic’ men. Some comments also indicated a sense of female resilience. Two
simply reported that they were happy to be with men on the train.
Responses such as: ‘I do not really care (about the issue of groping)’ suggested
that these women saw the issue of groping as something which each individual
woman should deal with personally. One woman explained that a train should be
used by individuals on the basis of ‘self-responsibility’ (jiko sekinin). This does not
mean that she disagreed with the current implementation of women-only train
reversely
carriages, but she expressed her concern that a further extension would undermine
women’s right to make their own personal choice on how they use a train. She
suggested that extending the service would force women away from mixed-sex
carriages. This echoed another woman’s comment: ‘A further extension of women-
only train carriages would make me feel awkward when I am on one of the other
[mixed-sex] carriages’. Furthermore, one woman questioned the effectiveness of
women-only train carriages as an anti-groping measure because they do not prevent
men from groping in other mixed-sex carriages. On this basis, another woman said:
‘I do not understand the whole purpose of women-only train carriages’.
Some others expressed concern at the implications for men of a further extension
⼥の迷惑化
of women-only train carriages. Only one employed the term ‘discrimination’
(sabetsu) but others expressed the feeling of being ‘sorry’ and claimed that a further
extension of women-only train carriages would cause ‘inconvenience’ and ‘trouble’
for men. One said that she would not want men to think women were ‘sly’ (zurui).
These women thought that women should be treated in the same terms as men,
regardless of the female risk of being groped. They were against the notion of
segregation on the basis of a principle of gender equality. As a group, they were more
sympathetic to the majority of well-behaving men and regard them as ‘comrades’
who equally share the pain of the inhumane commuting environment of the public
transport system.

Disapproving users
Disapproving users were the smallest group of all. They make up 11.6% (n ¼ 18) of
all respondents with 55.6% (n ¼ 10) of them having been previously groped on the
train. They shared similar characteristics with approving users in their use of women-
only train carriages and with disapproving nonusers in their opinions against a
further extension of the service. They justified their use of women-only carriages
pragmatically as a means to avoid overcrowding. The reasons they were opposing an
extension of the service concern ‘reverse discrimination’ against men for whom they
are causing ‘inconvenience’ and ‘trouble’. Some claimed that women-only train
carriages were only used by a small number of women, and the service did not solve
the problem of groping in other carriages.
It may seem contradictory that these young women regularly use women-only
train carriages whilst strongly opposing the service in principle. This suggested
detachment between their action and thoughts. However, they justified their
disapproval of women-only train carriages in terms of their own sense of self-control
and durability against male aggression, as well as constructing their sense of gender
equality by showing comradeship with fellow male passengers. This group was
 Health, Risk & Society 49

willing to use the existing service as it provided them with practical advantages. Yet,
when their pragmatism was expressed in terms of ‘safety’ and ‘cleanness’, their use of
women-only train carriages reflected the discursive framework in which their
personal safety was said to be threatened by unhygienic men.

Symbolic rejection of ‘salarymen’ masculinity

An important finding of this survey was that the discourse of hygiene justified the
existence and use of women-only carriages. This was closely associated with the
social construction of chikan. The unhygienic men are denoted as ‘oyaji’ with a sense
of disgust. Oyaji is a derogatory term which denotes ‘unattractive middle-aged men’
(Iida 2005, p. 61). More specifically, the term is closely associated with so-called
‘salarymen masculinity’, which displays ‘qualities of loyalty, diligence, dedication
and self-sacrifice’ (Dasgupta 2003, p. 193). Salaryman is a derogatory term for male,
white collar workers. The contemporary image of oyaji is closely associated with
salarymen. What is more, the representation of oyaji as salarymen has also been
established as the stereotypical image of chikan. This is in turn young women’s
expression of disgust and repulsion against Japanese hegemonic masculinity. This is
because ‘[d]isgust must be accompanied by ideas of a particular danger, the danger
inherent in pollution and contamination, the danger of defilement, ideas which in
turn will be associated with rather predictable cultural and social scenarios’ (Miller
1997, p. 8). This echoes Mary Douglas who claims that ‘dangers to the body, dangers
to children and dangers to nature are available as so many weapons to use in the
struggle for ideological domination’ (Douglas 1992, p. 13).
reverse
Sex crimes are often conceptualised in terms of the construction of culture-
now against specific hegemonic masculinity (Kersten 1996). According to Kersten (1996, p. 381),
obasan
serious sex crimes such as rape are likely to be ‘correlated to feelings of power and
domination over weaker objects (female or male)’. In this light, the Japanese
constructs of salarymen masculinity are closely related to what Kersten (1996) called
‘low rape visibility’ in contemporary Japan, while it correlates to ‘high groping
visibility’. The issue of groping, associated with oyaji as salarymen, has been a topic
of public debate, in relation to the introduction of women-only train carriages.
Therefore, the construction of particular imagery associated with men groping on
trains can be conceptualised in terms of specific hegemonic masculinity in
contemporary Japan.
In our survey, we found that a variety of negative associations are made with
men, including drunkenness. Respondents were not asked to elaborate on any
particular associations in this pilot survey to minimise interviewer suggestion. Yet,
10 respondents explicitly identified ‘oyaji’ as the problem, often claiming oyaji as
unhygienic. In this context, oyaji are said to be ‘dirty’ and a source of ‘pollution’,
such that physical proximity and contact is to be avoided. One dimension of this is
their smell. The discourse of smelly oyaji, however, is a recent construction. It was
1999 when oyaji had become scientifically ‘smelly’ as the term ‘ageing odour’ first
appeared in the media (Asahi 1999). Body smell has acquired a distinctive
association and is now often called ‘oyaji odour’ and reflected in increased sales
for male deodorants (Sato 1999, Suzuki 2000, pp. 90–93). One survey indicates, for
example, that women in their 20s are likely to mention ‘men’s smell’ more than
‘chikan’ as a reason to use or support women-only carriages (COBS Online 2005).
Others indicate a significant minority of women prepared to explicitly cite the smell
50 M. Horii and A. Burgess

of men and simply wanting to be away from them as their reason for using women-
only carriages (What Japan Thinks 2006).
The kind of men denoted as oyaji tends to be confined to a particular age and
occupational group. In terms of age, although oyaji is generally said to be ‘middle
aged’, the construction of oyaji by young women includes those men in slightly
younger ages. Some sociological studies of the ‘compensated dating’ (enjo k osai) and
the burusera shop selling schoolgirls’ clothing and used underwear, for example, have
indicated that women in their 20s and younger, who were interviewed in these
studies, employed the term ‘oyaji’ to denote men in their 30s and 40s (e.g. Fukutomi
1997, Muramatsu 1999, Miyadai 2000, Maruta 2001). As for their occupation, these
studies as well as popular literature on the same topic (e.g. Murakami 1997) also
identified oyaji as ‘salarymen’, who are represented by ‘a mental picture of a neatly
groomed, middle-aged, grey-suited, briefcase-carrying, while-collar male office
worker’ (Dasgupta 2003, p. 118).
What is striking is that there is some spontaneous identification of oyaji consistent
both with chikan discourse and imagery. A majority of those accused of ‘indecent
behaviour’ on trains are indeed in their 30s and 40s (Saeki 2005). Moreover, content
analysis of articles in one of the largest circulation newspapers, Yomiuri, suggests a
spread of age attribution for groping men peaked in the 30s and 40s (see Figure 1).
The Tokyo Police’s website shows iconographic images of a white-collar man,
seemingly in his 30s or 40s, in a suit groping a young woman (MPD 2005, 2009).
Similar images have appeared on anti-groping campaign posters published by the
police and train operators as well as in safety manual books against sexual crimes
which claim: ‘Chikan is most likely to be committed by oyaji in their 30s and 40s. In a
large scale social survey, female students make the explicit association of chikan with
salarymen in their 30s and 40s (Anka et al. 2001, pp. 35–54).
The image of groping men as ‘salarymen’ in their 30s and 40s seems to be a
relatively recent construction. For example, a survey published in the 1950s
demonstrated that over half of 1031 women in their 20s and younger, in Tokyo,
identified those who have groped them as male students in their 20s or younger
(Chisei, July 1957). Other evidence does not easily confirm the popular association

Figure 1. Reported ages of men accused of ‘chikan’ in Yomiouri Shinbun newspaper between
1998 and 2007. Source: Yomiuri Database (http://www.nifty.com/yomidas/)
 Health, Risk & Society 51

between chikan and salarymen in their 30s and 40s. According to Uchiyama (2000),
molestation is most likely to be committed by men aged 34 or younger. The criminal
psychologist Sakuta (2006) claims that groping is most likely to be committed by the
age group of 15 to 25 and its likelihood declines as men get older. In psychiatric
studies of sexual deviance, the act which ‘involves touching and rubbing against a
non-consenting person’ is termed as ‘frotteurism’. It is established that: ‘Most acts of
frottage occur when the person is aged 15–25 years, after which there is a gradual
decline in frequency’ (APA 2000, p. 570). Abel et al. (1993) found that the average
age for committing acts of ‘frotteurism’ was 20 years old. The overrepresentation of
men in their 30s and 40s in the perception of chikan does not seem to be related to the
age distribution of train passengers, either. For example, two different national
censuses carried out in 1998 and 2000 both indicate that out of the train commuters
in Tokyo, the ratio of men aged 15–25 is higher than that for men in their 30s and
40s (MLIT 2003, p. 70). Certainly, there remains uncertainty about which particular
cohort is more likely to commit groping, not least because of the interpretative
difficulties of crime statistics for such incidents. This uncertainty stands in contrast to
the very clear-cut way in which chikan has been represented as a problem confined to
salarymen in their 30s and 40s, or to oyaji.
The targeting of oyaji as likely sexual criminals is coincidental with, and may be
representative of a rapid decline in status and authority. When oyaji denotes
salarymen, it embodies Japan’s ‘Economic Miracle’ of the 1950s and 1960s. The
Japan of the 1980s was so economically dynamic that America sought to emulate its
methods. The highly ordered, male dominated society upon which it was built was
not only regarded uncritically but was widely perceived as the secret of its success. In
this context, there remained little challenge to the authority of oyaji, despite the
outmoded character of their position relative to other developed societies. By the
1990s, salarymen were no longer the symbolic foundation of Japanese success, but
economic recession and bankruptcy (Dasgupta 2003). That they are now widely
identified with sexual molestation suggests a transformation in their standing. From
1989, Japan entered a prolonged recession that persisted and intensified into the late
1990s and which was not seen elsewhere in the developed world, turning Japan from
being apparently uniquely well-organised to uniquely dysfunctional. Other develop-
ments contributed to a perception that the very foundations of contemporary
Japanese authority were outmoded, notably the Hanshin earthquake and the gas
attack on the Tokyo subway. Such events, ‘. . .seemed not to occur individually but
to have cascaded, feeding on one another in the public imagination’ (Leheny 2006, p.
28). What were seen as inadequate responses to these events, developed into a
perceived failure of a dysfunctional state (Leheny 2006, p. 37).
In direct terms, the economic and political crisis has undermined the position of
Japanese men, for whom, ‘changes in employment relations have been nearly
catastrophic’ (Leheny 2006, p. 34). According to Iida (2005, p. 57), this is ‘a crisis of
patriarchy and the phallocentric masculine subject, which came to be increasingly
challenged by shifting gender power relations, assertions of new gender ideals
and intrusion of other destabilising factors to the patriarchal economy’.
The contemporary Japanese crisis may be more thoroughgoing than narrowly
economic, impacting not just upon oyaji themselves, but their salarymen masculinity,
and not just questioning their role, but even reacting against their physical being.
Reflecting an erosion of the basis for salarymen masculinity ‘as the archetypal
heterosexual husband/father and producer/provider’ (Dasgupta 2003, p. 120),
52 M. Horii and A. Burgess

younger Japanese have embraced alternative cultural images. In the 1990s, young
Japanese men began to be highly conscious about not only what they wear but also
what kind of bodies they have, in a rejection of the ‘bread winner’ masculinity
associated with an older generation of white collar men (Miller 2003, Iida 2005). The
late 1990s also saw the emergence of a new teenage female subculture which reacted
against the patriarchal idea of female beauty. One of them is called yamamba (or
mamba), practitioners of ganguro fashion characterised by blonde or orange hair and
tanned skin with white eye shadow and lips. This contrasts with the earlier female
ideal type known as kogyaru which: ‘portrayed combined images of cuteness,
innocence, independence, sexual assertiveness and defiance, obviously retaining the
fantasised image of sexy young girls created by corporate masculine culture of the
previous decade’ (Iida 2005, p. 65). The emergence of yamamba signifies Japanese
young women’s ‘clear departure from the long-reigning conformist feminine
aesthetics’, and their rejection of ‘the continuing patriarchal governance of gendered
identity’ (Iida 2005, p. 65). Women’s media portray images of foreign (nearly always
white) men and Japanese gay men as objects of desire and fascination (Kelsky 1999,
2001, McLelland 2003). These function as ‘a reflexive symbol in an indirect discourse
of complaint; a mirror against which the Japanese woman can reflect back the
deficiencies of [straight] Japanese men as lovers, husbands and friends’ (Kelsky 1996,
p. 184, quoted in McLelland 2003, p. 11). In more direct terms, these are
‘roundabout ways of criticising the men in their lives’.
In the popular discourse amongst young women, oyaji is disgusting so that the
term oyaji is often used in a more abstract way as an adjective, often without
denoting salarymen. For example, in her essays, a Japanese popular female writer,
Sonoda (quoted in Seko 2003, pp. 31–35) explains that oyaji means not only a
‘disgusting man’, but also an adjective for ‘dirty/unhygienic’, ‘male-dominated/
patriarchal’, ‘disorganised’, ‘bad taste’, ‘pervert’, ‘overconfident’ and so forth.
Similarly, in her critique of oyaji, Nakamura (2005) uses the term as an adjective for
‘lowly’ and ‘disgraceful’. Overall, in these usages, oyaji is employed to critique the
patriarchal structure of Japanese society. In short, everything negative about the
patriarchal order is denoted by the term oyaji. By rejecting patriarchal social order in
the name of oyaji, women conceptually locate themselves outside the male order. In
this sense, the term oyaji may symbolise a female desire to escape Japanese
patriarchy.

Conclusion
Women-only train carriages have been introduced in societies where the public realm
is dominated by men in order to provide women with a secure means of transport,
free from sexual interference. Responses to our survey indicate that the trend of
‘approval but non-use’, in the sense of female vulnerability and anti-male feeling, on
the one hand, and the sense of self-control and individualism, on the other, are
intertwined together. In this context, although women-only train carriages in
contemporary Japan were introduced as a means of addressing gender inequality, the
service is not necessarily used or supported in the intended manner. Although the
authority of Japanese corporate masculinity has been severely compromised,
discredited by the economic meltdown and crisis of state control of the 1990s, the
very existence of women-only train carriages symbolises the existing patriarchal
social order of Japan, in which the public realm is generally believed to be a
 Health, Risk & Society 53

‘dangerous’ place for women. When female vulnerability is perceived as a norm, sex
segregation can be regarded positively.
Having considered female discontent of patriarchal order of contemporary
Japanese society, and the wider issue of groping and women-only carriages, findings
of our survey could be interpreted in a different light. For example, the support for
and use of women-only carriages may be an indirectly expressed revulsion against
Japanese patriarchy. As well as the disgust against oyaji expressed in the language of
‘hygiene’, the notion of ‘danger’, implicit in over 60 comments made about general
personal safety, could be another way of expressing disgust. In this light, anxiety
over risk of being groped and perceived danger from men on the commuting train
are transformed by young women, consciously or unconsciously, into a discursive
practice to challenge the patriarchal order of Japanese society through both support
and use of women-only carriages.
It is unlikely that women can be practically empowered around assumptions of
female vulnerability and segregation. Following Gardner’s discussion of public
harassment against women in the US, the ideology of female vulnerability may be
‘pertinent to feminist concerns with the reification of the public/private split’ (1995,
p. 11). The removal of women to the last carriage of the train is evidently not only
highly inconvenient but also symbolic of a problem being marginalised rather than
confronted. It may even reinforce the notion that the public realm remains
predominantly male. Nevertheless, as our survey indicated, there are a significant
proportion of Japanese women on commuter trains who refuse to be segregated on
the basis of their strong individualism and their sense of self-control. By maintaining
their physical presence in the mixed sex environment, they may play a role in making
the currently patriarchal Japanese public realm more equal.

Acknowledgements
We acknowledge the support of the Sasakawa Foundation in funding the research and thank
our research assistants who carried out the fieldwork: Nanami Fukuda, Chie Ogawa,
Eiko Furuichi, Megumi Baba, Mayumi Oshima, Yukiko Shirahama, Chika Kotajima and
Yoshimi Osawa.

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