In recent years, it has become something of a trend in Japan to combine the suffix "hara," the katakana abbreviation of the English word "harassment," with various words to describe newly recognized types of harassment. Thus the term "matahara" (the "mata" coming from "maternity") refers to the harassment of pregnant women. "Aruhara" is the pressure to drink alcohol, and "patahara" is the harassment of men who choose to take paternity leave.

"Pawahara," or "power harassment," is another such coinage, though it's a little older, dating back to around 2003. "Power harassment" isn't a term in English (except as a loanword from Japanese), and it refers to what English-speakers might call bullying or abuse of authority. It's used for the boss who screams at his staff and makes unreasonable work demands, or the company that assigns someone meaningless work as a punishment for perceived insubordination.

Power harassment has been getting a lot of attention in Japan recently due to a confluence of three factors, the first being changing mores. Simply put, younger people are no longer willing to put up with workplace behaviors that were tolerated by previous generations. As one of my 50-something Japanese clients puts it, "Younger people today may complain about how their bosses treat them, but when I was their age my boss would throw his ashtray at me."