Japan, it seems, is forever discriminating against someone. Women, ethnic minorities, sexual minorities, lifestyle minorities, the disabled, part-time workers — all have made claims against a state and a national psychology that define acceptability very narrowly relative to most other developed societies. Who in this country isn't discriminated against? Heterosexual able-bodied Japanese males?
No, they too are victims, and a headline introducing a report on the subject in the weekly Aera is accorded two exclamation points: "Discrimination against men is unforgivable!!"
Almost every week, the magazine tells us, angry men demonstrate outside one or another JR train station on Tokyo's Yamanote loop line. The numbers are not imposing — 10 participants are counted at one rally — but the placards are big and bold: "This affects all of us. Men's rights are being violated!"