The weekly magazine Spa has apologized for an article it published in December that ranked universities in terms of how easy it is to get their female students into bed. The article generated backlash but the apology was issued in response to a petition that had been drawn up in protest.
The petition was organized by Kazuna Yamamoto, a student at the International Christian University in Tokyo. In an interview with the BBC, Yamamoto, who is Japanese but grew up mostly overseas, explained that she purposely launched the petition in English because she wanted its message to be heard by more internationally aware Japanese people — those who had lived overseas like her or otherwise had broad contacts with the international community — so as to exert pressure on Spa "from the outside," the implication being that had she addressed Spa's sexist purview in Japanese she would have had a harder time making an impression.
When the BBC interviewer asked her about the reaction among Japanese women in general, she said they weren't pushing back at all. The international #MeToo movement to resist sexual aggression, she said, had yet to enjoy the same level of awareness and involvement in Japan. The interview didn't allow for a detailed discussion of why Japanese women do not actively fight sexual aggression. Yamamoto boiled it down to conformity with social mores.