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September 20, 2005
Workshop 1: Thinking about Methodological Applications into Gender and Crime Studies in Japan
Friday, October 14th 5:30 p.m.-6:30 p.m. @ 1114 Social Sciences
Presenter: Chie Michihiro (Public Policy)
Abstract
Criminal Court Response to Violence Against Women and Girls in Singapore: A Content Analysis of Newspaper Reporting, 2000-2003
My Japan Studies Workshop presentation will consider one methodological application into “Gender and Crime” studies in Japan. My research highlights the importance of understanding contexts of a specific society in analyzing criminal courts’ responses to violence against women and girls. I took Singapore – a politically “strong” nation-state with similarly traditional gender role and family expectations to Japan – as a case to analyze the relationship between domestic violence sentencing and victim’s marital status. An analysis of Singapore revealed that the Singaporean government utilizes the family values rhetoric that emphasizes maintenance of marriage in the discourse of nation building. The family values rhetoric and the punitive criminal justice system shaped how the criminal courts treat marital intimate partner violence. I conducted a quantitative analysis of crime news of violence against women and girls collected from a Singaporean newspaper from 2000-2003. The result with the Singaporean data indicates that the criminal court judges might believe that it was more important to protect marriage than to protect the victims. I discuss a possibility of applying this research methodology into “criminal court and violence against women” study in Japan and South Korea with the Japan Studies Workshop participants. Considering similarities of gender role expectations & family values, strong state initiatives in this area, and recent alarms from the international communities (e.g. the United Nation’s CEDAW) to the governments in Singapore and Japan, I predict similar historical trends in the criminal courts treatment of marital intimate partner violence in Japan.
Posted by at September 20, 2005 11:58 AM | Presentation Abstracts