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Charitsumo
Sexism in Japan


A set of illustrations done for Charitsumo, a website dedicated to spreading awareness of various social issues in Japan. This particular series looks into the seriousness of sexism in Japan by the numbers.



31.3% of women in Japan have experienced domestic violence. Japan is the only country where a married couple is legally obliged to use the same surname. 96% of women adopt their husband's surname when getting married. For a two-income households, women spend 4 hrs54mins a day doing house chores while men spend 46mins on average. Only 13.3% of Supreme Court Justices in Japan are female (2 out of 15) In 2015, 674 female students dropped out of school "voluntarily" after getting pregnant. No data of male students involved with pregnancy was found. In average, there are 443 abortions in Japan per day. Although abortion is legal in Japan, it is very restricted. Medical abortion is not available, and even to get a surgical abortion, it is very expensive and one needs the consent of the father. The age of consent in Japan is 13 years old, one of the lowest in the world. This number has not changed since 1907. There were 2777 reported cases of groping in Japan in 2018. About 10% of this happened on subways, but most cases of groping still remains unreported.
© 2020 Natsumi Chikayasu