Language, respect and the power of protest: Linguistic stereotyping and people with disabilities in Japan

Discriminatory language became an important social issue in the west in the late twentieth century, when debates on political correctness and minority rights focused largely on the issue of respect in language. Japan is often criticized for having made only token attempts to address this issue. This paper investigates how one marginalized group—people with disabilities—has dealt with discriminatory and disrespectful language. The debate has been played out in four public spaces: the media, the law, literature, and the Internet. The paper discusses the kind of language, which has generated protest, the empowering strategies of direct action employed to combat its use, and the response of the media, the bureaucracy, and the literati. Government policy has not kept pace with social change in this area; where it exists at all, it is often contradictory and far from clear. I argue that while the laws were rewritten primarily as a result of external international trends, disability support groups achieved domestic media compliance by exploiting the keen desire of media organizations to avoid public embarrassment. In the absence of language policy formulated at the government level, the media effectively instituted a policy of self-censorship through strict guidelines on language use, thereby becoming its own best watchdog. Disability support groups have recently enlisted the Internet as an agent of further empowerment in the ongoing discussion of the issue.

Who are the new two earner households?

This paper is an analysis of the characteristics of two earner households in which both partners are in full-time employment and there are young dependent children. ABS data show that this household type has increased substantially over the last two decades. The paper uses the HILDA data to investigate the demographic and social characteristics of this group and the differences between them and the more traditional breadwinner household forms. The aim is to understand what characteristics encourage couples with dependent children to pursue full-time employment compared to couples who opt for other strategies. The paper uses a combination of descriptive methods and statistical modeling to identify socioeconomic and attitudinal differences amongst couples. The findings are discussed in light of recent policy directions that encourage women with young children to remain at home or to work part-time.