Over the past six months, media organizations at home and abroad have published articles that have examined whether or not Japan has embraced the Me Too movement.
The social media campaign, which encouraged victims of sexual assault and harassment to speak up about their experiences, initially failed to gain much traction in Japan, and it wasn’t until journalist Shiori Ito made certain allegations in public against a former bureau chief for TBS Television that it caught the general public’s attention.
The Mainichi Shimbun, however, recently wondered whether Japan could actually have pushed this agenda a little earlier, taking advantage of the fact that the Japanese term for groping — chikan — has become something of an internationally recognized term.
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