By Ema Coleman (she/her)
Content warning: discussions of sexual harassment, sexual assault, and persecution of activists, mentions of child sexual abuse.
September 2025 marks the thirtieth anniversary of the 1995 World Conference on Women held in Beijing, where 189 governments pledged to take action against gender inequality. Although it was the fourth World Conference on Women, it was the first to take place in Asia. It exposed East Asia to women rights activism strategies, feminist theories, and overall gender equality ideals.
Despite Japan and China ratifying the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) in 1985 and 1980 respectively, the #MeToo movement (beginning in 2017) revealed some hard truths about ongoing sexual violence and harassment in both countries. #MeToo exposed the prevailing influence of socio-economic structures on perpetuating traditional gender roles in East Asian culture. In the years since, how have the two countries fared in responding to the #MeToo movement?
The differing responses of the two nations offers a case study for understanding how governance structures either amplify or silence survivors' voices. China's one-party state crackdown on the #MeToo movement contrasts Japan’s initial societal pushback followed by slow acceptance of discussions about sexual violence and harassment. This raises broader questions about women's rights under different political systems—questions that resonate far beyond Asia as democratic backsliding and fascism spreads worldwide.
China’s introduction to the #MeToo movement came in January of 2018. Feminists assigned the hashtag ‘Rice Bunny’ or 米兔, a Mandarin homophone for #MeToo. Huang Xueqin, a prominent feminist and freelance journalist, helped Luo XiXi post about the sexual assault she suffered as a PhD student at Beijing University using Huang Xueqin’s Wechat account called ASTH (Anti-Sexual Harassment). The post gained over 5 million hits. Campaigns in university campuses across China erupted, with hashtags such as #WriteToYourAlmaMaters and #MeTooZaiZhongguo.
However, Beijing's tolerance of feminist mobilisation ran out quickly. Censorship of online platforms was imposed nationwide. By 2021, authorities had arrested Huang alongside labor activist Wang Jianbing. Held in pretrial detention for two years, both activists were convicted of threatening national security by the Guangzhou Intermediate People’s court in September 2023 for hosting weekly gatherings where activists discussed civil society challenges. Xueqin was sentenced to five years in jail, while Jianbing was sentenced to three and a half years.
Under General Secretary Xi Jinping's consolidation of power and tightening of state control, women's rights activism has been systematically dismantled, with feminists arrested and organisations forced to shut down. The Chinese Government accused the #MeToo movement of anti-Chinese sentiment and representing foreign infiltration. As a result of national online censorship, arrests, and imprisonment of advocates, speaking out about sexual violence and harassment has become taboo.
Japan's trajectory reveals a treacherous, but ultimately more hopeful path. Shiori Ito went public in 2017, stating that she had been raped by journalist Noriyuki Yamaguchi, a man with close ties to then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. She faced devastating backlash. Death threats, victim-blaming, and legal obstacles seemed to validate critics who said Japan's patriarchal culture made #MeToo impossible.
Yet, civil society responded. Ito's civil lawsuit succeeded in 2019. Public protests erupted, including the ‘Flower Demo’ movement that spread across 33 prefectures. Japanese activists adapted the movement to local cultural values, creating hashtags like #WeToo and #WithYou that emphasised collective support over individual testimony. This cultural adaptation allowed the movement to take root within Japan's consensus-oriented society.
Most crucially, sustained advocacy led to landmark legal reforms in 2023: Japan raised its age of consent from 13 to 16 and redefined rape as ‘nonconsensual sexual intercourse’, finally eliminating the requirement to prove physical resistance.
Yet, feminists within Japan argue the definition of rape under the penal code remains too narrow. On March, 4th 2019, Japan's parliament publicly discussed the issue of sexual harassment within the political sector, and the need to critically look internally at the culture of sexual harassment and sexist commentary. Women lawmakers bring more issues such as domestic violence to the floor of the Japanese Legislature.
Japan is far from reaching gender equality. It is undeniable that patriarchy is embedded in Japanese society, with systematic legal protections for abusers. Police have been negligent, and social penalties are faced by survivors. Workplace harassment continues to be an issue, and underreporting is still prevalent. Silence is still the norm within Japanese society on sexual violence. A 2022 NHK survey showed that 74.6% of sexual violence victims were minors when they experienced the assault, revealing that sexual violence is not just common in Japan, but is centered on children as victims. The National Police Agency Report on Crime, conducted in 2023, found that 51.3% of sexual violence victims told no one about their assault, indicating that societal shame surrounds victims of sexual violence. However, the ability to conduct such research and advocate for change represents a fundamental difference from authoritarian systems where even documenting the problem becomes a crime.
In Japan, independent media can investigate abuse, and civil society can organise. In China, authoritarian crackdowns limit grassroots activism, and societal policy change is often limited to the top-down approach. The difference between China’s and Japan’s #Metoo movements is the ability to speak out against injustices. Democracies aren’t inherently less patriarchal—Japan's high workplace harassment rates, lack of female politicians, and systematic protection of abusers are still the norm —but they allow for contestation. Therefore, the civilian-led #MeToo movement instigated greater social change in Japan. With populism on the rise throughout the developed world, and democratic backsliding initiating limitations to freedoms, remembering the freedoms central to democracies should not be taken for granted.
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