Just Interesting Somehow

I just happened across this controversy, and it ... I don't know, it just seemed funny. Here's the tip of the iceberg, from Japan:

A pioneer in gender studies and author of numerous books on the subject, Prof. Chizuko Ueno was to give a lecture on human rights in the city of Kokubunji. Her talk was vetoed in the planning stage due to pressure from the Tokyo Metropolitan government apparently because of fears that in her lecture she might use the words "gender-free," which are synonymous in Japan with "gender equal." The Tokyo Metropolitan government is on record as being opposed to the use of the term. Ueno sees the suppression of "gender free" as part of a conservative backlash against "the collapse of gender boundaries" by politicians such as Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara and LDP presidential hopeful Shinzo Abe. Ueno will speak at the FCCJ about her dispute with Ishihara and answer questions about the state of gender relations in Japan today.

Author of "Nationalism and Gender" (published by TransPacific Press 2004) Ueno is a prolific writer of both books and articles in Japanese. She has taught at Columbia University as well as universities in Canada, Germany and Mexico. Professional Luncheon: Political Backlash in Japan Against Gender Equality

Well, that is a ... very brief ... account. A fuller telling of the story is hidden behind a registration procedure that I didn't want to go through, but I did find a blogger who reproduced an article from the Japan Times Online. Here's some of it:

Last year's cancellation of lectures on human rights in Kokubunji, Tokyo, has pitted key feminist scholar Chizuko Ueno and free-speech advocates against conservatives in the Tokyo Metropolitan Government opposed to the use of "gender-free" -- a term whose definition varies but somehow conjures up negative images.

Experts say the cancellation reflects a backlash by conservative Japanese against the changing roles of men and women.

The Kokubunji Municipal Government planned last summer to hold 10 lectures on human rights -- a project sponsored by the metropolitan government -- and chose Ueno, a professor of women's studies at the University of Tokyo, to teach the course.

Metropolitan officials then pressured the western Tokyo suburb to ensure lecturers did not mention "gender-free" issues, according to both Tokyo and Kokubunji. The course was axed in August.

"I myself do not use the term gender-free, simply because it has not been adopted by most gender studies scholars in the international academic community," Ueno told reporters Monday.

She said she has no objection to other people using whatever terms they deem appropriate for promoting gender equality, but she strongly objects to official agencies banning the use of any words in public, unless they are discriminatory or hate-generating expressions.

Since the mid-1990s in Japan, "gender-free," which has been interchangeable with "gender equality," carries the concept of being free from sexual differences in a social and cultural context.

But some quarters regard gender-free as a denial of the differences between males and females, and of traditional family values, and as a way to promote what they consider radical sex education.

The ruling Liberal Democratic Party [this is the name of the conservative party in Japan? JimK] said it has received 3,500 reports of alleged "gender-free" activities that were deemed problematic.

According to the LDP's Web site, schools have had fifth-graders of both sexes share the same sleeping quarters on trips and conducted sex education classes using dolls with sex organs, drawing complaints for being too radical. The Tokyo government also claimed teachers had male and female students undergo medical checkups together.

The metropolitan board of education announced in August 2004 that Tokyo would not use the term "gender-free" in its activities, claiming the concept is sometimes misused to ignore the fact that men and women are different.

The metropolitan government thus told Kokubunji that it would not sponsor the course if the city was not sure if Ueno would avoid the term, said Shinichi Egami of Tokyo's Office of Education.

But Tetsuo Saito, director of the Kokubunji-run Honda Community Center who was in charge of planning the lectures, said he told metropolitan officials he believed Ueno would not take up "gender-free" because the theme was human rights.

Saito said he voluntarily dropped the course because Tokyo officials remained unconvinced that the concept would not be broached.

Can you imagine living in society where the city cancels a speech because the speaker just might use a term that conservatives don't approve of? Even when the speaker doesn't like the term and doesn't plan to use it, and the term doesn't mean what they say it means anyway?

Can you imagine that?