Petition protests magazine article ranking Japanese college girls by easy sex

Campaigners have launched a petition on Change.org in protest at a recent article by the weekly magazine Spa! that ranked female Japanese university students by how easy they are to sleep with.

The activists say: “Japan, stop objectifying, sexualizing and disrespecting and looking down on women.”

Demanding an apology and retraction of the “easy college girls ranking” article (titled “ヤレる女子大学生RANKING” in Japanese), the petition is presented in Japanese, English and Spanish.

Here is what the petition, which is led by Kazuna Yamamoto, says.

2018 was a year where women from all over the world fought for women’s rights so that our voices were delivered.

Japan will be having the first G20 summit this year, 2019, and it is ridiculous for an article such as this to be published. It’s not funny at all.

I would like to fight so that especially on public articles such as this one, sexualizing, objectifying and disrespecting women would stop.

We demand Shuukan Spa to take this article back and apologize, and promise to not use objectifying words to talk about women.

This sexualizing of women is not funny.

In Japan according to a study done by the Ministry of Justice, only 18.5% of the women report sexual assault or rape.
How about the leftover 81.5%?
They don’t speak up. Cannot speak up.

Why?

Because sexual assault, random guys touching your butt in public trains, having their crotch up your butt, rape, is something women have to deal with.

Because we use underaged girls in bikinis to fulfill the fetish of those who love baby faces.

Because we idolize young girls.

Because honestly, the society hasn’t changed ever since the time of comfort women.

Because men and women do not believe that we are worth the same as men.

In this world, 1 out of 5 women are raped or sexually assaulted before their 18th birthday.

According to the Ministry of Justice, only 1 out of 10 people actually get convicted after being sued for sexual assault.

In 2018, the world fought.

In some countries, abortion finally became legal.

100 year anniversary since Women got voting rights.

Women in Saudi Arabia were able to drive.

And using social media, people spoke up using #MeToo #NoWomenEver and, in South America, #NoEsNo and #AbortoLegalYa.

This year we will not only hold the G20 nor but the W20 (women 20)

We demand that the media stops using words to discriminate women, objectify women, disrespect women and sexualize women.

We, women are not less than men.

We are human too.

We do not LIVE for men.

We do not exist for men.

Let’s raise our voices because I am sick of this society where women are objects.

At the time of writing, the petition is close to its target of 25,000 and clearly will attract a strong response.

Yamamoto also made a video in English.

Critics might say that the article was meant a little in jest — or, even if it was not, it isn’t serious enough to merit a campaign, especially when there are so many similar or worse articles published in the weeklies, not to mention the gravure photo shoots that are sexualised to say the least.

Others might say that indeed, it is an unpleasant piece that shouldn’t have been published.

To be honest, we are not surprised by the article. It matches with the usual kind of content that Spa publishes, for better or worse, on a regular basis.

Incidentally, the “top five” in the Spa ranking were: Jissen Women’s University, Otsuma Women’s University, Ferris University, Hosei University, and Chuo University. We cannot verify its accuracy.

For more on the controversy, including the magazine’s response and some background behind why the original article was published, see this news report from the Japan Times.