Beyond embarrassingly cheap and infuriatingly cheap, is it possible to be abusively cheap?

The Gender Equality Bureau is an agency withing the Japanese government’s Cabinet Office. As you’d probably expect, one of the issues the burau is concerned with is domestic violence, and as part of the public awareness materials on the organization’s official website asserts that the definition of “violence” is broader than just the physical variety.

“These are all violence” states a chart on the website which contains four categories. Examples for “psychological violence” include yelling, disrespecting, or ignoring a romantic partner. “Physical violence,” obviously, covers things like punching, hair-pulling, and throwing objects with the intent to harm. The section for “sexual violence” lists scenarios such as coerced intercourse, refusal to cooperate with birth control methods, and forcing a partner to view pornography. Finally, “economic violence” is defined as actions such as using a partner’s money without their permission, or borrowing money but refusing to pay it back.

However, one example of economic violence that the Gender Equality Bureau lists is raising eyebrows and questions online in Japan right now: “Not paying any dating expenses at all.”

▼ Is this scene about to erupt into economic violence?

While the chart itself doesn’t make any mention of gender, slightly farther down on the same page the Gender Equality Bureau cites statistics that “One in five women has been the victim [of domestic violence] from a romantic partner,” which could give one the impression that the chart is implying that men who don’t pay for dates are perpetrating domestic violence. On the other hand, recent Japanese Twitter reactions such as the ones below show that the chart could also be interpreted as saying that it’s domestic violence for a woman to have a guy she goes out with pay for everything.

“Wait, so does this mean that all woman who say ‘You’re the guy, so you should pay for everything?’ are domestic abusers?”
“There really are a lot of women committing acts of domestic violence then, aren’t there?”
“I know you don’t want to be thought of as a domestic abuser by the Cabinet Office, so please pay half the bill.”
“Does this mean that a girl saying ‘You’re the guy, so you’re supposed to pay for everything’ is the same as a guy saying ‘If you agreed to go on a date, that means you agreed to go to a hotel’?”

The chart itself has actually been on the agency’s website since March of 2018, but this is the second time this year for this particular Gender Equality Bureau example of domestic violence to cause a stir, following another uptick in attention back in the spring. At that time, a representative for the burau spoke with media outlet J-Cast News to clarify the organization’s position, saying:

“Both men and women can be victims of this kind of violence. Someone not paying for a date doesn’t immediately qualify as domestic violence. Unilaterally forcing the other person to pay is what can be thought of as domestic violence. So depending on the relationship between the two people, it’s a case-by-case sort of situation.”

The representative added “If both sides are OK with it [one person not paying], it’s not domestic violence.” The representative also pointed out that the bureau’s mage of economic violence does include such retroactive financial coercion as “If we’re going to break up, then you have to pay me back for the expensive sushi restaurant I treated you at!”

▼ Once the love is gone, so too is the chance to get paid back for that high-end fish.

So in the end, cheapness alone isn’t enough to make someone an abuser in the eyes of the Gender Equality Bureau, and the litmus test isn’t so much an unwillingness to open one’s own wallet as it is trying to force someone else to open theirs. With the chart’s current phrasing having already caused some confusion multiple times, though, it seems like a rewrite of that part might be in order.

Source: Gender Equality Bureau Cabinet Office, Twitter/@sumomodane via Hachima Kiko, J-Cast News
Top image: Pakutaso
Insert images: Pakutaso (1, 2)
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