Tomoko Kawabata

Hi, I'm Dr Tomoko Kawabata. My field of research is Sociology of Gender. I am interested in the system and the structure that repeat the violence against women, especially bullying and harassment caused by gender bias. The term "violence" here means all the forms of the violence that is not only physical violence but also psychological violence, neglect and financial violence. The degree of violence includes fromt the harassment to the attack by the individual and from the discrimination to the organized exclusion. I am especially interested in the reason why women become the easy targets of violence. So, I am interested not only in the men to women violence but also in the women to women violence. When I was a graduate student, I raised a question about the violence against women who support themselves by working as a sex worker in the Japanese sex industry. I was interested in the issues of violence in the private sphere such as the domestic violence, the child abuse and the abuse of the elderly people. Now, I am interested in the violence in the workplace such as the workplace harassment caused by the gender bias.