3. Navigating the Boundary between Subjection and Agency

This chapter explores the pervasive problem of gender-based violence (GBV) within the Japanese popular music industry, a sector that is at once deeply culturally vibrant and informed by patriarchy. Indeed, with Japan ranking very low on global indexes of gender equality, the hyper-gendered norms and power imbalances entrench the male dominance in this industry, especially within genres such as rock and hip-hop. Using Liz Kelly’s “continuum of violence,” this paper analyses how GBV works in subtle, yet pervasive forms, starting from sexist comments to systemic objectification, thereby normalizing the unequal power relation. Despite global momentum, spearheaded by #MeToo in several other cultural contexts, scholarship and policy work on GBV in the music world remains scant within Japan, leaving many issues invisible. Drawing on qualitative interviewing with musicians-industry professionals, this chapter explores enabling discursive and normative structures/cultural conditions linked to GBV in the industry, such as hierarchical mentor-mentorship relationships engendered between men, and commodifying women within male idol systems. The following sections focus on the voices of women who survive in this patriarchal industry by both confronting, resisting and adapting to these constraints. This contribution attempts to bridge the silence in academia on GBV in Japan’s music industry while offering a much-needed nuanced understanding of its causes from a social perspective and locating this within broader debates on gender inequalities in creative industries.