“Deleting Partner’s Number” = “Domestic Violence”

Deleting someone’s details from a mobile phone now apparently constitutes a grievous act of domestic violence.

Masami Shinosaki, 70, a professor of sociology and gender studies and the chief researcher of the Kitakyushu Forum on Asian Women, a government-supported feminist foundation which concerns itself with “promoting the improvement of women’s status,” recently addressed 540 students at a Fukuoka high school regarding “date DV.”

She was keen to stress that “deleting your partner from your phone constitutes domestic violence,” although she did concede that “some people think it isn’t DV even if there is harm.”

Other heinous examples of domestic violence she pointed out included the “exchange of harsh words.”

There is some scepticism about her position amongst the wicked misogynists of 2ch:

“What!?”

“This is crazy!”

“So deleting a friend from your phone is domestic violence as well?”

“If you look it up this organisation is just a bunch of left-wing activists…”

“If the idea is just to be nice to your partner I don’t really see why it’s necessary to say it. If you can’t manage that now, you still won’t be able to manage it after being told.”

“It seems pretty normal to delete someone from your phone after you’ve fallen out?”

“Men and women who are dating always engage in these sort of tactics, you can’t just call it all DV. She probably has limited experience in these areas and thinks women should automatically be treated as princesses and their partners should behave as their servants.”

“Just be honest and call any refusal of a woman’s demands by a man DV.”

“I’m a victim of DV!”

“Refusing to marry someone would be DV by her definition…”

“Confessing your love to someone is DV then? How about refusing to go out with them?”

“That would be sexual harassment.”

“She just wants to bandy the term around as it’s so convenient a label. There’s no way there’s any actual DV occurring amongst a bunch of high schoolers.”

“This old fool doesn’t even know what the word ‘domestic’ means.”

“She really doesn’t know what it means… kids dating is not really the same as violence between two people living together.”

“It looks like her definition of DV is ‘anything which a upsets a woman’.”

“Surely she must mean fiddling with someone else’s phone?”

“She must want to say deleting mail addresses from your partner’s phone.”

“Right – the idiot who wrote up her speech just wrote it badly.”

“Surely not though – that isn’t DV at all, it’s violating someone’s privacy and quite possibly a crime.”

“She’s obviously talking about the psychological suffering you’d inflict on someone by deleting them from your phone.”

“Nobody understands what she means…”

“A 70-year-old like this really ought not to be going on about email and mobile phones.”

“Just some crazy leftist woman. She’ll always be a victim of something.”

“Really, it’s better not to get married. The DV laws we have now pretty much presume the man’s guilt if accused, and can include stuff like shouting at someone, ignoring them, or not giving them money.”

“Fukuoka’s even worse than Osaka these days.”

“Isn’t it normally women who delete people from their phones like that though?”

“I can’t believe these crazy gender equality foundations get funded with our taxes.”

“It’s another one of the ones which are backed by the Japan Christian Women’s Organization.”

“I have no partner to delete…”

“Why is a 70-year-old lecturing high school students about romance?”

Those wondering why men are now routinely reported to police for daring to interact with schoolgirls probably need look no further than the activities of such groups.