Please Introduce Yourself!
Hello! My name is Natsumi Saito. I am a junior in Soka University in Japan and my major is law. Currently, I belong to the International Peace and Diplomacy Course in which I am studying multilateral issues with various aspects. Since when I was little, I have grown up suffering from differences from other girls. It was almost impossible for other girls to understand my characteristic. I do not like"girlish" staff and I prefer being alone rather than being together, so I could not get along with them very well. Sometimes people said that you had better being more like a ‘girlish’; but as if I was denied and it was very painful for me. Today, I feel the importance of recognising my personality without despairing myself, but approximately twenty years has passed to reach here. There is still sadness that I could not spend my beautiful youth. If I go abroad, once you run away from Japan, my personality would be easily accepted. However, I don't want other Japanese to go through what I went through. Thus, I want to change Japan even a little in ISC. I am glad to be able to participate in the ISC this year and I will try my best as much as I can.
What is your Table Topic?
What do you think about your table topic so far and what is the goal of your table?
Our table topic is ‘hetrosexism’.
I think that the fundamental cause of hetrosexism is people adopt the prescribed "norm". That is a troublesome problem because ‘norm’ is made naturally outside our consciousness and the ‘norm’ is established with our images.
Do you have an following images in gender? When you imagine a children’s school bag, do you have an image that boys are carrying black or the colour of that lineage and the girls are carrying red or that kinds of colour? Do you have an image that work force and the research job is work for male, on the other hand do the cabin attendant and the receptionist have an image of the work for women? Those images are still remains deeply in Japan. It reveal that you live in the "norm" society decided by images. This "norm" occurs because of socially binding all human beings to ‘male’ or ‘female’.
Likewise, people are recognised loving opposite sex as a ‘norm’, for hetrosexism is natural images for people. This ‘norm’ will make the people’s stereotypes more intimidating and threatening. As long as we live in this ‘norm’, it is clearly visible that LGBT+ people are more likely socially excluded. If we can remove this ‘norm’, I think that all people around the world can aim to become a big one community beyond the ‘norm’.
