<p>This paper examines the semantics of Japanese generic sentences that involvereference to gender stereotypes and considers how they possibly contribute to thepresence and perpetuation of sexual harassment. The main strategy of the paper is,first, to uncover the possible ways in which sentences that contain the explicit deonticmodal expression in Japanese beki (roughly corresponding to ought) contributeto the cases of hostile environment sexual harassment, and second, to compare theexplicitly modal sentences and generic sentences that contain no explicit modal inorder to show that the latter also express modal, normatively laden contents. As astandard theory of deontic modality, I apply Angelika Kratzer's analysis of ought toJapanese sentences containing beki. For the sake of concrete illustration, I also introduceAsher and Morreau's (1995) analysis of generics and extend it to Japanese examples.The comparison shows that, insofar as the uses of explicitly normative sentencessuch as "All women ought to wear a skirt" contribute to hostile environmentharassment, implicitly normative sentences such as "Women wear a skirt" make asimilar, if not equal, contribution to the legitimization of gender-specific norms. Thepaper concludes with the suggestion that we pay more attention to generic sentenceswith gender-specific terms, and that we use explicit quantifiers and singularterms more often than not to avoid ambiguity and possible inadvertent consequences.</p>