Not sure about barbaric and abusive, but in gender equality terms, Japan was most recently (2012) ranked 101 out of 135 countries by the World Economic Forum [1], compared with 18 and 22 for the UK and US respectively. The index purports to:
benchmarks national gender gaps on economic, political, education- and health-based criteria
Citation needed. I've been working in Japan for 8 years, and I haven't experienced this kind of treatment from Japanese men at all.