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Whose Comfort?
In recent years, international attention has been recurrently drawn to violence against civilians including sexual violence during war as a means of furthering military or political goals. The ongoing issue of comfort women has been debated not only among Asian countries including Japan, Korea, China, Indonesia, and the Philippines but also in numerous international forums.
This book examines the system of military comfort women in Asia and the Pacific created and maintained by Japan during World War II. It uses the comfort women system as a lens for exploring the ways in which body, sexuality and identity are deployed in the creation of patriarchal relations, ethnic hierarchies, and colonial/nationalist power. This book analyzes the role and nature of the comfort women system as a mechanism of social control by the colonial state. This requires the examining of sexuality and body politics, the social background of the victims, wartime working conditions, and regulation of soldiers' sexuality.
This book aims to contribute to both the academic community and the community of civic groups through a work that spans the dimensions of history, theory and activism.
This book examines the system of military comfort women in Asia and the Pacific created and maintained by Japan during World War II. It uses the comfort women system as a lens for exploring the ways in which body, sexuality and identity are deployed in the creation of patriarchal relations, ethnic hierarchies, and colonial/nationalist power. This book analyzes the role and nature of the comfort women system as a mechanism of social control by the colonial state. This requires the examining of sexuality and body politics, the social background of the victims, wartime working conditions, and regulation of soldiers' sexuality.
This book aims to contribute to both the academic community and the community of civic groups through a work that spans the dimensions of history, theory and activism.
196 pages, Hardcover
Published October 12, 2019
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
June 9, 2023
...women, not as silenced being shamed by sexual atrocity, but as actors demonstrating their resilience...
I remember seeing this book during my first year at uni and taking a mental note to read it later. So I am really happy to have remebered this just after I finished uni but still have access to the uni library.
The reason why I found this book really impressive is that it gave us more understanding of how the Japanese soldiers understand this topic and their thoughts of it while it during WWII. I always wondered what exactly went througt these soldiers' minds, why were they okay with this. This book shows through interviews of said soldiers, that the Japanese Army heavily promoted being aggressive to compensate for the lack of war tech. So this explains why in a way, acting less and less compassionatelly was becoming the norm for these soldiers. Also, the fact that those soldiers who did not want to participate in sexual violance against the Korean 'comfort wonen' were shunned, thus technically some were even peer-pressured. Now of course this does not justify their actions, but at least now I have some answers.
I also found it interesting how this book humanised the soldiers, showed that having to participate in war has caused trauma to them as well. This trauma also led to 'trauma-bonding' with the 'comfort women' which I never even thought was possible.
And finally, I have read a lot of papers on the topic of 'comfort women' so a lot of the information on them were already something I knew, but I found it very empowering that this book highlights that these women were not only victims incapable to resist. I'll let a sentence from the book explain what I mean: This redefinition could be useful in overcoming representation of women as nothing more than defenceless victims of male and colonial violance. In this way we can begin to view the women, not as silenced being shamed by sexual atrocity, but as actors demonstrating their resilience within the limited space they had for agency
The reason I couldn't give this book 5 stars is that in some areas where the main focus wasn't on analising the women's or soldiers' testimonies, the author injected thoughts that I felt like were far fetched. Such as when she was suggessting that Japanese soldiers were being both masculanised and feminised in the army. The reason she says they were feminised is because of the aspects such as 'self-sacrifice' and 'obidience' the soldiers had to display, which according to the book is femine traits. That I think is highly innaccurate to have traits that are equally belonging to both genders be classed as men being feminised.
I remember seeing this book during my first year at uni and taking a mental note to read it later. So I am really happy to have remebered this just after I finished uni but still have access to the uni library.
The reason why I found this book really impressive is that it gave us more understanding of how the Japanese soldiers understand this topic and their thoughts of it while it during WWII. I always wondered what exactly went througt these soldiers' minds, why were they okay with this. This book shows through interviews of said soldiers, that the Japanese Army heavily promoted being aggressive to compensate for the lack of war tech. So this explains why in a way, acting less and less compassionatelly was becoming the norm for these soldiers. Also, the fact that those soldiers who did not want to participate in sexual violance against the Korean 'comfort wonen' were shunned, thus technically some were even peer-pressured. Now of course this does not justify their actions, but at least now I have some answers.
I also found it interesting how this book humanised the soldiers, showed that having to participate in war has caused trauma to them as well. This trauma also led to 'trauma-bonding' with the 'comfort women' which I never even thought was possible.
And finally, I have read a lot of papers on the topic of 'comfort women' so a lot of the information on them were already something I knew, but I found it very empowering that this book highlights that these women were not only victims incapable to resist. I'll let a sentence from the book explain what I mean: This redefinition could be useful in overcoming representation of women as nothing more than defenceless victims of male and colonial violance. In this way we can begin to view the women, not as silenced being shamed by sexual atrocity, but as actors demonstrating their resilience within the limited space they had for agency
The reason I couldn't give this book 5 stars is that in some areas where the main focus wasn't on analising the women's or soldiers' testimonies, the author injected thoughts that I felt like were far fetched. Such as when she was suggessting that Japanese soldiers were being both masculanised and feminised in the army. The reason she says they were feminised is because of the aspects such as 'self-sacrifice' and 'obidience' the soldiers had to display, which according to the book is femine traits. That I think is highly innaccurate to have traits that are equally belonging to both genders be classed as men being feminised.
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