hankyoreh

Ewha Womans University Professor Emeritus Kim Eun-shil. (Kang Sung-man/Hankyoreh)

A new book presents a response by feminist intellectuals in Korea to the issue of suffering experienced by the victims of the Japanese military’s ‘comfort women’ system, in the hopes that we might be able to usher the “comfort women” issue to the next stage of questions.

That’s according to one of the book’s authors, Ewha Womans University Professor Emeritus Kim Eun-shil. 

“For three decades, the aging victims of the Japanese military ‘comfort women’ [system] have had to speak over and over [about their victimization] to prove that they were victimized. Intellectuals who have heard their accounts have an obligation to respond to them,” Kim said. 

Kim is one of several women’s studies scholars who recently co-authored the book “‘Comfort Women’: The Responsibility for Further Debate” (Humanist).

Kim received a master’s in anthropology at the University of California, San Francisco. After returning to South Korea in 1993, she gained the attention of the academic community with her article, “Women and Discourses of Nationalism.” She pointed out that the discourse around “comfort women” was being overwhelmed by ethnonationalist narratives, arguing for a feminist perspective. “‘Comfort Women’: The Responsibility for Further Debate,” augmented by the subtitle, “Going Beyond the Hostile Coexistence of Ethnonationalism and Absurd Statements,” this book continues the discussion sparked by Kim’s paper 31 years ago. 

The Hankyoreh met with Kim at Ewha Womans University's Korean Women’s Institute on Aug. 22. 

The book was co-authored by 11 scholars in total, including professors Kwon Eun-sun of Joongbu University and Kim-Shin Hyun-kyung of Seoul Women’s University. 

In an essay titled “Between Yamashita and Yon’e,” Professor Yon'e Yamashita of Tokyo’s Bunkyo University wrote, “By focusing on the nationalist perspective and the narrative of ethnonationalist victimization, the comfort women movement in the 1990s made it difficult to focus on the victims as people who had suffered sexual violence.” 

“The pain they [comfort women] suffered cannot be reduced to a part of the greater suffering of the Korean nation under colonization,” Yamashita wrote. 

Because the psychological trauma the victims suffered is less visible than physical trauma, it’s harder to identify. Yamashita argued that the more we smother the comfort women issue under the grand blanket of an ethnonationalist narrative, the more difficult it will be to understand.

The cover of “‘Comfort Women’: The Responsibility for Further Debate.”

Chung Hee-jin, a former visiting professor at Ewha Womans University, pointed out the excessive focus on the involuntary nature of the comfort women’s mobilization into sex work. “Even now, the comfort women movement has to continually defend and prove the position that the victims were forcibly recruited into sex work instead of being hired under voluntary contracts,” Chung writes.

 “The discernment between voluntary and involuntary is an illusion under the continued legacy of gender-based violence against women, women going about their lives under a patriarchal system,” Chung continued. 

An “excessive focus on forced recruitment erases the lives of the individual victims,” she went on. 

In an essay titled “How Our Grandmothers’ Stories Are Being Commodified,” professor Heo Yoon of Pukyong National University took a critical view of the movement to erect Statue of Peace monuments, which has been gaining momentum in the face of opposition from the Japanese government. Heo argued that the reproduction of the portrait of a young, virginal girl has resulted in an archetype, making it difficult to think of comfort women victims as anything but young, innocent girls. 

In the book’s foreword, “Reexamining Wartime Sexual Violence,” Kim argues that the Allies (the US, the UK, and the Soviet Union) failed to address the comfort women issue as war crimes during the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, also known as the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal (1946-48), and should be held responsible for this neglect. 

“There are numerous references to ‘comfort stations’ in the documents submitted during the Tokyo Trials,” Kim writes, arguing that demanding accountability from the Allies could lead to a solution for the diplomatic stalemate between South Korea and Japan regarding the comfort women issue.  

“The ‘comfort women’ issue is one of wartime sexual violence, which is a war crime. Sweeping it under the rug of moving past the Japanese occupation has made it difficult to address within the context of South Korea-Japan relations. I believe that, with help from Japanese peace activists and researchers, it is possible to hold the Allies accountable. In the process, we can shed light on Japan’s various war crimes that were not properly addressed after World War II.”  

Exactly 10 years ago, Kim claimed that “colonialism and ethnonationalism are roadblocks in South Korea’s path to becoming an open society.” 

Kim said that this book was “born out of the idea of reexamining the comfort women issue from a postcolonial feminist perspective.”

When questioned about what an “open society” means, Kim answered, “As a feminist, I talk about women. But there are many differences of all kinds in the world. There are issues pertaining to those on the outside and the fringes. But the ethnonationalist discourse is so powerful in Korea that it’s difficult to discuss the various internal differences.”

Regarding the problems caused by ethnonationalist narratives overwhelming the comfort women issue, Kim said, “The comfort women issue has been placed as one agenda item under a larger issue of reparations for Japan’s colonial occupation. Consequently, the conversation has focused almost exclusively on the forced mobilization of the victims as sex workers. Yes, there were involuntary contracts and forced mobilization, but exclusively focusing on that makes the victims nothing more than symbols of the suffering of the Korean people under colonization. It makes it difficult to look at the victims as individual women and not as an example of the Korean people’s suffering or as a symbol. I think the issue should be approached from the stance that Japan perpetrated sex crimes by treating women as standard-issue rations for their soldiers.” 

Hasn’t the comfort women movement served a positive influence in deepening the public consciousness regarding feminism? 

“Rather than contributing to the cause, I’d say the movement has asked very important questions. It’s a clear case of government intervention and state violence, because Japan’s public resources and administration were mobilized to distribute women as military goods to ‘comfort’ their troops. Regardless of whether the women went voluntarily or involuntarily, the comfort women issue is critical to feminists, as it demonstrates how a fascist country, its military and its capital, mobilized and distributed women. It also demonstrates the vulnerability of women during wartime. Going further, it highlights the vulnerability of women during peacetime, and is intimately connected to the larger issue of sexual violence.” 

Kim wrote her doctoral dissertation on the authority of the modern Korean nation and how the medical discourse on women’s bodies impacted Korean women’s bodies through family planning policies. So how, then, did she become interested in the comfort women issue? 

“After returning from my studies abroad, I started to think that Korean feminism was being censored according to our ethnonationalist narratives. In 1993, during an academic conference to commemorate the 10-year anniversary of the Korea Association of Women’s Studies, I spoke about women in the context of this ethnonationalist narrative. I was then approached by a veteran in Korean women’s studies, who asked me, ‘So should we not be proud of or talk about the Korean people?’ Another researcher argued, ‘The Korean people are bigger than the subsection of women, so the issue of the Korean people should be dealt with first.’ My answer was that Korea’s ethnonationalist narrative that it was proclaiming to the outside world was suppressing and controlling dissenting voices internally, that the nationalist discourse was becoming an authoritative force that assimilated all other internal differences. To me, the comfort women issue is one of women’s rights, one that represents resistance to war and crimes against humanity.”

Kim hopes that this book will contribute to diversifying the conversation and debate about comfort women. We asked her what she wishes to say most to the people at the forefront of the comfort women movement.

“The Korean Council for Justice and Remembrance for the Issues of Military Sexual Slavery by Japan, which leads the movement, is a coalition of different activist and civic groups. In the early stages of the movement, there was a coalition of various groups who united under the concept of receiving reparations from Japan for its colonial occupation. These various activist groups formed a coalition based on the idea that the sexual oppression of the comfort women was just another example of Japan’s suppression of the Korean people. Naturally, the nationalist narrative and colonialism are important parts of the comfort women issue. However, we need to go deeper. We need to look outside the box to seek groups and researchers who represent a greater variety of perspectives and methodologies. It’d be nice if people in the movement viewed this as a natural evolution of the movement.” 

By Kang Sung-man, senior staff writer

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