Japan's Comfort Women Read Online Free Page A

sense of moral identity and human responses. Finding the answer is not simple, as this subject is not just a matter of individual psychology or ethics. It is closely intertwined with the structure of the military and state organizations and various ideologies such as masculinity, racism, and nationalism. We therefore need to approach this subject from two different directions – from the actions and responsibility of individuals and from the power structure of the military and state political machines. While the present study focuses on Japan, these are, of course, issues that pertain not only to Japan at war but to many other nations whose reach extends beyond their borders.
    Japanese officers and enlisted men were not ordered or forced to abuse comfort women. They visited comfort stations by choice. Naturally, they were not punished for not using the “comfort service” organized by the military authorities. Clearly, this was a very different situation from cases in which soldiers were ordered to inflict violence on villagers or POWs, or to kill them. Crimes against POWs were in most cases carried out under orders, and soldiers could easily endanger their own lives by disobeying orders. The exploitation of comfort women, also a serious crime against humanity, was, however, a matter of personal choice, and in this sense, those Japanese men who chose to avail themselves of this facility undoubtedly bear personal responsibility for the crimes that they directly committed against the comfort women they used. Considered purely from a viewpoint of the “motive for the crime,” personal responsibility in this situation is far more serious than in instances in which soldiers acted under orders to commit atrocities.
    The question of the abuse of comfort women must be examined ultimately within the parameters of the intertwined ideologies of masculinity and militarism rather than exclusively within those of the Japanese military structure, even as we search for distinctive features of the Japanese system of sexual enslavement.
    In particular, it is imperative to closely analyze the symbolic parallel between the violation of a woman’s body and the domination over others (enemies) on the battlefield or through colonial institutions. The question that needs to be asked here is why men find it necessary to demonstrate their power in this manner, particularly in a war situation. The structure of the Japanese military organization must be examined in relation to this fundamental question – how its specific structure and ideology created a strong propensity among soldiers to abuse women.
    The answer to the question – why so many Japanese soldiers abused comfort
    Introduction
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    women – does not lie merely in a simple analysis of the organizational structure of the Japanese military.
    In a broader sense, the ideology of masculinity is intrinsically interrelated with racism and nationalism. The conquest of another race and colonization of its people often produce the de-masculinization and feminization of the colonized.
    Sexual abuse of the bodies of women belonging to the conquered nation symbol-izes the dominance of the conquerors. This helps us to understand why the majority of comfort women were from Korea – Japan’s colony at the time.
    Therefore, in order to understand the nature of this system of forced prostitution – unprecedented perhaps both in its cruelty and in the magnitude of a state-organized system of forced military prostitution – it is necessary to study the broad historical context of the colonization of Korea and the military occupation of other areas in Asia. This also requires examination of Japanese overseas prostitution business, which began in the late nineteenth century and preceded the development of the prostitution industry in colonial Korea.
    In the following chapters I will attempt to analyze these important issues and hope to reveal their complexity as well as to offer some useful guidance