The Place of "Comfort Women" in the Japanese Historical Revisionism
About the Topic
The post-Cold War era facilitated the rise of neo-nationalism in Japan. A group of historians, labeling themselves "liberal," formed a forum in 1996 to counter two dominant post-war historical narratives they deemed "masochistic" or self-blaming: the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal's view of Japan as a war criminal, and the left-wing perspective, supported by international communism, which framed Japan as an imperialist aggressor in Asia. These historians sought to transcend the post-war binary opposition between left and right, mirroring the Cold War divide between East and West. Ironically, their self-proclaimed "liberal" stance aimed to restore national pride, distancing themselves from both political extremes while justifying Japan’s wartime actions as a forced but noble effort to liberate Asia.
This neo-nationalist trend emerged against a backdrop of economic and social instability. Following the collapse of Japan’s "Bubble economy" in 1991, the country faced a prolonged recession and growing competition from rising Asian economies. Amidst this economic anxiety and social insecurity, neo-nationalism gained traction, particularly among younger generations. The forum advocated for "more liberal" history textbooks to instill national pride in future generations, framing their campaign as a grassroots movement.
Historical Context and Key Events
The rise of neo-nationalism coincided with a pivotal moment in 1991, when Kim Haksoon, a survivor of Japan’s military "comfort women" system during World War II, publicly testified about her experiences. She sued the Japanese government for a formal apology and individual compensation. In 1993, the Japanese government acknowledged the imperial army’s involvement in organizing military prostitution and agreed to include a brief mention of "comfort women" in state-approved history textbooks. This decision sparked fierce opposition from the neo-nationalist forum, turning the "comfort women" issue into a symbolic battleground in historical discourse—a Japanese counterpart to Germany’s Historikerstreit (historians' debate).
The paradigm shift in viewing sexual violence—from victim-blaming to recognizing it as a crime against women—preceded Kim Haksoon’s testimony. International feminism in the 1980s had already begun problematizing sexual violence under military dictatorships and condemning sex tourism, particularly by Japanese men. Korean feminist activism played a crucial role in encouraging survivors to speak out, with Kim Haksoon breaking her silence after more than half a century. This shift ensured her testimony was heard, though the facts she revealed were not new; soldiers had documented their interactions with comfort women in journals and memoirs without shame. However, the issue had never been framed as sexual violence against women due to three key factors:
- Victimized women remained silent due to stigma within their communities, often hiding their experiences even from family.
- Brutal male sexuality was tolerated as "natural," justifying military rape and prostitution.
- The Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal ignored the issue (except in local tribunals addressing sexual slavery of Dutch women), and Allied forces also exploited Japanese women for "Recreation Army" services during occupation.
Kim Haksoon’s testimony delivered a double shock: first, the brutality of forced sexual servitude, and second, the enforced silence endured for over 50 years. Confucianist patriarchy in both Korea and Japan perpetuated this silence, making the crime a present-day issue rather than a historical one. Neo-nationalists further compounded the injustice by dismissing the testimonies as voluntary prostitution, negating the women’s agency and framing the debate around coercion versus choice.
The "Comfort Women" System and Racial Hierarchies
The term "comfort women" is a euphemism used by the Japanese imperial army to obscure the forced nature of military prostitution. The system expanded significantly after the Nanjing Massacre in 1937 for three primary reasons:
- To prevent soldiers from committing rapes, which were criminalized under military code and risked provoking resistance among occupied populations.
- To maintain hygiene, as venereal diseases spread among soldiers.
- To keep soldiers isolated from local women to protect military secrets.
Korean women were deemed most suitable for this system and were mobilized through force, deception, or financial coercion. The "comfort women" system enforced a racial hierarchy: Japanese women (recruited as professional prostitutes) served officers, while Korean women (often without prior experience) were assigned to lower-ranking soldiers. This racial double standard was evident in the organization of sexual services. The total number of mobilized women remains unclear—estimates range from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands—due to the intentional destruction of military documents, the absence of passenger records (women were treated as "military goods"), and the high mortality rate among women abandoned in battlefields.
Gender Regimes and Imperial Subjectivity
The Japanese empire during wartime applied distinct gender regimes to the mainland and colonies. Japanese women were idealized as chaste mothers and wives of soldiers, while colonized women were mobilized for the "comfort" of imperial troops. Racism divided women, creating oppositional hierarchies. For example, Japanese military nurses looked down on "comfort women" who occasionally assisted as nurses, defending their professional pride. When local women in Okinawa resisted the establishment of comfort stations in their neighborhoods, military authorities persuaded them by framing the sacrifice of Korean women as necessary to protect Japanese women’s chastity. In each case, the construction of imperial subjectivity among Japanese women relied on their agency in contrast to the subjugation of colonized women.
Paradigm Shifts in Women’s History
The paradigm shift in understanding sexual violence was accompanied by a broader transformation in women’s history, which sought to restore women’s agency. This reflexive approach, emerging in the 1980s, examined women’s roles as perpetrators or accomplices in Japanese imperialism, rather than merely as victims. Leading feminists faced scrutiny for their wartime cooperation with the state, as they had leveraged the totalitarian regime to advance women’s public status, justifying their actions as necessary for "nationalizing" women who lacked voting rights and full citizenship. Non-elite women were also complicit in supporting the war effort on the home front.
Feminist revisions of history caution against romanticizing femininity or motherhood as symbols of peace, as these gendered constructs were often mobilized for militarism. The emphasis on women’s agency, however, created divisions among victims along racial and national lines. Korean survivors emphasized the forced nature of military prostitution (framed as military sexual slavery by the UN Committee on Human Rights), while Japanese survivors remained silent due to stigma as "professional prostitutes."
Narrative Formulations and the "Model Victim"
Narrative theory highlights the constructed nature of storytelling, and feminist consciousness has sought to develop less oppressive narrative frameworks that restore dignity and agency to survivors. However, these narratives can also be appropriated. As survivors became accustomed to media interviews, they often adapted their stories to meet audience expectations, crafting a "model victim" narrative: an innocent maiden forcibly taken, subjected to hellish conditions, and surviving against all odds. For example, one survivor initially described an unhappy marriage she wished to escape but later omitted this detail to conform to the expected narrative of innocence.
Activists, often with good intentions, reinforced this stereotype by portraying victims as passive and ignorant, inadvertently perpetuating patriarchal notions that women invite sexual violence. This repression of diverse experiences—particularly those that deviate from the "model victim" trope—silences alternative narratives, including those of Japanese survivors. While Korean survivors were elevated as national heroes, Japanese survivors remained marginalized, illustrating how feminist discourse can intersect with nationalist agendas to shape historical memory.