The Comfort Women
Sexual Violence and Postcolonial Memory in Korea and Japan
C. Sarah Soh 2020
A powerful debunking of simplistic views of a wartime tragedy
In an era marked by atrocities perpetrated on a grand scale, the tragedy of the so-called comfort women—mostly Korean women forced into prostitution by the Japanese army—endures as one of the darkest events of World War II. These women have usually been labeled victims of a war crime, a simplistic view that makes it easy to pin blame on the policies of imperial Japan and therefore easier to consign the episode to a war-torn past. In this revelatory study, C. Sarah Soh provocatively disputes this master narrative.
Soh reveals that the forces of Japanese colonialism and Korean patriarchy together shaped the fate of Korean comfort women—a double bind made strikingly apparent in the cases of women cast into sexual slavery after fleeing abuse at home. Other victims were press-ganged into prostitution, sometimes with the help of Korean procurers. Drawing on historical research and interviews with survivors, Soh tells the stories of these women from girlhood through their subjugation and beyond to their efforts to overcome the traumas of their past. Finally, Soh examines the array of factors— from South Korean nationalist politics to the aims of the international women’s human rights movement—that have contributed to the incomplete view of the tragedy that still dominates today.
About the Author
C. Sarah Soh is professor of anthropology at San Francisco State University and the author of Women in Korean Politics.
Table of Contents
List of Plates
List of Figures and Tables
List of Maps
Prologue: An Anthropological Analysis
Acknowledgments
Note to the Reader
Introduction Gender, Class, Sexuality, and Labor under Japanese Colonialism and Imperialist War
PART 1 Gender and Structural Violence
Chapter 1. From Multiple Symbolic Representations to the Paradigmatic Story
Chapter 2. Korean Survivors’ Testimonial Narratives
Chapter 3. Japan’s Military Comfort System as History
PART 2 Public Sex and Women’s Labor
Chapter 4. Postwar/Postcolonial Memories of the Comfort Women
Chapter 5. Private Memories of Public Sex
Chapter 6. Public Sex and the State
Epilogue Truth, Justice, Reconciliation
Appendix: Doing “Expatriate Anthropology”
Notes
Bibliography
Index
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Reviews
Review
"In just 200 pages, it answers a long unanswered question: that there were comfort women in Singapore during World War II, including local women – making the case that though no Singaporean women have come forward, people should not think they were exempt." ― The Straits Times
“Since 1991, when Korean comfort women first stepped forward to demand compensation, much has been written about the Japanese military comfort system. Through careful anthropological work, Soh adds to knowledge about this system and provides a nuanced context within which to understand it. . . . In this courageous book, Soh succeeds in her aspiration to write against both adversarial ethnonationalisms and ahistorical international feminisms.” ― Choice
"C. Sarah Soh’s study of ‘comfort women’ offers a close-grained yet compassionate analysis of this disturbing experience. She cogently deploys ethnography and history to illuminate a crucial case in gender and international issues.”
-- James L. Peacock, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
“This is a courageous, judicious, and well-written book that refuses to yield to knee-jerk responses or politically correct narratives, but rather insists on setting the comfort women within broader historical and cultural contexts. Sympathetic and sensitive, C. Sarah Soh nevertheless challenges both feminist and ethnic nationalist paradigms in an astonishing display of objectivity. The Comfort Women is a lucid, brave, and important work.”
-- Gail Lee Bernstein, author of Isami’s House: Three Centuries of a Japanese Family
“This is a dispassionate, careful, well-researched, and brave book. Embedding her story in the whole history of prostitution and abusive treatment of women from the colonial period to the present, Soh shows that the comfort women system partook not just of the authoritarian politics of Japanese colonialism, but was also deeply rooted in a Korean patriarchy whose effects continued on after 1945. I expect this book will be the standard work on the subject for some time.”
-- Bruce Cumings, University of Chicago
"A brave and impressive book that usefully complicates and adds layers to our understanding of a sordid system." -- Jeff Kingston ― Japan Times
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From the United States
Houtan Amidi
5.0 out of 5 stars Finally a book that doesn't just shout at you
Reviewed in the United States on March 31, 2026
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I'll be real, I almost didn't buy this because every time I try to read about the "comfort women" history, it’s just people picking sides and getting into political fights. Sarah Soh’s book is the first one I’ve found that actually feels... human?
She doesn't just stick to the easy "good guys vs bad guys" script. She talks about the stuff people usually want to ignore, like how poverty and even some Korean brokers were involved, and how the survivors were treated after the war by their own communities. It honestly made me feel a bit sick realizing how much of their actual lives got buried under nationalistic slogans.
It’s definitely a heavy read and some parts are pretty academic, so I had to re-read a few pages when the jargon got thick. But it’s so worth it if you’re tired of the surface-level stuff. It’s messy and complicated and it made me look at the whole history differently. If you want to actually understand the layers of what happened instead of just getting a sanitized version,
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Ashaltech User 1
5.0 out of 5 stars A Must-Read for Deep Thinkers
Reviewed in the United States on May 25, 2026
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I’ve read a lot on this subject, but Sarah Soh’s approach is on another level. She avoids the usual "us vs. them" shouting match and actually looks at the human complexity behind the tragedy.
What really hit home for me was how she examines the roles of both Japanese imperialism and local Korean society in this history. It’s a brave, uncomfortable, and incredibly moving book that treats the survivors as real people rather than just political symbols.
If you want a deeper understanding of how history, memory, and trauma overlap, buy this book. It’s academic but deeply felt.
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FreeTradeTool
4.0 out of 5 stars A must-read above all others on the subject
Reviewed in the United States on September 15, 2017
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After rereading the book recently, I have renewed respect for Professor Soh – she has taken a very courageous step to reject the ‘master narrative’ of the comfort women issue by providing so much on the historical background of Korea as well as revealing information on many of the comfort women survivors, facts that are conveniently left out by activists of the redress movement. It is no wonder that Chong Dae Hyup, the main organization that promotes the movement in South Korea, no longer wants to do anything with Professor Soh, but her name not being on the list of academics supporting the 2015 Open Letter in Support of Historians in Japan, an attempt to pressure Japan to further acknowledge and once again account for the ‘past wrongs,’ really speaks volumes.
More than anyone in American academia, she fully understands the complexity of the issue as demonstrated in her extensive research, and she is undoubtedly the most qualified to discuss the matter objectively, having received education in Japanese, Korean, and English. Moreover, she is currently a resident and scholar in the United States, making her independent of any activist groups from overseas, which allows her to speak freely without compromising academic integrity. While I personally do not support transnational feminism which is what the professor identifies herself with, this book must be thoroughly studied in order to partake in any reasonable discussion on the issue of Imperial Japan’s Comfort Women system. A solid 4.5 stars for the depth of the research and the overall objectivity that is maintained throughout the book.
9 people found this helpful
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Sukhwinder Singh
5.0 out of 5 stars Powerful and thoughtfully constructed
Reviewed in the United States on March 5, 2026
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A masterful work that combines careful historical research with thoughtful analysis of how traumatic pasts are remembered across generations. Soh combines historical documentation with insight into how difficult pasts are remembered, argued over, and reshaped over time. The interdisciplinary perspective adds nuance and helps explain why the debate has remained so intense for decades. Well-researched and clearly written, especially considering the complexity of the subject. I finished the book with a deeper and more balanced understanding than when I started.
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Nerdus Maximus
5.0 out of 5 stars Profound, informative, thought-provoking...
Reviewed in the United States on September 25, 2012
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... and most definitely NOT for casual readers or those who are not willing to re-examine their preconceived ideas and views of the wartime comfort women. This work is likewise ill-suited for those who aren't serious readers of history.
C. Sarah Soh, as a native Korean who was fortunate to receive formal education both in her homeland and abroad, has produced a masterful examination of a controversial issue involving Korea and Japan which people from both countries have long oversimplified.
Koreans generally believe that Imperial Japan's leadership ordered, planned, and executed the gunpoint kidnapping of thousands of Korean females and summarily shipped them like chattel to frontline brothels.
Japanese people - at least those who know this issue - either agree that the Koreans were largely victimized, or claim that this is a gross fabrication and that the comfort women were essentially willing prostitutes.
Professor Soh cites several examples, such as interviews with survivors, to show that the truth is far more complex. Some survivors stated they were not forcibly taken by Japanese troops. Others are shown to have bought their way to freedom with earnings - earnings??? Yes. Hence the question - if the comfort women were slaves, they wouldn't have had wages. Then what were they: slaves or prostitutes or something else?
Additionally, Professor Soh does the reader a huge service by detailing the sociocultural contexts of 1930s-1940s Korea and Japan. Information on views on sex, women, and the sexism that characterized pre-modern Korean and Japanese societies is provided, thus presenting the reader with a better understanding of what facilitated the existence of "sex care work" in both societies. Anyone familiar with Korea and Japan today will be aware that extramarital affairs have been generally tolerated, historically speaking, and that older men have often availed themselves of sexual services provided by far younger women.
The comfort women issue did not happen in a vacuum. Japanese generals didn't wake up one day, deciding to 'award' their enlisted men with females to sate their urges, and they didn't decide to violently seize thousands of Korean women at will. As a reader of Korean ethnicity myself, I know this is a painful subject, and I personally believe there were abductions. But as the attentive reader will see, the story is far more diverse and much more complicated that flag-waving nationalists on either side of the East Sea (or, as some call it, the Sea of Japan), would want us to believe.
It is worth noting (somewhat of a spoiler alert) that Professor Soh was shunned and coldly treated by South Koreans who are involved in the redress movement after those activists learned of the fruits of her research. I wonder why. Did Professor Soh's findings upset their ostensibly benign agenda? Is there something she uncovered the redress activists preferred not to even know and prefer that their compatriots remain ignorant of?
If the comfort women issue is of any interest to you, read this book. It is a must-have in the library of any serious student of Korea's modern history.
34 people found this helpful
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muenster
4.0 out of 5 stars Necessary, complementary read for this subject
Reviewed in the United States on December 16, 2016
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This book provides a much-needed alternate angle of the comfort women experiences. Because the era and the situation was so tragic, most accounts are written in a narrative that everything was terrible, all of these women hated every aspect of their miserable lives, and that is the only way to interpret this time in history. C. Sarah Soh comes in and offers to tell the largely ignored accounts of the women that had neutral or even positive things to say about things that happened to them. She is not glorifying anything that happened at this time, just offering the testimonies that do not fit into the popular narrative. The events of this period are still tragic, and I support the survivors' seeking closure by way of an official apology, but I appreciate being able to see more sides of the situation to get a fuller picture.
Only fours stars because sometimes the writing got awkward, like when she would unnecessarily provide the Korean pronunciation for a random word. Some made sense because they were thematic and appeared often throughout the book, but others seemed to just be there as a reminder that you are reading about people in another country who spoke another language.
4 people found this helpful
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T. Lee
5.0 out of 5 stars Critical Reading on the issue
Reviewed in the United States on May 8, 2015
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Fantastic work viewing the comfort women issue in light of gender issues. Well-researched and footnoted, and yet written in a very accessible way that's an easy read.
5 people found this helpful
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Ashley M.
1.0 out of 5 stars Natural Melatonin Stimulator
Reviewed in the United States on June 2, 2009
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The book's topic sounds intriguing, however it put me straight to sleep. The author is more concerned with stuffing the book with academic jargon then telling a story. Reading the book I had flashbacks of grad school and being inundated with polysyllabic words such as intersectionality, historicization, deessentialization, etc.
Here is a sample passage from the book where Soh describes how Japanese society viewed the comfort system, "The ideological boundaries of fascistic paternalism, masculinist sexism, and contemporary Japanese neonationalism overlap. The fascistic paternalism of wartime Japan - to say nothing of the ethnic nationalism of contemporary Japan - encompassed masculinist sexism. That is, both the wartime and contemporary statist and nationalist perspectives, as well as the generalized masculinist perspective of the military and civilian populace, share a common understanding of the ultimate function of the comfort system as a recreational amenity for the troops."
To be fair, I can't comment on the content of the book since I never made it past the second chapter. All I know is this book induced nocturnal sleepification and I had to Netflixify my TV to stay awake.
24 people found this helpful
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Rs
2.0 out of 5 stars Author has a facination with big words and adding suffixes to basic words as well. Painful read.
Reviewed in the United States on November 21, 2013
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This has become a painful read. Not the material - just the author and her facination with big words. It's been mentioned previously in other comments. She also loves to add suffixes to make basic words seem big as well. Overall the book doesn't flow well. I've still got to finish the book for a college class but dreading it.
2 people found this helpful
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kim seungyong
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United States on February 2, 2015
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it`s good!!
4 people found this helpful
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Kathy Nadeau
5.0 out of 5 stars Rethinking the Comfort Women Issue: A New Perspective
Reviewed in the United States on September 17, 2009
Format: Paperback
Sarah Soh has written a balanced and informative new book on the Comfort Women issue that looks at the subject from the perspective of the bigger issue of prostitution in Asia. She meticulously documents the diversity in experiences of women recruited into this industry. Some are falsely recruited and misled to believe that they would be doing another form of work. Others are allured by the promises of entering a profession such as the kaisang profession only to end up in comfort women stations. Still others have been kidnapped by soldiers and forced into sexual slavery. Her book is a must read for those interested in scholarly research based on archival documents and extensive interviews-and observations conducted on both sides of this issue. The result is a provocative new work that challenges us to think beyond the comfort women issue to that of the rise of industrialization and women's quest for liberation from all forms of male-oriented domination-and control in favor of a more balanced relationship between peoples of all genders (i.e., a relationship of partnership and mutual respect between men and women).
16 people found this helpful
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K8cat
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent study of the topic.
Reviewed in the United States on October 4, 2011
Format: Paperback
This is certainly one of the best studies that have been written on this topic. The arguments are balanced and extremely well researched and they are presented in an interesting and lively fashion. I myself have worked many years researching the question of prostitution (both forced and by choice) and I found Soh's Appendix on 'Doing Expatriate Anthropology' to be very representative of the problems that people can find when research and writing on a topic with so many problematic and upsetting facets and political agendas. The fact that Soh avoids generalizations is to her credit and her examination of how 'comfort women' fitted into national structures of gendered violence (in both Korea and Japan) brings new and important debates to this topic. I thoroughly recommend this to anyone interested in really understanding this topic from a balanced position.
7 people found this helpful
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NatureBeauty
1.0 out of 5 stars Waste of time and $
Reviewed in the United States on February 11, 2018
Format: Paperback
Poorly written and argued. Waste of time and $
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From other countries
Francisco Javier
4.0 out of 5 stars Pata vencer la historia de Corea
Reviewed in Spain on January 12, 2023
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Buena lectura
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Jud
5.0 out of 5 stars Every Japanese should read
Reviewed in Japan on July 26, 2013
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This should be mandatory reading in Japanese schools
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H. Nieuwenhuizen
5.0 out of 5 stars A revelation
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 14, 2011
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This is an amazing book and puts this sensitive issue of comfort women in perspective. Anyone who wants to really understand the background how this could have happened without the sensationalism of the modern times should read this book. The author comes from the same culture as most of the comfort women and understands the reasons much better than any non Asian person could. It makes us understand why it took so many years after the war for these victims to try and find justice and at the same time understand much better the Japanese reaction, even to this day to all the claims and calls for apologies.
It's not an easy to read book and almost reads like a study book, probably because of the author is a professor of anthropoly and she explains that clearly in her reasons for writing this history, which is very well re-searched.
It leans heavily on the Korean culture and ways of life starting from before the war right up to the modern day, for reason that the majority of the comfort women were from Korean origin but goes on to explain how everything changed as the war progressed. I think a must-read for anybody interested in this sad chapter of history which tends or tended to be forgotten, but even by reading the book reasons for that can be clearly understood. Equally well anyone interested in Chinese, Korean and Japanese culture and history should read this book.
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うさちゃん
3.0 out of 5 stars 韓国人が書いたものとしては中立的
Reviewed in Japan on March 4, 2015
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往々にして売春は自由意志ではなく、強制によってなされることが多い。ヨーロッパに多いロシア人売春婦はロシアマフィアが管理、強制しているように。
強制的に戦争中に性労働を強いられた犠牲者の方には国籍を問わず同情を禁じ得ない。
しかしながら、強制といっても、親に売られた、朝鮮の業者に騙されたなどの結果としての強制であり、日本軍、あるいは官憲が拉致して売春をさせたという証拠はインドネシアに於けるオランダ人の例を除いて存在しない。本書にもあるように韓国人元慰安婦の供述は変遷しており、韓国世論への迎合の可能性が高い。
しかしながら、慰安所を管理していたのは日本軍であり、その恩恵？を受けていたのも日本軍兵士であるから、道義的責任について謝罪の必要はあるとは思うが、すでに日本国政府は謝罪している。さらに日本と韓国の間の財産、請求権一切の完全かつ最終的な解決が日韓基本条約で確認されている。
いわゆる従軍慰安婦の問題は朝日新聞の誤報によって多くの女性が拉致されたとの誤解が広まったことが火に油を注いだ面が大きく、本書のように、韓国人の立場としては比較的客観的な内容は評価に値すると思う。
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timtak
5.0 out of 5 stars 気持ちは反日でスタイルもそうですが、掘り出した事実は、強制はなかったようです。
Reviewed in Japan on May 22, 2015
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口調というか、書き方からすれば、慰安婦制度がひどかったと思われているように聞こえてきますが、韓国の歴史家も強制の証拠が見つからず、有名なもと慰安婦も任意参加という証拠について言及していますので、妙にバランスがとれているように思います。大まかに言うと著者の結論は、（義理の父を含めての）親戚は借金返済などのため娘たちを売ることがあるから、前払い売春制度は、女性の家族が一度前払い金を貰ったら、女性は性の奴隷ですので、ひどいとのご意見だと思います。和訳があればよいと思います。おすすめしたいです。
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<위안부: 한국과 일본의 성폭력과 탈식민지 기억> (The Comfort Women: Sexual Violence and Postcolonial Memory in Korea and Japan)은 sociocultural anthropologist 소정희 교수가 출간한 저작이다. 이 책은 제2차 세계대전 당시 일제에 의해 동원된 한국인 위안부 문제를 단순한 <국가 대 국가>의 대립이나 이분법적 피해 서사를 넘어, 성속(聖俗)의 이중주의, 가부장제, 식민주의, 그리고 계급적 취약성이 복합적으로 작용한 <구조적 폭력>의 산물로 재해석한다. 소정희는 민족주의적 패러다임이 은폐해 온 다층적인 역사적 진실을 드러내고, 한일 양국의 전후 정치와 국제 여성인권 운동이 이 기억을 어떻게 재구성했는지 인류학적으로 추적한다.
저자 소개 (수정)
<소정희 (C. Sarah Soh)>: 서강대학교와 하와이 대학교를 거친 문화인류학자이며, 샌프란시스코 주립대학교 인류학과 교수로 재직하며 <한국 정치의 여성들> (Women in Korean Politics) 등의 저서를 남겼다.
요약
서론 및 제1부: 성별과 구조적 폭력 (Gender and Structural Violence)
소정희는 위안부 문제를 식민지 권력과 조선의 가부장제가 결합하여 만들어낸 다층적 비극으로 규정한다. 기존의 지배적 서사(Master Narrative)는 일본 제국주의의 강제 연행과 성노예화에만 초점을 맞추지만, 저자는 구체적인 생존자 증언과 역사적 맥락을 통해 그것이 전부가 아님을 논증한다. 위안부가 된 여성들의 배경에는 식민지 권력의 압제뿐만 아니라, 가난, 남존여비 사상, 가정 내 학대와 같은 조선 사회 내부의 구조적 모순이 깊이 관여하고 있었다.
제1장과 2장에서 저자는 위안부 여성들의 증언이 시간에 따라 어떻게 변천하고 고착화되었는지 분석한다. 초기 생존자들의 사적 기억은 매우 다양했으나, 한국의 정대협(한국정신대문제대책협의회)을 비롯한 민족주의 활동가들과 결합하면서 하나의 <전형적인 피해 서사>(강제 연행된 순결한 소녀)로 수렴되었다. 저자는 생존자 개개인의 다양한 성장 배경과 위안소 유입 경로(가정 내 학대 탈출, 취업 사기, 한국인 알선책에 의한 기만 등)를 복원함으로써, 피해자성을 단일화하려는 민족주의적 기획을 비판한다.
제3장은 일본 군대위안부 제도를 역사적 제도 안에서 조명한다. 일제의 위안소 시스템은 갑자기 출현한 돌출적 범죄가 아니라, 일본 내부의 공창제(公娼制)와 성 자본주의, 그리고 제국주의 총력전 체제가 결합하여 군사적으로 확장된 형태였다. 국가가 군인의 성욕 통제와 성병 예방을 명목으로 여성의 성을 도구화하는 메커니즘을 구축했음을 역사적으로 증명한다.
제2부: 공적 성과 여성 노동 (Public Sex and Women’s Labor)
제4장과 5장에서 저자는 전후 및 탈식민 시기 한일 양국이 위안부 기억을 어떻게 전유하고 억압했는지 다룬다. 해방 후 한국 사회는 가부장적 순결 이데올로기로 인해 위안부 생존자들을 환향녀(還鄕女)의 시선으로 바라보며 침묵을 강요했다. 피해자들은 사적으로는 극심한 트라우마와 성적 낙인 속에서 고통받았으나, 국가와 사회로부터 철저히 외면당했다.
반면, 1990년대 이후 위안부 문제가 공론화되는 과정에서 사적 기억은 공적 기억으로 재해석된다. 저자는 여기서 한국 민족주의 정치가 위안부 비극을 <민족의 수난>으로 치환하면서, 한국 사회 내부의 성적 착취 구조(기지촌 여성, 매춘 문화 등)에 대한 성찰을 누락시켰음을 지적한다. 일본 역시 전후 평화주의 담론 속에서 군부의 책임을 회피하고 사태를 민간 업자의 소치로 돌리려는 망각의 정치를 펼쳤다.
제6장과 결론(에필로그)은 공적 성(Public Sex)과 국가의 관계를 다루며, 위안부 문제가 단지 과거의 전쟁 범죄에 머무는 것이 아니라 오늘날까지 이어지는 여성의 성 노동, 인권, 그리고 국가 권력의 문제임을 역설한다. 저자는 한일 간의 진정한 화해와 정의 실현은 도식적인 비난이나 민족주의적 적대감을 넘어서, 가부장적 군사주의가 어떻게 여성의 신체를 도구화하는지 상호 인정하는 데서 출발해야 한다고 주장한다.
평론
소정희의 <위안부>는 민족주의적 성역에 갇혀 있던 역사적 논쟁을 탈식민주의 인류학의 지평으로 끌어올린 용기 있고 전복적인 저작이다. 이 책의 가장 큰 학문적 성취는 위안부 비극을 일본 제국주의라는 단일 악(惡)의 결과물로 치부하려는 낭만적 민족주의 서사를 해체한 점에 있다. 저자는 피해 여성들이 마주해야 했던 <이중의 굴레>(Double Bind), 즉 일제의 식민주의 압제와 한국 가부장제의 성차별적 착취 구조를 동시에 타격한다.
저자가 수행한 생존자 인터뷰와 종단적 분석은 기존 서사가 은폐했던 한국인 매개자(알선책, 포주)들의 존재와 가정 내 폭력이라는 냉혹한 현실을 직시하게 만든다. 이는 결코 일제의 범죄를 면책하는 논리가 아니다. 오히려 국가 권력이 주도한 군사 성노예 제도가 식민지 사회 저변의 취약한 계층과 젠더 구조를 어떻게 흡수하고 도구화했는지 폭로하는 한 차원 높은 구조적 비판이다.
그러나 이 책은 출간 당시부터 격렬한 정치적 논쟁의 중심에 섰으며, 여전히 도발적인 한계를 지닌다. 정대협을 비롯한 한국의 시민운동이 위안부 서사를 정치적으로 전유하고 단일화했다는 저자의 비판은 인류학적 담론 분석으로서는 유효할 수 있다. 하지만 가해국인 일본 정부가 책임을 회피하기 위해 <강제성 부정>의 논리로 삼는 현실 정치적 맥락에서, 저자의 다층적 분석이 일본 우익의 역사 수정주의에 정당성을 부여하는 무기로 악용될 소지가 다분하다는 점은 치명적인 취약점이다. 인과관계의 다원성을 강조하는 학술적 엄밀함이, 현실의 지배-피해 관계 속에서 책임의 무게추를 분산시키는 부작용을 낳은 것이다.
그럼에도 불구하고 이 책은 위안부 담론이 나아가야 할 새로운 이정표를 제시한다. 저자는 피해자를 아무런 주체성도 없는 무결한 <소녀 성녀>로 박제하는 대신, 전후 삶을 개척하고 생존해 낸 <인간>으로 복원해 낸다. 한일 양국의 민족주의적 대립이 평행선을 달리는 현 상황에서, 국가 권력과 가부장적 군사주의가 결합할 때 여성의 인권이 어떻게 말살되는지 보여주는 이 책의 거시적 통찰은 탈식민주의 여성주의 연구의 영원한 고전으로 남기에 부족함이 없다.
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Chunghee Sarah Soh
Chunghee Sarah Soh | |
|---|---|
| Alma mater | Sogang University University of Hawaiʻi |
| Occupation | Sociocultural anthropologist |
| Employer | San Francisco State University |
| Korean name | |
| Hangul | 소정희 [1] |
| Hanja | 蘇貞姫 [2] |
| RR | So Jeonghui |
| MR | So Chŏnghŭi |
Chunghee Sarah Soh or Sarah Soh is an American professor of Anthropology at San Francisco State University. She is a sociocultural anthropologist who specializes in issues of women, gender, sexuality.
Her book The Comfort Women: Sexual Violence and Postcolonial Memory in Korea and Japan delivers new insight into the nature of the comfort women issue.
Careers
She graduated from Sogang University in Seoul and earned master's degree and then Ph.D. from the University of Hawaii in 1987. She taught cultural anthropology at universities in Hawaii in 1990, Arizona from 1990 to 1991 and Texas from 1991 to 1994. She joined San Francisco State University in 1994.[3][4]
Comfort women
Soh has said "there can be no denial of the tragic victimization of forcibly recruited women who suffered slavery-like conditions."[5] According to Soh, "it was Japan's colonialism that undoubtedly facilitated the large-scale victimization of tens of thousands of Korean women".[6]
She wrote a book titled The Comfort Women: Sexual Violence and Postcolonial Memory in Korea and Japan. In the book, she provocatively disputes the simplistic view that comfort women were victims of a war crime were solely the fault of Imperial Japan.[7][8] Instead, she argues that both the Japanese military and the Korean patriarchy are at fault. She asserts that because of the patriarchy that dominated Korea at the time, homes were unstable and thus young girls were more likely to leave, a situation which allowed comfort station owners to recruit them into brothels. Additionally, she argues South Korean nationalist politics and the international women's human rights movement have contributed to the incomplete view of the tragedy that still dominates today.[9]
Works
- Soh, Sarah (2008). The Comfort Women: Sexual Violence and Postcolonial Memory in Korea and Japan. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0226767772.
- Soh, Chung-Hee (1993). Women in Korean Politics. Westview Press. ISBN 0813320410.
- Soh, Chung-Hee (1991). The Chosen Women in Korean Politics: An Anthropological Study. Praeger. ISBN 027593876X.
See also
References
- 한국여성의 정치참여(1948~2008) [South Korean women's participation in politics (1948–2008)]. Asian Center for Women's Studies, Ewha Womans University. 2009-05-28. Archived from the original on 2016-03-04. Retrieved 2015-10-23.
- 蘇 貞姫サラ (2005). 帝国日本の「軍慰安制度」論 歴史と記憶の政治的葛藤. In 倉沢愛子 (ed.). 岩波講座 アジア・太平洋戦争〈2〉戦争の政治学. Iwanami Shoten. pp. 347–380. OCLC 62789230.
- "Chunghee Sarah Soh". San Francisco State University. Archived from the original on 2015-02-28. Retrieved 2015-03-07.
- "Chunghee Sarah Soh". Institute for Corean-American Studies.
- Kingston, Jeff (May 10, 2009). "Continuing controversy of 'comfort women'". The Japan Times.
- Volodzko, David Josef (January 15, 2017). "Can Korea handle the truth about Japan's 'comfort women'?" South China Morning Post.
- The Comfort Women Sexual Violence and Postcolonial Memory in Korea and Japan. Worlds of Desire: The Chicago Series on Sexuality, Gender, and Culture. University of Chicago Press.
These women have usually been labeled victims of a war crime, a simplistic view that makes it easy to pin blame on the policies of imperial Japan and therefore easier to consign the episode to a war-torn past.
- "Understanding the plight of the "comfort women"". San Francisco State University. March 18, 2009.
Soh illustrates how the prevailing, simplistic view of the phenomenon overlooks the diversity of the women's experiences, the influence of historical factors and the role that Koreans played in facilitating the Japanese comfort system.
- Soh, Sarah (2008). The Comfort Women: Sexual Violence and Postcolonial Memory in Korea and Japan. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0226767772.
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