A long time ago, a middle-aged British man, a so-called leftist intellectual, showed me a photo in The Guardian in which Korean soldiers were bathing in snow in the middle of winter, and he asked me why they were doing so. I sensed mockery in his question, and answered in the following way: "Korean men have a very strong sense of responsibility, and they feel responsible for not having been strong enough to protect the Korean women who were seized by the Japanese during Japan's colonial occupation of Korea. So they are trying to train and strengthen their minds and bodies. Do you understand?"
My answer was defensive, and intentionally aimed at the pride of this white man, who also belongs to an empire. Yet I do think that that sense of responsibility, though possibly excessive, is indeed a feature (or used to be a feature) of all Korean men.
Especially because I live abroad, I see how Korean men put their hearts and souls into their work and into facing any obstacles they may encounter (and of course I appreciate it). But this is not what I am trying to discuss right now, so I will leave it at that, even if it is true.
"By assuming the victim to be an innocent girl, one may in the process deprive other victims of a place in the historical narrative."
I also feel, however, that Korean men's sense of responsibility only manifests itself towards the people they think are most worthy of it. Only close family members who are fragile, innocent, and in need of protection are considered worthy of such protection, and fall under this sense of responsibility. Otherwise, they are excluded and forgotten.
An innocent daughter or little sister might have been dragged and forced to become a comfort woman. She might have left for a different job and ended up being taken to one of the comfort facilities. But it is also possible that a woman who had already made a life of selling her body went to those facilities to make a little more money, fully aware of the kind of job she would have to do. That is to say, she might have made the decision, on her own, to be a comfort woman.
The key point here is that the occupying nation-state and its military organization allowed and ran the comfort facilities. Serious violence towards women, human rights violations, and horrible crimes were committed there. It doesn't matter who the individual victims were. Even if it were an old woman who used to live near a Japanese army post and volunteered to work as a comfort woman and got paid for doing it, she is nevertheless a victim of this crime. The ultimate responsibility lies with Japan, who started the war and ran the military organization.Besides, why did women have to sell their bodies in the first place? No one would want to be in such a position. Thus, in the end, every woman must have been somebody's daughter who was sold as a child, a mother who went out to earn food for her children, a wife, a daughter-in-law, or a grandmother. Or she might only have been a woman who was desperately trying to survive.
"I often see that the victims of Japanese comfort women are represented as "innocent girls," which I recognize is an appealing and easy assumption."
It is not right to discriminate against victims according to their personal features or backgrounds -- just like it's not right to question whether a victim of sexual assault might have been out late, drunk, scantily dressed, of ill repute reputation, or sexually promiscuous.
I often see that the victims of Japanese comfort women are represented as "innocent girls," which I recognize is an appealing and easy assumption. But by assuming the victim to be an innocent girl, one may in the process deprive other victims of a place in the historical narrative. Were innocent girls the only victims?
I would like to make myself clear: I am not arguing that we must be suspicious of the history of comfort women. When the victim is only seen as an innocent, young girl who was dragged against her will, it becomes necessary to demand recognition of the existence of the other victims. Above all, this is a prejudiced and male-dominated point of view. Let me say it again: what's most important is the crime itself.
This post was originally published on HuffPost Korea. It has been translated into English and edited for clarity.