The Politics of Trauma and Integrity: Stories of Japanese "Comfort Women" 1032067462, 9781032067469

Citation preview

This photo is part of the “comfort women” memorial established in the headquarter of the Korean Council for Justice and Remembrance for the Issues of Military Sexual Slavery by Japan (the Korean Council located at 12, Worldcupbuk-​ro 11-​gil, Mapo-​gu Lee Kang-​ga 1st Floor, Seoul, 11 03967, South Korea). When I visited the Korean Council in 2012 as part of the study tour organised by Toronto ALPHA (now, ALPHA Education), this “comfort women” memorial was so emotionally moving to me that I took the photograph of the entire memorial, of which this specific photograph is a detail. The memorial engraved the Korean survivors’ names and when they passed away; flowers were placed adjacent to their names. This photograph is the representation of the dead spirits of all “comfort women”. At the same time, the beauty of the flower is the manifestation of their dignity and integrity, which is the theme of my book.

The Politics of Trauma and Integrity

The Politics of Trauma and Integrity uses the lenses of gender and trauma to tell the stories of narratives testified by two contrasting Japanese “comfort women” survivors. Through an innovative interdisciplinary study of the politics of gendered memory and trauma in a historical context, with numerous primary sources for analysis including diaries, interviews, letters and oral testimonies, this book uncovers the life-​or-​death struggles of Japanese survivors in pursuit of public recognition as the victims of state violence against women. It is set within a gender history of modern Japan, supplemented by feminist activist methodology premised upon political agency that seeks social justice. The author’s analysis draws upon three key concepts: trauma, coherence of the self and integrity. Focusing upon the role of gender and trauma as the nexus between memory construction and identity formation in modern Japan, the author reveals these women’s relentless quest for their recovery and the creation of new identities. This book provides a better understanding of the victims of sexual violence and encourages readers to listen to the voice of trauma, as well as making a significant contribution to the existing research on the ongoing history of sexual violence against women in Japan, the rest of Asia and beyond. It will be of interest to scholars, researchers, activists and all who are concerned about the issue of women’s human rights. It provides supplementary reading and research material for history and politics courses relating to Japan and East Asia, memory, identity, trauma, gender, war and feminist activism. This book will also be beneficial to victims of sexual violence as well as the counsellors/​ psychologists engaging with them. Sachiyo Tsukamoto is Honorary Associate Lecturer in the School of Humanities and Social Science at the University of Newcastle, Australia. She is also a volunteer Associate Researcher for the Asia-​Pacific Peace Museum of ALPHA Education (Association for Learning & Preserving the History of WWII in Asia) based in Toronto, Canada.

Gender in a Global/​Local World

Series Editors: Jane Parpart, University of Massachusetts Boston, USA, Marianne H. Marchand, Universidad de las Américas Puebla, Mexico, and Rirhandu Mageza-​Barthel, University of Kassel, Germany.

Gender in a Global/​Local World critically explores the uneven and often contradictory ways in which global processes and local identities come together. Much has been and is being written about globalisation and responses to it but rarely from a critical, historical, gendered perspective. Yet, these processes are profoundly gendered, albeit in different ways in particular contexts and times. The changes in social, cultural, economic and political institutions and practices alter the conditions under which women and men make and remake their lives. New spaces have been created –​economic, political, social –​and previously silent voices are being heard. North–​South dichotomies are being undermined as increasing numbers of people and communities are exposed to international processes through migration, travel and communication, even as marginalisation and poverty intensify for many in all parts of the world. The series features monographs and collections which explore the tensions in a ‘global/​local world’, and includes contributions from all disciplines in recognition that no single approach can capture these complex processes. Recent titles in the series include: Violence against Women in and Beyond Conflict The Coloniality of Violence Julia Carolin Sachseder The Politics of Trauma and Integrity Stories of Japanese “Comfort Women” Sachiyo Tsukamoto Women, Migration, and Aging in the Americas Analysing Dependence and Autonomy in Old Age Edited by Marie-​Pierre Arrizabalaga Information Classification: General For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/​ Gender-​in-​a-​GlobalLocal-​World/​book-​series/​GENDERLOCAL

The Politics of Trauma and Integrity Stories of Japanese “Comfort Women” Sachiyo Tsukamoto

First published 2022 by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2022 Sachiyo Tsukamoto The right of Sachiyo Tsukamoto to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. With the exception of Chapter 4, no part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Chapter 4 of this book is available for free in PDF format as Open Access from the individual product page at www.routledge.com. It has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-​Non Commercial-​No Derivatives 4.0 licence. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-​in-​Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-​in-​Publication Data Names: Tsukamoto, Sachiyo, author. Title: The politics of trauma and integrity : stories of Japanese “comfort women” / Sachiyo Tsukamoto. Description: Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2022. | Series: Gender in a global/local world | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2022006878 (print) | LCCN 2022006879 (ebook) | ISBN 9781032067469 (hardback) | ISBN 9781032067506 (paperback) | ISBN 9781003203698 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Sex crimes–Japan–History–20th century. | Sexual abuse victims–Social conditions–20th century. | Sexual abuse victims–Psychology. | Rape as a weapon of war–Japan. | Comfort women–Japan. Classification: LCC HV6593.J3 T78 2022 (print) | LCC HV6593.J3 (ebook) | DDC 364.15/320952–dc23/eng/20220506 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022006878 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022006879 ISBN: 978-​1-​032-​06746-​9 (hbk) ISBN: 978-​1-​032-​06750-​6 (pbk) ISBN: 978-​1-​003-​20369-​8 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/​9781003203698 Typeset in Times New Roman by Newgen Publishing UK

This book is dedicated to Ross Hague, Hirota Kazuko and all victims of sexual violence, as well as Makoto, Satoshi and all future generations

Contents

List of figures  Acknowledgements  List of abbreviations  Prologue  1 Introduction: Trauma and recovery 

x xi xiii xiv 1

2 Conspiracy of silence in post-​war Japan 

21

3 Kikumaru: Between voice and silence 

35

4 Shirota Suzuko: The victim-​survivor-​activist 

50

5 The state-​licensed prostitute as a dutiful daughter 

80

6 “Comfort women” as a gendered national subject 

95

7 Epilogue  Appendix: Brief life stories of some Japanese “comfort women”  Index 

126

138 145

Figures

4 .1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4 .6 4.7 4 .8 7.1

Fukatsu Fumio. Courtesy of Kanita  52 Shirota Suzuko. Courtesy of Kanita  53 Kanita Fujin no Mura in Tateyama, Chiba, 2016  64 Fukatsu and other members carrying the wooden statue to the top of the hillside overlooking Kanita. Courtesy of Kanita  68 Two Schwesters and a staff member assisting Shirota to attend the establishment of the wooden memorial. Courtesy of Kanita  68 The wooden memorial located in Kanita. Courtesy of Kanita  69 A joyous Shirota reacts to the establishment of the “comfort women” memorial. Courtesy of Kanita  69 The permanent stone memorial, 2016  70 ‘Circles of Memory: The Comfort Women and the World’. Courtesy of Professor Carol Gluck  131

Acknowledgements

This book is based on my PhD thesis written at the University of Newcastle, Australia, between 2014 and 2018. As an interdisciplinary researcher, I encountered considerable difficulties in filling the gap between politics and history. Since the very beginning of my study, Associate Professor Sara C. Motta (politics) and Professor Victoria Haskins (history) have continuously inspired and guided me both intellectually and emotionally in perfectly harmonious collaboration. Without their exceptional guidance and assistance, my PhD thesis and, accordingly, this book would not have been possible. I am also extremely thankful to Professor Tessa Morris-​ Suzuki, Professor Katharine H.S. Moon and Dr Caroline Norma for their insightful and valuable suggestions on my book. I owe a great debt of gratitude to some organisations and people in Japan for their support of my research. I am deeply grateful to Kanita Fujin no Mura and Women’s Active Museum on War and Peace (WAM) for allowing me to access their valuable primary source materials bequeathed to them by the Japanese “comfort woman” survivor, Shirota Suzuko (pseudonym). Without their strong support for my research, Chapter 4 would never have been achieved. I further express my heartfelt gratitude to the director, Igarashi Itsumi, and the honorary head, Amaha Michiko, at Kanita for generously providing me with such valuable photographs. My gratitude also goes to Violence Against Women in War Research Action Center (VAWW RAC) for offering their resources as well as their interviews. I am also deeply appreciative of the late Hirota Kazuko for introducing me to a variety of precious stories about the Japanese “comfort women” survivors whom she had interviewed. In particular, Hirota’s critical insights helped me to analyse Kikumaru’s life story in Chapter 3. In addition, I would like to acknowledge Matsumoto Masayoshi, a Japanese war veteran and his daughter, Mimoto Keiko, who supported my research by attending my interview. My deepest thanks go to them, as well as to Morikawa Shizuko, who not only participated in my interview, but also helped me contact Matsumoto. I am also grateful to Takemi Chieko for providing me with her interview and her documentary film. Studying overseas has proven extremely costly. In 2013, financial constraints prevented me from continuing my PhD course at the history department of

xii Acknowledgements the University of Nottingham, UK. Therefore, I am most thankful for the Doctoral Full Scholarship granted by the University of Newcastle that secured my student life in Australia. My special thanks go to the history department of the university, as my affiliate institution, for continuing to provide me with academic resources, including library access and office space even after I had completed my PhD study. My previous and current postgraduate cohort have been a source of support and inspiration since I started my MA research on the issue of “comfort women” in 2009 at the University of Nottingham. Among others, I owe a huge debt to Dr Peter S. Cruttenden, who, since 2010, has given me his continuous support with proofreading and insightful comments which have helped me in the development of my research from my PhD thesis through to the completion of this book. I would also like to thank Dr Chrysanthi Gallou-​Minopetrou and her husband, Sarantos Minopetros, who shared his beautiful poem, which is contained herein. Additional thanks for help and support are due to Dr Gwyn McClelland for his mentorship in drafting a proposal for this book; and to Dr Ned Loader, who first introduced me to the issue of “comfort women” and who has encouraged me ever since. Lastly, I owe thanks and gratitude to my extremely helpful editors at Routledge, including Emily Ross and Hannah Rich and the Editorial Board of the Gender in a Global/​Local World series.

Abbreviations

GHQ NHK PTSD RAA SCAP STD TBS UN VAWW-​NET Japan VAWW RAC WAM WCTU WIWCT WWII

General Headquarters Nippon Hōsō Kyōkai post-​traumatic stress disorder Recreation and Amusement Association Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers sexually transmitted disease Tokyo Broadcasting System United Nations Violence Against Women in War Network, Japan Violence Against Women in War Research Action Center Women’s Active Museum on War and Peace Women’s Christian Temperance Union Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal Second World War

Prologue

I am sorry I was born human … I was 11 years old … I was 13 years old … I was 16 years old … I was only a pure little candle just starting to learn how to shine … Amidst the darkness of the fiercest storm cruel hands grabbed me … In gloomy cells they drove me … In barracks they stole my light … pieces from my flesh … fragments from my soul … Many little candles melted, were trampled under bestial bodies, stinky breaths and barbarous cheers … But for as long as my flame still burns I will never stop seeking justice and my lost dream … It will come one day when Fear and Silence will no longer feast in the Palace of Lethe …–​ Everyone will know about that storm that stole the light of so many souls … I was 11 years old … I was 13 years old … I was 16 years old … Yes! I was the light that was lost in the darkness of humanity … In the eternal night An apology is the tiniest candle for those souls that were lost in the storm of wartime … I am sorry … ‘I am sorry’ (Courtesy of Sarantos Minopetros 2013) This soul-​stirring poem was conceived on 24 June 2013, in the middle of a one-​ day symposium entitled Re-​memory of “Comfort Women” at the University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom. As a PhD candidate in history of the university, I organised the symposium with the aim of providing diverse perspectives of the “comfort women” issue for better understanding, by

newgenprepdf

Prologue  xv bringing scholars across disciplines together including history, gender studies, memory studies and political science. One attendee in the audience, Sarantos Minopetros, who had never heard of this cruel history before, expressed his unguarded feelings in the form of a poem, on how this unresolved gendered history inspired him. His then-​fiancée and current wife, Chrysanthi, translated his poem from the original Greek into English. Sarantos’ powerful poem showed that the excruciating plight of “comfort women” evoked empathetic feelings, as well as an essential question about humanity: what does it mean to be human and a woman? The euphemistic term “comfort women”, or “ianfu” in Japanese, refers to young women and girls who were forced to provide sexual services to the Japanese Imperial Army at so-​called “comfort stations”, or “ianjo”, during the Asia-​Pacific War (1931–​45). Women of diverse nationalities fell victim to the military system of sexual slavery: Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Taiwanese, Filipinas, Indonesians, Vietnamese, Malays, Thais, Burmese, Indians, Timorese, Chamorros and Dutch. Notwithstanding the diversity of the “comfort women”, an overwhelming number of victims were non-​Japanese females from poor families who were mobilised into “comfort stations” by force or deception. My encounter with the issue of “comfort women” dates back to 2007, when I had the opportunity to take a course convened by Professor Ned Loader at the Tokyo branch of a US university, Lakeland University. His class introduced some “comfort women” survivors’ testimonies, which were totally shocking to me. Until then, even at school, I had never learned anything about those women who were forced to have sex with Japanese soldiers during the Asia-​Pacific War. Born in Nagasaki City as a second generation of hibakusha –​a survivor of the dropping of the atomic bomb by the US in 1945 –​I learned and believed that Japan was a victim country of the Second World War (WWII). The “comfort women” issue was overwhelming and powerful enough to reverse my recognition of Japan’s national identity from a war victim to a war perpetrator. This extreme transformation of my perception of Japan’s national identity was the driving force for me to start my research about this forgotten history of women’s human rights. Ever since, I have believed that this is the only way that enabled me as a female citizen of the perpetrator country to contribute to restoring justice and dignity to all victims of the sexual enslavement system. As some Japanese survivors’ testimonies show, they were the first daughters born to their poor families. Considering that I am also the first daughter in my family, I could have been a “comfort woman” myself if I had been born 30 years earlier. Therefore, I strongly hope that my research will make a contribution to the eradication of any form of sexual violence.

Reference Minopetros, S. (2013) ‘I am sorry’. Translated by Gallou, C., ALPHA Newsflash, summer, p. 2.

1  Introduction Trauma and recovery

Hegemonic narratives and the politics of history Within academia, 2021 witnessed a sensational opening over the controversial journal article, ‘Contracting for sex in the Pacific War’, written by Harvard University’s Mitsubishi Professor of Japanese Law Studies, J. Mark Ramseyer. The main claim of his article is that “comfort women” are prostitutes and not sex slaves because ‘prostitutes at the comfort stations earned much higher pay’ and could leave and return home earlier after they had paid off their debts (Ramseyer 2021:6, 8). This type of argument is similar to what “comfort women” denialists have continuously perpetuated inside Japan for the last three decades. In Western academia, open letters were published involving an incredible outpouring of criticism by a significant number of world-​renowned scholars in history, law, economics, Asian studies and other disciplines. They critiqued the claims put forth in his article along with the quality of scholarship. This critical wave expanded at a phenomenal speed on a global scale across disciplines.1 What we have been witnessing here is the politics of history as manifested on the global stage by the contestation between hegemonic memory of “comfort women” as the victims of the Japanese military sexual enslavement; and a counter-​memory of them as prostitutes. This contestation revolving around the representation of “comfort women” emerged after 1991, when the Korean survivor of the Japanese Imperial Military system of sexual slavery, Kim Hak-​soon, broke her almost half-​a-​century silence. It was revolutionary that a victim of the state’s sexual violence exposed her name and face in public and spoke about the brutality of her enslavement. Her exercise of agency as a “comfort woman” survivor made a significant contribution to the paradigm change in the representation of “comfort women” from prostitutes to sex slaves.2 Ever since, many “comfort women” survivors from diverse cultural backgrounds have followed Kim Hak-​soon’s bravery. However, in 2021, 30 years after the humanitarian turn in the historical meaning of “comfort women”, the denialists have risen on to the global stage to rewrite the hegemonic narrative in pursuit of their counter-​memory, seeking the highest position within the hierarchy of memory. DOI: 10.4324/9781003203698-1

2  Introduction: Trauma and recovery The concept of ‘hegemony’ is not equivalent to domination; rather it is multifaceted. Antonio Gramsci (1973:57–​8) argues that ‘the supremacy of a social group’ must manifest through both ‘domination’ and ‘leadership’. In other words, a dominant group must continue to control and lead other groups through liquidation or subjugation for its firm grasp of the hegemonic position in the social hierarchy. Accordingly, ‘the function of “domination” without that of “leadership” could be ‘dictatorship without hegemony’ (Gramsci 1973:106). Here, the term ‘hegemonic narrative’ draws upon Berthold Molden’s definition that is informed by Antonio Gramsci, Louis Althusser, Michael Foucault, Emesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe. Molden defines mnemonic hegemony as: the ability of a dominant group or class to impose their interpretations of reality –​or the interpretations that support their interests –​as the only thinkable way to view the world. … Hegemony thus establishes one particular narrative as a quasi-​natural universality and delegitimizes alternative forms of reasoning. (Molden 2016:126) In the memory practice of “comfort women”, if the denialist narrative becomes hegemonic, any other historical experiences except “comfort women” as prostitutes will be ultimately delegitimised. What we call cultural memories include diverse narratives. In short, there is not only one dominant narrative and its counter-​dominant narrative in contestation in the debate of sexual slavery versus prostitutes; rather, a variety of narratives are also coexisting and interacting with one another. Recent research (VAWW RAC 2015; Norma 2016; Tsukamoto 2019, 2021) has revealed that Japanese women were the initial victims of the “comfort women” system and that many of those women were captured within Japan’s legalised debt-​bond prostitution system. Furthermore, Japan’s pre-​war state-​ licensed prostitution system was an institutionalised human-​trafficking network targeting young women and girls from poor families. This pre-​war civilian sexual slavery system laid the groundwork for the development on a huge scale of the military sexual slavery system. Ramseyer and other denialists take advantage of the silence of Japanese “comfort women” and abuse their fragmented accounts as “comfort women” in pursuit of hegemony in remembrance, as if their silence provided ‘the silent consent within hegemonic relations of mnemonic power’ (Molden 2016:129). This is the Gramscian notion of ‘coercion and consent’ which is often used by political elites to silence alternative narratives. Remembering a past war is more controversial than recalling any other historical event. Since war memory, more or less, reminds people of the moral or ethical aspect of their past war, it poses the following questions: Was the war just or not? Was the war a good war or a bad war?3 Japanese war memories are judgemental with their moral ground lying in Emperor Hirohito’s war

Introduction: Trauma and recovery  3 responsibility since Japan as a nation waged the past war in his name (Seaton 2007:8). Since 1991, the “comfort women” issue has emerged as what Philip Seaton calls ‘ideological fault lines’ and divided the nation in the debate about the construction of nationhood (Seaton 2007:8). The “comfort women” issue has thus become one that ‘illustrates the centrality of the official narrative and policy in perception of how Japan has addressed war responsibility issues’, and by extension, whether Japan has ‘addressed the past’ (Seaton 2007:66). Kim Hak-​soon’s courageous breaking of silence has exposed the contested terrain of war memory in Japanese society. In other words, this gender controversy divided the nation in the debate about the construction of nationhood (Seaton 2007:5). Consequently, Japan’s post-​war self-​conscious national identity as a war victim (e.g. the victim of two atomic bombs) was shaken by the new humanitarian turn in the representation of “comfort women” from military prostitutes to rape victims. Until 1991, few Japanese had ever imagined that the “comfort women” system was a war crime. Ever since, this historical controversy has been central to the remembrance of the past war in Japanese society. Still, Kim Hak-​soon’s bravery inspired many people, including the Japanese historian Yoshimi Yoshiaki, who said, ‘[Kim Hak-​soon’s] words inspired me to begin researching the comfort women issue’ (Yoshimi 2000:33). Over the course of his research, Yoshimi discovered official documents to evidence the involvement of the Japanese military in the establishment of the “comfort stations”. His historic finding led to Japanese and Korean collaboration to investigate the case, resulting in the 1995 Kōno Statement4 issued by the Japanese government. Hak-​soon’s breaking of silence was also the driving force for many feminists across national borders to mobilise concerted efforts focusing on applying international pressure upon Tokyo to issue a formal apology and provide compensation to the silenced victims. Thus, transnational feminist activism was instrumental in laying the foundation for the restoration of justice and dignity for the surviving “comfort women”. In 1996, conscientious feminists’ constant efforts and the global cooperation between survivors and activists were fulfilled in the United Nations (UN) Report submitted by Special Rapporteur, Ms. Radhika Coomaraswamy (1994). She concluded that the Japanese military “comfort women” system was, in fact, sexual slavery. Further, in 1998, the UN Report presented by Ms. Gay McDougall (1998), Special Rapporteur to the UN Sub-​Commission, pointed out that sexual slavery and violence against women, including rape, are crimes against humanity and must be prosecuted. In 2000, this transnational feminist activism for justice of the victims culminated in the prosecution of those responsible for the state’s enslavement, by organising the Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal (WIWCT) on Japan’s Military Sexual Slavery.5 This was a people’s tribunal established in Tokyo by a group of Japanese women.6 They ‘felt responsible for the crimes their own country committed against women’, and ‘earnestly believed that a twenty-​first century free of violence against women cannot be reali[s]‌ed

4  Introduction: Trauma and recovery without a response to the cries of the comfort women for justice and dignity’ (Matsui 2001:19–​20). This Japanese women’s organisation was the Violence Against Women in War Network, Japan (VAWW-​NET Japan), which was founded in 1988 by Matsui Yayori.7 The WIWCT indicted 16 perpetrators, including Emperor Hirohito, and concluded that all of them were guilty. The indictment and finding of Emperor Hirohito’s guilt were the biggest achievements of the women’s tribunal, given the fact that the International Military Tribunal for the Far East failed to impeach the Emperor, even though he was the head of the state as well as the commander-​in-​chief of the Japanese army. However, in 2001, NHK (Nippon Hōsō Kyōkai), Japan’s public broadcasting affiliate of the government, broadcast a heavily altered documentary programme about the WIWCT which erased Japanese veterans’ testimonies and Emperor Hirohito’s conviction. Pointing out the political intervention of the then deputy chief cabinet secretary, Abe Shinzō,8 along with the Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry, Nakagawa Shōichi (1953–​2009), VAWW-​NET Japan sued NHK. On 12 June 2008, NHK ultimately won the case at the Japanese Supreme Court. The state thus ‘silenced the courageous voices’ of both victim-​ survivors and victimiser-​ survivors testifying at the WIWCT (Tsukamoto & Motta 2020:160). In 2008, the term “comfort women”, which had been included in school history textbooks for the first time in 1997, was subsequently erased from them. Given the most recent comprehensive research finding Japanese women as the initial victims of the “comfort women” system (VAWW RAC 2015; Norma 2016; Tsukamoto 2019, 2021), the inclusion of Japanese nationality into victimhood status nearly two decades ago was another huge achievement of the women’s tribunal. During the initial stages of WWII, in order to compensate for the shortfall in the numbers of Japanese “comfort women”, women in Japan’s colonised territories were mobilised overseas by deception or force.9 As Japan’s war expanded across China and other Asian countries, the Imperial Forces procured young girls and women from its occupied territories such as China, the Philippines, Singapore and Indonesia.10 Since they were Japan’s enemy countries, the recruitment of “comfort women” in its occupied countries was much more brutal than in its colonies. Incidents of the massacre of all family members, except for females targeted by the Japanese military, were not isolated cases. Against this historical backdrop, some Japanese cases have been (ab)used by the denialists to cover up state responsibility because those Japanese women were state-​sanctioned prostitutes prior to becoming “comfort women”. For example, Ramseyer discussed at length Japan’s pre-​war state-​licensed prostitution system, which comprised the backbone of his conclusion. However, as historian Tessa Morris-​Suzuki (2015:8) points out, ‘[t]‌he fact that some women received money, sweets or beer does not tell us that they were free agents: it does not tell us whether or not they had been forcibly recruited, or whether they were free to leave’. As the co-​head of VAWW RAC,11 Nishino Rumiko further contends in my interview (2016):

Introduction: Trauma and recovery  5 it is not until the victimisation of “comfort women” who were civilian prostitutes is revealed and understood as a violation of women’s human rights, that the wider communities cannot recognise the issue of “comfort women” as that of violation of human rights. Irrespective of the presence of abuse and oppression in both Japan’s pre-​ war legalised prostitution system and its war-​time military prostitution system, they were two different systems of sexual slavery (VAWW RAC 2015; Norma 2016). Hence, the purpose of this book is to examine the life history of two Japanese “comfort women” survivors, Kikumaru (her geisha name: 1924–​72) and Shirota Suzuko (pseudonym:1921–​93), both of whom were entrapped by both systems of sexual enslavement. Through the lens of gender and trauma, this book seeks to uncover their life-​or-​death struggles for public recognition as the victims.

Trauma as impossible communication Trauma indicates psychological wounds (Caruth 1996) caused by experiencing or witnessing extraordinary events. Since 1980, in the field of psychiatry, trauma has been widely diagnosed as a form of post-​traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which refers to human responses to natural disasters, war and a diversity of violence such as rape (Caruth 1995:3). However, the responses to abnormal events do not imply that PTSD is ‘a disease’ but reveals ‘our inability to allocate meaning to the events’ (Edkins 2003: 39). As the Holocaust survivor and psychoanalyst Dori Laub points out, this is because certain events or experiences are ‘beyond the limits of human ability to grasp, to transmit, or to imagine’ (Laub, as cited in Caruth 1995:68). These traumatic ‘limit events’, as defined by Dominick LaCapra (2001:91), are thus impossible to be perceived when they occur due to the scale of abnormality. Therefore, they cannot be recalled until they ‘return to haunt the survivors later on’ (Caruth 1996:4). This ‘belated experience’ (Caruth 1996:7) is suggested as below by Laub: [they] live not with memories of the past, but with an event that could not and did not proceed through to its completion, has no ending, attained no closure, and therefore, as far as its survivors are concerned, continues into the present and is current in every respect. (Felman & Laub 2013:69) Thus, the trauma theory, which has been mainly developed in Western scholarship, signifies two characteristics of trauma: the impossibility of telling trauma; and trauma as an experience coming later after limit events as they occur. Postcolonial theorists caution against applying the Western framework of trauma outside the West because it carries risks of homogenising sufferings (Novak 2008; Norridge 2013; Gilbert 2018). The author of Unfolding the ‘Comfort Women’ Debates, Kimura Maki (2016:13) raises the

6  Introduction: Trauma and recovery potential risk of universalising “comfort women” survivors’ experiences of ‘gender oppression’. Amy Novak (2008:32) further argues that the Western formulation constructs ‘a structural barrier’ to understanding the suffering of ‘the Colonial Other’ by positioning ‘the Other in the place of “impossibility”, while situating the addressee in the illuminated space of knowledge and the possible’. Novak concludes that ‘[t]‌he difficulty of communicating [trauma] lies in the addressee, who cannot hear’. Referring to Esther Mujawayo’s work12 (2011:88–​90), Catherine Gilbert (2018:43) echoes Novak by emphasising the audience’s incapacity to listen to testimonies of the traumatised. Interpreting the testimonies of the female genocide victims in Rwanda, Gilbert (2018:44) suggests the difficulty in ‘communicating trauma across cultural boundaries’, pointing out that ‘[i]t would appear that, in the West, very little value is placed on African suffering’. Similar claims may be true of Asian pains. Here, communicating trauma between the addresser and the addressee means to what extent the latter can feel the pain expressed by the former. Zoe Norridge (2013:207) describes this challenge of trauma as that ‘it is through narrative that pain moves from the realm of the individual to the interpersonal’. In other words, narratives enable us to feel others’ pains as our own; this is generally referred to as empathetic feelings. In reality, a variety of binaries concerning race, class and gender divide this world into ‘us’ and ‘the other’. Quite a few neuroscience studies have shown that this ‘in-​group’ versus ‘out-​ group’ division affects the perception of another person’s suffering (Finnerty 2016). In the case of the “comfort women”, the perpetrator–​victim binary can prevent people, particularly from the victim countries, from evoking an empathetic feeling towards Japanese victims. In the above-​ mentioned McDougall UN Report (1998:28), Japanese women were implicitly excluded from the category of the victims with the description of “comfort women” as ‘those from Korea and other Japanese colonies’. Therefore, this book seeks to transcend the victim–​perpetrator binary in restoring justice and dignity to Japanese victims. Numerous neuroimaging studies have also demonstrated that a stigmatised category exerts profound impacts on a person’s empathy, as the in-​or out-​ group distinction does; even though the interaction between empathy and stigma has, thus far, not been well conceptualised (Finnerty 2016:3). According to the psychologist, Samuel Finnerty, stigmatised people are ‘perceived as lacking the same qualities, normatively valued as good, of the in-​group’ and ‘basic empathy’ towards them –​‘seeing the other as human’ –​‘seems to be entirely missing’ (Finnerty 2016:3, 7). Stigma as a quality or an attribute which causes social denigration (Goffman 1963) implies a stereotype attached to the attribute (Jones et al. 1984), such as ‘sex workers transmit infections’ (Sprankle et al. 2018:242). As a consequence, stigma further triggers discrimination within a power structure which otherwise is tolerant of discriminatory acts (Link and Phelan 2001). Eric Sprankle, Katie Bloomquist, Cody Butcher, Neil Gleason and Zoe Schaefer collaborated on research in order to investigate how the sex work stigma affected observers’ empathy towards victims

Introduction: Trauma and recovery  7 of sexual violence. They concluded that ‘statistically less victim empathy and more victim blame’ was shown towards the rape of a sex worker than towards that of a non-​sex worker (Sprankle et al. 2018:242). These results indicate that ‘the sex worker is responsible for the assault’ and that ‘sex workers are “unrapeable”, untrustworthy, not credible’ (Sprankle et al. 2018:243). Thus, stigmatised attributes cause attribution of responsibility for outcomes to the stigmatised, resulting in people feeling less empathy for their pain (Decety et al. 2010). This full attribution of responsibility towards the stigmatised is the strategy of the perpetrator who attempts to evade responsibility for his crime. Judith Herman (1992:8) describes that silencing the victim is ‘the perpetrator’s first line of defence’. Herman continues: If secrecy fails, the perpetrator attacks the credibility of his victim. If he cannot silence her absolutely, he tries to make sure that no one listens. … the victim lies; the victim exaggerates; the victim brought it upon herself. (Herman 1992:8) Thus, personal empathetic resonance between the speaker and the audience can be modulated by the stigma attached to the speaker. This is significantly important in reading the trauma story of Kikumaru and Shirota, who were already stigmatised as prostitutes before becoming “comfort women”. The patriarchal binary of virgins versus prostitutes dichotomises women, regardless of nationality, into “good” and “bad” women. Furthermore, the stigmatised attribution attached to the latter deeply dissects females, whereby it would not be easy for “good” women to witness and recognise the suffering of “bad” women, whether they are fellow citizens or not. The late journalist Hirota Kazuko (1939–​2018) interviewed Kikumaru in 1970 and experienced a moment when she felt some ‘unbridgeable gap’ between Kikumaru, when she tried to express her solidarity with Kikumaru by raising her divorce as her trauma. Kikumaru instantly rejected it by saying, ‘I am still a virgin on the record because I have no family register [as a wife]’ (Hirota 2009:161). Hirota confessed that she had not recognised Kikumaru’s ongoing complex pains until the day when Kikumaru was found dead (Hirota 2009:15). Stigmatisation of prostituted women has been universally normalised; therefore, the denialist representation of “comfort women” as prostitutes has been unfortunately and easily perpetuated as recently as the article by Ramseyer. Furthermore, Kikumaru’s positive memory as an “elite” “comfort woman” illustrates the immense complexities of Japanese survivors’ voices. The Western conceptualisation of trauma as a belated experience does not necessarily fit Kikumaru’s case. On the one hand, regardless of nationality, a critical aspect of survivors’ testimonies is ‘the continued impact of trauma’ on their lives (Gilbert 2018:39). Indeed, Kikumaru continuously suffered during her entire post-​war life. On the other hand, her accounts of trauma in the form of a suicide note expressed her ongoing traumatic experience. She was continuously

8  Introduction: Trauma and recovery stigmatised by society due to her dire poverty which was attributed to her past as a “comfort woman”. Sprankle et al. (2018:247) warn against ‘society’s prejudicial and discriminatory attitudes and responses toward sex workers’: individuals who belong to a stigmatized group are exposed to excess stress as a result of their position in society, and such stressors are likely to result in adverse outcomes including mental health issues such as anxiety and depression. (Sprankle et al. 2018:246) This implies that the traumatic event Kikumaru underwent was not in her past, but in her present. Her tragic consequence also reveals that traumatic events are not only real, but are also ongoing for the survivors, resulting in interference with and disruption of memory and, thus, identity construction. Memory is the ‘representation of the past’ whereas trauma is the representation of the reality of traumatic events (Alphen 1997:36) and this conflicting interplay between trauma and memory is highly critical to an understanding of survivors’ testimonies. As Herman (1992:1) also points out, ‘[t]‌he conflict between the will to deny horrible events and the will to proclaim them aloud is the central dialectic of psychological trauma’. This oscillating nature of trauma between silence and testimony makes it more complex to discover and identify the voice of trauma victims.

Recovery from trauma as the creation of a coherent self The victim of trauma who is forced to internalise the perpetrator’s shame and guilt into her inner self is left with two options for survival: face it or run away. Herman (1992:199) calls the former defence mechanism the ‘fight’ mode, whereas the latter is the ‘flight’ mode. The fight and flight mode in dealing with trauma informs us how a victim of trauma either exercises her agency to come to terms with her traumatised experience or, alternatively, fragments her self and reproduces the trauma. The flight mode, in the form of numbness, dissociation and self-​as-​other, is identifiable in both Kikumaru’s account and Shirota’s narrative. The strategical switch from the flight mode to the fight mode manifests survivors’ exercise of agency. The fight response to danger encourages a victim of trauma to establish ‘a degree of control over her own bodily and emotional responses that reaffirms a sense of power’ (Herman 1992:199). With this sense of empowerment, a victim learns ‘how to live with it, and even how to use it as a source of energy and enlightenment’ (Herman 1992:199). Hence, only the fight mode leads to recovery from trauma. This study draws upon Herman’s three-​layer model in recovery from trauma for the analysis of the life story of Shirota, who achieved a remarkable self-​transformation as a victim-​survivor-​ activist. Herman’s model is particularly important to demonstrate Shirota’s agency to tell her trauma story whereby to connect herself to society. In

Introduction: Trauma and recovery  9 Herman’s model (1992), the first stage of the establishment of a physical and psychological sense of safety is the precondition of the second stage of telling her own story of trauma without danger or threat. The successful reconciliation with herself by speaking of trauma at the second stage enables her to proceed to the third stage of reconnection to her outer world. The autonomous subject of this process is the survivor. In other words, the survivor is the ‘author’ of her own narrative of her life story (Herman 1992:133). This book defines agency as ‘the ability of the agent to assert her own identity’ (Hague 2011:33). In other words, agency is the power to establish her own identity through telling her own story. This is a political act by which her alternative narrative can make visible, resist and challenge the dominant narrative. Accordingly, breaking the silence becomes an act of political protestation against power. ‘Survivors are not only finding their own voices; they also are collectively creating new narratives that challenge the individual and collective denial of abuse and the reproduction of violence’ (Rose 1999:164–​5). The agency of a victim is, therefore, political agency that always seeks to break the boundary which excludes ‘the racialised and feminised other’ (Motta 2018:56). Through the process of constructing alternative narratives of trauma, victims restore human dignity. Thus, political agency is not a sudden rupture; rather it is an ‘everyday process of construction’ that undergoes multiple stages for the culmination of an individual’s transformation through everyday experience, social relations and reflection on subjectivity (Motta 2014:2009). The key to this everyday practice of politics is a dialogue between the inner self as well as the external world since identity construction requires both ‘self-​recognition’ and ‘the recognition of others’ (Hague 2011:33–​4). This everyday practice of politics is a valuable concept for analysing how Shirota reconstructed her political agency by reflecting on her inner self and outer world through keeping a diary. Personal narrative is integral to identity construction. Charlotte Linde, the sociolinguist and ‘the most influential theorists of the life story’ (Abrams 2010:41), describes its importance: Narrative is among the most important social resources for creating and maintaining personal identity. Narrative is a significant resource for creating our internal, private sense of self and is all the more a major resource for conveying that self to and negotiating that self with others. (Linde 1993:98) Based on this perspective of narrative, Linde develops the theory of self-​ construction through the creation of life stories. Linde contends that the goal of creating life-​story narratives is ‘the creation of coherence’ (1993), that is, the establishment of temporal consistency of the self. A narrative about oneself is telling not only what happened in the past but also ‘who we are and how we got that way’ (Linde 1993:3). In other words, the construction of narratives about one’s own life history is a self-​formation process that deals with one’s

10  Introduction: Trauma and recovery past through one’s ‘present sense of self’ (Abrams 2010:33). According to Linde’s theory of the self, this present understanding of her life is determined by three elements embedded within the self-​formation process: ‘[C]‌ontinuity of the self through time’; ‘relation of the self to others’; and ‘reflexivity of the self’ (Linde 1993:100). The first aspect, ‘continuity of the self through time’, is important for the survivor to make sense of her present identity in connection to who she was. Because traumatised experiences fragment her memory and sense of self, she constantly needs to revise and reconstruct her life-​story narrative. Therefore, how the chronologically consistent narrative is shaped is significant for this analysis. The process of establishing chronological consistency in a life story is deeply determined by Linde’s second aspect, the relationship between the self and others, or the public–​personal relations. This is because ‘[i]‌n order to exist in the social world with a comfortable sense of being a good, socially proper, and stable person, an individual needs to have a coherent, acceptable, and constantly revised life story’ (Linde 1993:3). As Herman (1992:134) also emphasises, ‘[r]ecovery [from trauma] can take place only within the context of relationships’ with others. This perspective indicates that a life story is a significant communication tool between the internal self and the external world. In order to attain a self that is acceptable to others while also maintaining our integrity, we constantly need to negotiate through self-​narratives, the inner sense of self with the social world, which interfaces with norms, cultural assumptions and/​or belief systems (Linde 1993). The third feature, ‘the reflexivity of the self’, mirrors how the survivor establishes ‘the moral value of the self’ (Linde 1993:123). The establishment of the coherent self in the eyes of both others and the present self requires constant self-​reflection on the ‘remembered self’, or in other words, the ‘partially constructed’ self through remembrance (Abrams 2010:45). This continuous process of self-​reflection and revision of a life history always imposes ethical judgements on the present sense of self-​seeking in order ‘to achieve a sense of a stable and composed self’ (Abrams 2010:42). The public–​personal interaction in Linde’s theory of the self helps to locate not only ‘the moral standing of the self’ and of the social world (Linde 1993:123), but also the ethical dilemmas in the interplay between the two. This is because the reflection of the interaction provides narrators with certain grounds for the evaluation and judgement of their sense of self, based upon the external moral standards (Linde 1993:3). The external moral standards are normalised in society not only through norms, myths or beliefs, but also by the state through regulations. Hence, the theory of the self allows me to analyse how the state constructs memories that seek to continue the silencing of the voices and subjects of trauma. Accordingly, Linde’s conceptualisation of the self is generative for grasping how political subjectivity in telling a story of trauma is possible or impossible in the interaction with her inner self and her external world. The acts of testimonies by which the past is reinterpreted and the course of the future is changed also urge us to recognise survivors as historical

Introduction: Trauma and recovery  11 subjects. This indicates that survivors’ testimonies constitute not only the site of their subject-​formation (Kimura 2008:6), but also, testimonies manifest acts of political and historical subject formation as well as acts of resistance against the dominant power. In this vein, the feminist activist method helps the oppressed to equip themselves with ‘tools to end their own oppression’ (Bloom & Sawin 2009:338) and ultimately to liberate and transform them from objects of suppression to subjects of the women’s movement (Harding & Norberg 2005; Bloom & Sawin, 2009). Hence, the feminist activist method enables us to restore agency and dignity to and with Japanese “comfort women” survivors through listening to their inner voice expressed in their written and oral narratives.

The politics of integrity In order to establish a coherent life story, a victim of trauma needs her strong moral standing against social exclusion and stigmatisation. The ‘politics of integrity’, theorised by Aurora Levins Morales (1998), signifies the moral principle to create a coherent self. Here, integrity means the state of ‘being whole’ and the politics of integrity, of ‘the full complexity of who we are’ (Morales 1998:7) is central to personhood. The politics of integrity illuminates the significance of the integration not only between the body and soul, but also between the past self and the present self. For the traumatised, restoring her integrity is a process in which she recovers her humanness by recognising the fragmentation of the self by oppression and restoring her whole self as a victim. This process is facilitated through the telling of her story, as exemplified by Morales’ personal story: I am a person who was sexually abused and tortured as a child. … The people who abused me consciously and deliberately manipulated me in an attempt to break down my sense of integrity so they could make me into an accomplice to my own torture and that of others. (Morales 1998:117) The politics of integrity is a pathway that enables the practice and theorisation of the contestation and transgression of silencing victims’ voices in order to reclaim the humanness of both as individuals and collectives. In this regard, the individual act of recovery from trauma is also a political act that can halt ‘the culture of victimhood’ in our society (Morales 1998:8). This political act can also nurture ‘a culture of resistance’ against oppression in which a personal political act of resistance is expanded to ‘a collective political act that can transform the ways in which we talk about sexual abuse’ (Morales 1998:18, 24). This is a fundamental step to restore the fullness of humanity not only to individuals but also to collectives. Both a nation and a state experience fractures and fragmentations in their history and identity construction. Whether positive or negative, ‘our specific, contradictory, historical identities

12  Introduction: Trauma and recovery in relationship to one another’ are the inheritance from our ancestors, and ‘acknowledging the precise nature of that inheritance is an act of spiritual and political integrity’ (Morales 1998:75). The culture of resistance against oppression potentially constitutes an ‘imagined community’ (Anderson 1983) of resistance against oppression across a diversity of boundaries. Benedict Anderson (1983) defines a modern nation-​state as an ‘imagined community’ interwoven by a (imagined) collective national identity. Chandra Talpade Mohanty (1991:4) expands Anderson’s concept in defining “Third World” women as ‘imagined communities of women with divergent histories and social locations, woven together by the political threads of opposition to forms of domination that are not only pervasive but also systemic’. Accordingly, seeking to transcend geographical or cultural borders in connecting “Third World” women and white Western women in addressing feminist struggles, Mohanty (1991:4) foregrounds what Anderson calls ‘horizontal comradeship’ (1983:11–​ 16) on the construction of ‘imagined communities of women’. Furthermore, Marianne H. Marchand (2002:57–​ 8) complements Mohanty’s overlooking of ‘class in all its dimensions’ by answering the question of ‘how poor-​working class (Latin American) women can gain voice and subject status in the literature on Gender and Development and actively participate in the production of knowledge about Third World women’. This development in the concept of imagined communities of women allows us to reach all voices of the victims of sexual violence, including Kikumaru and Shirota. Following Anderson, Finnerty (2016:9) also refers to the potential ‘imagined connections’ in the interaction between readers and linguistic reference such as written testimonies. ‘Linguistic reference’ demands by far more imaginative ability for better understanding than face-​to-​face interaction; otherwise, stigmatisation would be ‘more possible’ (Finnerty 2016:9–​10). The politics of integrity is the compass which drives us to participate in the imagined communities of victims of sexual violence by witnessing their stories of suffering. By dismissing their testimonies, the reader becomes ‘complicit in the silencing of survivors’ (Gilbert 2018:82), as discussed above. The victim-​survivors of “comfort women” summoned up tremendous courage to speak of their stories of trauma. It is our duty as readers of their testimonies to ‘listen to’ and bear ‘witness’ to their ‘extreme trauma’ (Gilbert 2018:84).

The structure of this book Kim Hak-​soon’s breaking of silence in 1991 gave rise to reconstructing history, which entailed a methodological shift of sources, from focusing on male-​ centred institutional documents to individual memories. This new methodology is based on the Oral History Theory (Abrams 2010). Oral history is defined as ‘recovery history’ since it can restore the past based on evidence provided by oral testimonies, which otherwise could not be recovered from archival documentation (Abrams 2010:5). Therefore, ‘oral history is

Introduction: Trauma and recovery  13 one of the few ways by which those who have traditionally been silenced in History may be heard’ (Abram 2010:24–​5). Given that many relevant official documents were destroyed by the Japanese government/​military prior to its unconditional surrender at the end of WWII and successive Japanese governments have yet to open most of the existing records to the public, oral history is the only viable methodology available to unearth the plight of individual “comfort women”. This methodology allows the previously silenced to reformulate ‘their status as subjective agents’ (Yang 1997:58). This book narrates two stories of trauma: those of Kikumaru and Shirota. Both sought to exercise their political agency and subjectivity through creating their coherent life stories as surviving “comfort women”. Toward this end, this research analyses four different stages of oral history materials categorised by Lynn Abrams (2010:2, 9): ‘the original oral interview’; ‘the recorded version of the interview’; ‘the written transcript’; and ‘the interpretation of the interview material’. In this oral history approach, my original interviews with a Japanese war veteran and several journalists who had previously interviewed Japanese “comfort women” survivors aided me in supplementing the limited sources of interviews with Japanese survivors. Here, those oral testimonies in my interviews are used as empirical data to support my arguments. The recorded version of the interview which comprised Shirota’s 1986 testimony, was previously aired as part of a radio programme. Other primary source data utilised in the research are comprised of certain written transcripts, including Shirota’s personal records such as diaries, and Kikumaru’s suicide note, included in a book written by the journalist, Hirota Kazuko. These primary sources allow me to listen to their inner voices, revealing their everyday struggle with trauma. I also use the testimonial narratives made by both Japanese survivors and war veterans, which were edited by journalists, as the interpretation of the interview material, in order to examine the meaning of the “comfort women” system to both soldiers and the state. This book begins with the post-​war trauma stories of Kikumaru and Shirota respectively. This retrospective way of telling their life stories allows their audiences to attentively listen to their life-​or-​death struggles to come to terms with their past as “comfort women” and their ongoing trauma as surviving “comfort women”. To this end, Chapter 2 uncovers the social and political conspiracies of silence in post-​war Japan as a prelude to a profound understanding of the historical context for their suffering. For any given state, the control of collective trauma is fundamental to perpetuating its sustained national identity. This is articulated through cultural processes of interpreting social suffering that enables the state to manipulate the collective memory of trauma for the purposes of statecraft. Japan’s unconditional surrender to the Allied Forces on 15 August 1945 imposed the imminent danger of indicting Emperor Hirohito as the paramount war criminal. To sustain his imperial status, Japan collaborated with the US on creating a new myth, in which the Emperor became the national symbol of unity as the peace-​deliverer. Accordingly, perpetrators defended themselves to evade responsibility for

14  Introduction: Trauma and recovery their crimes. Their first line of defence was the ‘conspiracy of silence’ (Danieli 1998:680), which manifests the complicity between the state and society in the attempt to internalise the perpetrator’s shame and guilt into the victim’s inner self by shaming her and silencing her voice. In this chapter, the concept of the conspiracy of silence is expanded into the battle within her internal world since trauma also silences the victim’s inner voice for survival. Both Kikumaru and Shirota were trapped by the conspiracy, resulting in the silencing of their respective voices. Then, they worked as “comfort women” for the Allied Occupation Forces for subsistence. Tokushu Ian Shisetsu Kyōkai, known as the Recreation and Amusement Association (RAA), was Japan’s post-​war “comfort women” system initiated and sponsored by the Japanese government. Between the occupier and the occupied, there was a trade-​off of “occupied” female bodies in order to protect their own national interests. These power politics between the masculine conqueror and the feminised conquered again reproduces female subjugation towards the state. Through the lens of gender and trauma, Chapter 3 explores the post-​war lonely struggle of Kikumaru, who believed her real self to be a “dutiful” daughter and a “patriotic” Japanese female who sacrificed herself for her family and her country. Focusing on Linde’s three different aspects of constructing the coherent self, this section analyses her efforts to come to terms with trauma through testimony. However, Kikumaru’s post-​war life trajectory bypassed Herman’s second stage of recovery from trauma, that is, telling her own story of trauma. Without establishing her physical and psychological sense of safety as the precondition, Kikumaru ended up committing suicide. Her narrative of trauma tells two stories: ‘the story of the unbearable nature of an event; and the story of the unbearable nature of its survival’ (Caruth 1996:7). They are an excruciating account of a life and a death. The only known sources to draw upon Kikumaru’s narrative are elements of her edited life story, which appeared in a book first published in 1975 by Hirota, based on her interviews with Kikumaru in 1970. Kikumaru’s suicide note included in the book is particularly important to understand her moral standing. My interview with Hirota in 2016 helped me to develop a much richer understanding of Kikumaru’s post-​war life. As the chapter illustrates, Kikumaru’s tragic life story tells us the significance of human integrity in creating a coherent self. Based on Herman’s three-​stage model, Chapter 4 tells Shirota’s post-​war story of recovery from trauma as her political agency and transformation into a victim-​survivor-​activist of sexual violence. Along with her 1971 book and words from her 1986 radio interview, Shirota left many writings such as diaries, novels and letters at Kanita Fujin no Mura [Kanita Women’s Village, hereafter as referred to Kanita].13 Courtesy of Kanita, I was able to access these invaluable resources, which uncovered how she strove to create her coherent life story against her post-​war predicaments. Shirota’s revolutionary transformation from a “prostitute” to a victim-​survivor-​activist contesting state violence against women was brought about through the dialogue with

Introduction: Trauma and recovery  15 her inner self, her listener and her intimate community. Telling her story of trauma is a manifestation of the exercise of political agency for the following reasons. First, it resists the dominant narrative of patriarchal domination, thereby making visible and breaking the political boundary of patriarchy. Second, the establishment of her coherent story of trauma in constant reflection of both the past–​present self and the public–​personal interaction demonstrates the politics of integrity. It is through the politics of integrity, which encourages her to recognise the full complexity of her whole self as a survivor, whereby she transfers the shame and guilt inflicted upon her to the perpetrator. Third, this individual act of recovery from trauma can nurture the culture of resistance against oppression –​thus, eradicating the culture of victimhood. Shirota’s miraculous transformation is both encouraging and inspiring; while at the same time, her strong feeling of solidarity towards Kim Hak-​soon’s breaking of silence in 1991 is compelling. Chapter 5 recalls the physical and psychological torment suffered by both Kikumaru and Shirota, who were Japanese state-​sanctioned prostitutes being held captive within the indentured system. After the restoration of political power from the last Tokugawa Shogun to the Meiji Emperor in 1868, the Meiji government introduced the Western model of the state-​licensed prostitution system from France and England. The form of modern legalised prostitution was characterised by both the state registration of prostitutes and mandatory inspections of women in order to combat the spread of venereal disease. Then, the state industrialised the prostitution trade by systemising female trafficking, business practices and profits through expanding forms of prostitutes who were debt-​bound servitudes sold to these enterprises by their poor families. The narratives of suffering confessed by both Kikumaru and Shirota as “dutiful” daughters who sacrificed their lives for their families illustrate Japanese gender codes as synonymous with ‘the sexual contract’ (Pateman 1988). The concept of the sexual contract has been widely accepted by feminist scholars of the existence of the “hidden” agreement of modern civil societies to legitimise male ‘patriarchal rights’ to access female bodies and control over women. Chapter 6 narrates two different stories. One of these narratives deals with Kikumaru as an “elite” “comfort woman” reserved for only a few officials during the entire time at the military brothel. The other is Shirota’s account as a “comfort woman” allocated to numerous enlisted soldiers per day, like many other non-​Japanese “comfort women”. Their paths, crossed once as reputed “dutiful” daughters, seemed to clearly diverge at this point; however, both were still sex slaves in captivity notwithstanding the privileges felt by Kikumaru in being attached only to the officers whom she sexually served. Tracing their feelings and emotions as “comfort women” in their testimonies, this chapter narrates the relationships between female victims of sexual enslavement and the hegemonic masculinity of the Japanese military, as well as the interaction between manhood and humanhood on the battlefield. The state-​sanctioned prostitution system in Meiji Japan allowed men who could

16  Introduction: Trauma and recovery afford it to buy women’s bodies for the sole purpose of “casual” sex for a short duration of time. The “comfort women” system did far more than enabling more males (soldiers) to access female bodies. It also blurred the distinction in their perception between state-​sanctioned prostitutes and the “comfort women”, releasing soldiers from any feeling of guilt about violence against women. On the one hand, a visit to “comfort stations” was the admission ticket to the fraternity club of hegemonic masculinity that characterised the Japanese military. On the other, the extreme transition from civilised human to killing machine puts both the manhood and humanhood of soldiers at risk. Finally, this chapter reveals how “comfort women” contributed to restoring their (hu)manhood. The epilogue provides reflections on Kikumaru’s and Shirota’s stories of trauma in connection with the politics of integrity. What is the significance of the memories of Japanese “comfort women” survivors in connection with human integrity? Returning to the assertation put forth by the Japanese feminist journalist/​activist, Nishino Rumiko, my reflection contemplates our duty of restoring humanness back to the individual as well as to societies.

Notes 1 See a website: Letter by Concerned Economists Regarding ‘Contracting for Sex in the Pacific War’ in the International Review of Law and Economics http://​chwe. net/​irle/​let​ter/​. Caroline Norma (2016: 59–​60, 68–​9) already criticised Ramseyer’s analysis of Japanese indentured prostitution in his co-​authored book chapter with Frances Rosenbluth (1998) The politics of oligarchy: Institutional choice in Imperial Japan, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 160–​1. In the wake of the controversy surrounding Ramseyer’s article, his previous articles regarding Okinawa and Japanese outcast people raised similar issues among Japanese scholars. 2 See Yoshimi Y. (1995) Jūgun Ianfu (military comfort women). Tokyo, Japan: Iwanami Shinsho, and its English translation (2000); Hicks, G. L. (1995) The comfort women: Sex slaves of the Japanese imperial forces. St. Leonard’s, NSW: Allen & Unwin; Schmidt, D. A. (2000) Ianfu –​The comfort women of the Japanese imperial army of the Pacific War: Broken silence. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen; Stez, M., & Oh, B. B. C. (eds.) (2001) Legacies of the comfort women of World War II. Watertown, MA: Eastgate; Soh, C. S. (2008) The comfort women: Sexual violence and postcolonial memory in Korea and Japan. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. 3 Philip Seaton (2007:19) utilises Michael Waltzer’s formulation of war as developed in Just and Unjust War (1977, 2000), which proposes the dual aspects of war: ‘[J]‌ustice of war, jus ad bellum’ (justice in going to war) and ‘justice in war, jus in bello’ (justice in conducting war). ‘Was the war just or not?’ is categorised as ‘justice of war, jus ad bellum’. 4 Visit the home page of Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan: www.mofa.go.jp/​ policy/​women/​fund/​state9308.html. Issued on 4 August 1993 (accessed 17 August 2018). 5 To read the Tribunal’s final judgement, visit vawwrac.org/​war_​crimes_​tribunal. You can also witness some survivors’ testimonies at the WIWCT on the website of Fight for Justice: http://​figh​tfor​just​ice.info/​?page​_​id=​2818&lang=​en.

Introduction: Trauma and recovery  17 6 See Matsui (2001). 7 In 2011, the VAWW-​NET Japan was reorganised into the Violence Against Women in War Research Action Center (VAWW RAC). In 2021, the VAWW RAC halted their activities without further notice. 8 Abe Shinzō served as Prime Minister of Japan from 2006 to 2007 and again between 2012 and 2020. 9 See Yang, H. (2008) Finding the “Map of Memory”: Testimony of the Japanese military sexual slavery survivors’ positions. East Asia Cultures Critique, 16(1), 79–​107; Kang, J. (2017) Do you know the “comfort women” of the Imperial Japanese Military? (Y. H. Lee, Trans.). Korea: The Institute of Korean Independence Movement Studies; Friedman, S. J. (2015) Silenced no more: Voices of comfort women. Virginia: Freedom Publishers. 10 See Friedman (2015); Qiu, P. (2013) Chinese comfort women testimonies from Imperial Japan’s sex slaves. Vancouver, Canada: UBC Press; Henson, M. R. (2016) Comfort woman: A Filipina’s story of prostitution and slavery under the Japanese military. Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield; Pramoedya Ananta Toer (2013) Nihongun ni suterareta shōjotachi: Indonesia no ianfu hiwa [Girls abandoned by the Japanese Army: Tragedy of Indonesian comfort women] translated by Yamada Michitaka. Tokyo: Comonzu; and Ruff-​O’Herne, J. (2008) Fifty years of silence. North Sydney: Penguin Books. 11 The other head of VAWW RAC is Nakahara Michiko, Professor Emeritus of Waseda University. 12 See Mujawayo, Esther & Souád Belhaddad (2011) Sur Vivantes, Rwanda, historie d’un génocide. Geneva: Métis Presses. 13 In 1965, the Japanese government founded Kanita Fujin no Mura as a rehabilitation place for formerly prostituted women. Shirota would spend the rest of her life there.

References Primary sources Nishino, R. (2016) Interview with Sachiyo Tsukamoto, 23 June.

Secondary sources Abrams, L. (2010) Oral history theory. London: Routledge. Alphen, E. V. (1997) Caught by history: Holocaust effects in contemporary art, literature, and theory. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Anderson, B. (1983) Imagined communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism. London: Verso. Bloom, L. R., & Sawin, P. (2009) Ethical responsibility in feminist research: Challenging ourselves to do activist research with women in poverty. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 22(3), 333–​51. Caruth, C. (ed.) (1995) Trauma: Explorations in memory. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Caruth, C. (1996) Unclaimed experience: Trauma, narratives, and history. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.

18  Introduction: Trauma and recovery Coomaraswamy, R. (1994, 22 November) Report of the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences in accordance with Commission on Human Rights resolution 1994/​45, The United Nations. Available at: E_​CN-​4_​1996_​ 53_​Add-​1-​EN –​PDF (accessed 22 November 2021). Danieli, Y. (ed.) (1998) International handbook of multigenerational legacies of trauma. New York: Plenum Press. Decety, J., Echols, S., & Correll, J. (2010) The blame game: The effect of responsibility and social stigma on empathy for pain. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 22(5), 985–​97. Edkins, J. (2003) Trauma and the memory of politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Felman, S., & Laub, D. (2013) Testimony: Crises of witnessing in literature, psychoanalysis, and history. Taylor & Francis. Available at www.ebrary.com.ezproxy.newcastle.edu.au (accessed: 27 December 2021). Finnerty, S. (2016) Stigma and empathy: An organising principle for the continuum of social understanding. Available at www.researchgate.net/​publication/​307934609 (accessed 3 May 2021). Gilbert, C. (2018) From surviving to living: Voice, trauma and witness in Rwandan women’s writing. Montpellier: Presses Universitaires de la Méditerranée. Goffman, E. (1963) Stigma: Notes on the management of spoiled identity. New York: Simon and Schuster. Gramsci, A. (1973) Selections from prison notebooks. Edited and translated by Quintin Hoarse and Geoffrey Nowell Smith. London: Lawrence and Wishart. Hague, R. (2011) Autonomy and identity: The politics of who we are. USA and Canada: Routledge. Harding, S., & Norberg, K. (2005) New feminist approaches to social science methodologies: An introduction. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture & Society, 30(4), 2009–​15. Herman, J. (1992) Trauma & recovery. New York: Basic Books. Hirota, K. (2009) Shōgen kiroku jūgun ianfu/​kangofu: Senjo ni ikita onna no dokoku [Testimonial records of military comfort women/​ nurses: Lamentations of the women who lived at the front]. Tokyo: Shinjinbutsuōraisha. Jones, E. E., Farina, A., Hastorf, A. H., Markus, H., Miller, D. T., & Scott, R. A. (1984) Social stigma: The psychology of marked relationships. New York: W. H. Freeman. Kimura, M. (2008) Narrative as a site of subject construction: The ‘comfort women’ debate. Feminist Theory, 9(5), 5–​24. Kimura, M. (2016) Unfolding the ‘comfort women’ debates: Modernity, violence, women’s voices. London: Palgrave Macmillan. LaCapra, D. (2001) Writing history, writing trauma. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Linde, C. (1993) Life stories: The creation of coherence. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Link, B. G., & Phelan, J. C. (2001) Conceptualizing stigma. Annual Review of Sociology, 27(1), 363–​85. Matsui, Y. (2001) Women’s international war crimes tribunal on Japan’s military sexual slavery: Memory, identity, and society. East Asia, 19(4), 119–​42. McDougall, G. J. (1998, 22 June) Contemporary forms of slavery: Systematic rape, sexual slavery and slavery-​like practices during armed conflict, the United Nations. Available at: http://​hrlibr​ary.umn.edu/​demo/​Contempor​aryf​orms​ofSl​aver​y_​Mc​ Doug​all.pdf (accessed 22 November 2021).

Introduction: Trauma and recovery  19 Marchand, M. H. (1995) ‘Latin American women speak on development: Are we listening yet?’, in: Merchand, M. H., & Parpart, J. L. (eds.) Feminism/​postmodernism/​development. London: Routledge, pp. 56–​72. Mohanty, C. (1991) ‘Cartographies of struggle: Third World women and the politics of feminism’, in: Mohanty, C., Russo, A., & Torres, L. (eds.) Third World women and the politics of feminism. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, pp. 1–​47. Molden, B. (2016) Resistant pasts versus mnemonic hegemony: On the power relations of collective memory. Memory Studies, 9(2), 125–​42. Morales, A. L. (1998) Medicine stories: History, culture and the politics of integrity. Cambridge, MA: South End Press. Morris-​Suzuki, T. (2015) You don’t want to know about the girls? The “comfort women”, the Japanese military and allied forces in the Asia-​Pacific war. The Asia-​ Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, 13(31), 1–​21. Available at https://​apjjf.org/​2015/​13/​31/​ Tessa-​Mor​ris-​Suz​uki/​4352.html (accessed 30 November 2021). Motta, S. C. (2014) ‘Reinventing revolutions, an “Other” politics in practice and theory’, in Stahler-​Sholk, R., Vanden, H. E., & Becker, M. (eds.) Rethinking Latin American social movements: Radical action from below. London: Rowman & Littlefield, pp. 21–​44. Motta, S. C. (2018) Liminal subjects: Weaving (our) liberation. London: Rowman & Littlefield International. Mujawayo, E. & Belhaddad, S. (2011) Sur vivantes, Rwanda, historie d’un génocide. Geneva: Métis Presses. Norma, C. (2016) The Japanese comfort women and sexual slavery during the China and Pacific wars. New York: Bloomsbury Academic. Norridfe, Z. (2013) Perceiving pain in African literature. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Novak, A. (2008). Who speaks? Who listens?: The problem of address in two Nigerian trauma novels. Studies in the Novel, 40(1), 31–​51. Pateman, C. (1988) The sexual contract. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Ramseyer, J. (2021) Contracting for sex in the Pacific War. International Review of Law and Economics, 65, 1–​8. Available at: http://​chwe.net/​ramse​yer/​ramse​yer.pdf (accessed 30 November 2021). Rose, S.D. (1999) ‘Naming and claiming: the integration of traumatic experience and the reconstruction of self in survivors’ stories of sexual abuse’, in Rogers, K. L., Leydesdorff, S., & Dawson, G. (eds.) Trauma and life stories: International perspectives. London: Routledge, pp. 160–​79. Seaton, P.A. (2007) Japan’s contested war memories: The “memory rifts” in historical consciousness of World War II. New York: Routledge. Sprankle, S., Bloomquist, K., Butcher, C., Gleason, N., & Schaefer, Z. (2018) The role of sex work stigma in victim blaming and empathy of sexual assault survivors. Sexual Research and Social Policy, 15, 242–​8, DOI 10.1007/​s13178-​017-​0282-​0. Tsukamoto, S. (2019) The politics of gendered memory of Japanese “comfort women”. Unpublished PhD thesis. University of Newcastle, Australia. Available at: https://​nova.newcas​tle.edu.au/​vital/​acc​ess/​mana​ger/​Rep​osit​ory/​uon:35081;jse​ ssio​nid=​434A5​1174​A05B​3D65​CAD0​134D​7A73​97F?view=​null&f0=​sm_​ide​ntif​ ier%3A%22h ​ t tp%3A%2F%2Fhdl.han ​ d le.net%2F1 ​ 9 59.13%2F1402 ​ 9 32%22& sort=​null. Tsukamoto, S. (2021) A more miserable life than living in the jungle: A Japanese “comfort women” story. Gender & History, 1–​18, DOI10.1111/​1468-​0424.12583.

20  Introduction: Trauma and recovery Tsukamoto, S. and Motta, S. C. (2020) ‘The Women’s Active Museum on War and Peace: Pedagogies of possibility of social and historical justice for “comfot women”, in Sanford, K., Clover, D., Taber, N., & Williamson, S. (eds.) Feminist critique and the museum: Educating for a critical consciousness. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, pp. 156–​76. VAWW RAC (ed.) (2015) Nihonjin ‘ianfu’:Aikokushin to jinshin baibai to [Japanese ‘comfort women’: Nationalism and trafficking]. Tokyo: Gendai Shokan. Yang, H. (1997) Revisiting the issue of Korean “military comfort women”: The question of truth and positionality. positions, 5(1), 51–​71. Yoshiaki Yoshimi (2000) Comfort women: Sexual slavery in the Japanese military during World War II. New York: Columbia University Press.

2  Conspiracy of silence in post-​war Japan

Introduction Trauma becomes a threat to both individual and collective identity since it disrupts the temporal coherence of both personal and public/​official narratives due to the impossibility of language to comprehend and express traumatic experiences. Narrative is a constituent part of identity construction because it is central to remembrance of the past individual and collective sense of identity. It is trauma that, all of a sudden, shatters the illusion of familial or social safety and uncovers the real face of our protectors as our tormentors in various ways. The consequence of this condition is that people cannot find a place to situate the traumatic events in either individual or official narratives to make sense of them in their lives. For any given state, the control of collective trauma is fundamental to perpetuating its sustained national identity. This is articulated through cultural processes of interpreting social suffering that enable the state to manipulate the collective memory of trauma for the purposes of statecraft. In this aim, what Jeffrey C. Alexander (2012:11) calls ‘carrier groups’ connect their ‘material and ideal interests’ to particular narratives ‘about who did what to whom, and how society must respond if a collective identity is to be sustained’. This is because the constant positioning of ourselves as a member of a family or a state promotes the integration of our own identity with the collective (Edkins 2003:8). The state is the most powerful carrier group, given that the linearity of the state narratives is constantly (re)produced under day-​to-​day influences such as myth and belief, thereby masking and silencing individual voices against the official narratives. Jenny Edkins (2003:xiv) separates the time when a society is confronted by traumatic events (‘trauma’ time) from normal time (‘linear’ time) when the nation-​state continues ‘the standard political processes’, which have been thus far accepted. When trauma tears the collective identity apart, political battles begin between the state, which intends to restore linear time in order to maintain official narratives, and groups/​individuals who uncover the voices of trauma in order to inscribe alternative narratives beyond official history. Given that the normative nature of collective memory is inextricably linked DOI: 10.4324/9781003203698-2

22  Conspiracy of silence in post-war Japan to the construction of social identity (Páez et al. 1997), the collective memory of trauma can undermine the legitimacy of hegemonic constructs of the state and the nation. Therefore, silencing collective trauma is critical for a state to maintain its established national identity and order. Particularly in cases of extraordinary political events, such as wars, the magnitude of traumatising effects upon both individuals and society as a whole is immeasurable. It means that the gap between the ‘linear’ time or peace time of the state and the ‘trauma’ time is too huge to bridge.

Japan’s war trauma and the states’ post-​war revisionism The unbridgeable gap between the (pre)wartime and the post-​wartime was engraved on the entire Japanese society, where the Asia-​Pacific War left collective war trauma. This all-​out war resulted in cataclysmic destruction caused by the dropping of two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, respectively, and ultimately resulted in the deaths of over 3.1 million Japanese, including 800,000 civilians (Seaton 2007:38). The catastrophic defeat was powerful enough to destroy the temporal coherence of the official narrative, which depicted Japan as a single patriarchal family under the protection of their divine father –​Emperor Hirohito. War trauma could possibly reveal the political fiction of the “benevolent” imperial myth, which legitimised and (re) produced gendered divisions of labour represented by the hegemonic masculinity (Connell 1995/​2005) and femininity integral to the identity of the patriarchal militarist state. R. W. Connell (1995/​2005) expands Gramsci’s concept of hegemony by shifting an emphasis on class relations to gender relations, whereby he foregrounds the plurality of masculinities in their competition in pursuit of the dominant position within the hierarchy of masculinity. Hegemonic masculinity refers to a particular form of masculinity attaining the governing position of the hierarchy. Accordingly, the femininity complying with the patriarchal values promoted by the hegemonic masculinity is named ‘hegemonic femininity’ or ‘emphasised femininity’ (Connell & Messerschmidt 2005:848). According to the Pulitzer Prize-​winning historian John Dower (1999:104), the ‘kyodatsu condition’ of the Japanese public caused by Japan’s defeat was more complex than ‘the state of depression and disorientation’ caused by ‘the immediate psychic numbing of defeat’. As Dower (1999:104) points out, going through long-​standing exhaustion, the Japanese public finally confronted the failure of the state’s militarist policy, which wasted them as its imperial subjects for its impossible goals of war. Emperor Hirohito’s war claimed the death of approximately 20 million Asians, over 3.1 million Japanese and more than 60,000 Allied Forces (Bix 2000:4). Given that an indictment for the Emperor’s war responsibility became the centre of global attention, it was urgent for the state to find a way to maintain his status. General Douglas MacArthur, the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP), offered a way out for Emperor Hirohito, who was secretly seeking to absolve himself

Conspiracy of silence in post-war Japan  23 of his war responsibility (Bix 2000:2). Brigadier General Bonner F. Fellers,1 MacArthur’s military secretary and the chief of his psychological warfare operations provided MacArthur with the foundation for both the retention of the emperor system and Hirohito himself (Dower 1999:280–​3). Feller concluded in his study report ‘Answer to Japan’2 that Japan should commence a peaceful transformation from the ‘fanatical’ militarist state to a US-​led democratic state (Dower 1999:282). Feller argued: [T]‌o dethrone, or hang, the Emperor would cause a tremendous and violent reaction from all Japanese. Hanging of the Emperor to them would be comparable to the crucifixion of Christ to us. All would fight to die like ants. (Dower 1999:282) Based on Feller’s rationalisation of securing both Hirohito and Japan’s emperor system, MacArthur designed a radical transformation of Hirohito from the pre-​war religious and military head of the state to the post-​war spiritual symbol to unite the Japanese people. This distortion of Emperor Hirohito’s identity constituted the narrative which denied the traumatised experiences of Japanese surviving “comfort women”. Grounded on MacArthur’s scenario that Hirohito was manipulated by ‘the militarist clique’, the US constructed Hirohito’s historical transformation from the ‘pre-​war militarist’ to the ‘post-​war pacifist’ (Orr 2001:15). By scapegoating wartime military leaders, the US absolved Hirohito of any war crimes, thus creating ‘a history that united him with his people as passive agents’ in the war (Orr 2001:34). Then, the portrayal of Emperor Hirohito ‘as deliverer of peace, and a victim of war’ (Kersten 2003:19) was created as the new post-​war imperial myth, which allowed the SCAP to utilise the Emperor as the engine to consolidate his people into Japan’s process of democratisation and demilitarisation (Dower 1999; Bix 2000; Orr 2001; Seaton 2007; Igarashi 2012). The Japan–​ US complicity to erase Hirohito’s war responsibility from popular memory emerged on 15 August 1945, when his recorded Imperial Rescript of Surrender (Gyokuon Hōsō) was aired on the radio. The script was drafted by the then-​Japanese cabinet members, including the Secretary of the Cabinet, Sakomizu Hisatsune (Sato 2005:12). The original script was difficult for the general public to understand because it was written in the old language style with Chinese origins. Therefore, the interpretation of the announced rescript into the colloquial Japanese language followed. This is the original Japanese script followed by the English translation: 『大東亜戦争終結ノ詔書』原文 ((昭和 昭和20 20年 年8月14 14日 日) 朕深ク世界ノ大勢ト帝国ノ現状トニ鑑ミ非常ノ措置ヲ以テ時局ヲ収 拾セムト欲シ茲ニ忠良ナル爾臣民ニ告ク 朕ハ帝国政府ヲシテ米英支蘇四国ニ対シ其ノ共同宣言ヲ受諾スル 旨通告セシメタリ

24  Conspiracy of silence in post-war Japan 抑々帝国臣民ノ康寧ヲ図リ万邦共栄ノ楽ヲ偕ニスルハ皇祖皇宗ノ 遣範ニシテ朕ノ拳々措カサル所 曩ニ米英二国ニ宣戦セル所以モ亦実 ニ帝国ノ自存ト東亜ノ安定トヲ庶幾スルニ出テ他国ノ主権ヲ排シ領 土ヲ侵スカ如キハ固ヨリ朕カ志ニアラス 然ルニ交戦已ニ四歳ヲ閲シ朕カ陸海将兵ノ勇戦朕カ百僚有司ノ励 精朕カ一億衆庶ノ奉公 各々最善ヲ尽セルニ拘ラス戦局必スシモ好転 セス世界ノ大勢亦我ニ利アラス 加之敵ハ新ニ残虐ナル爆弾ヲ使用シ テ無辜ヲ殺傷シ惨害ノ及フ所真ニ測ルヘカラサルニ至ル而モ尚交戦 ヲ継続セムカ終ニ我カ民族ノ滅亡ヲ招来スルスルノミナラス延テ人 類ノ文明ヲモ破却スヘシ斯ノ如クムハ朕何ヲ以テカ億兆ノ赤子ヲ保 シ皇祖皇宗ノ神霊ニ謝セムヤ是レ朕カ帝国政府ヲシテ共同宣言ニ応 セシムルニ至レル所以ナリ 朕ハ帝国ト共ニ終始東亜ノ解放ニ協力セル諸盟邦ニ対シ遺憾ノ意 ヲ表セサルヲ得ス帝国臣民ニシテ戦陣ニ死シ職域ニ殉シ非命ニ斃レ タル者及其ノ遺族ニ想ヲ致セハ五内為ニ裂ク且戦傷ヲ負ヒ災禍ヲ蒙 リ家業ヲ失ヒタル者ノ厚生ニ至リテハ朕ノ深ク軫念スル所ナリ 惟フ ニ今後帝国ノ受クヘキ困難ハ固ヨリ尋常ニアラス爾臣民ノ衷情モ朕 善ク之ヲ知ル 然レトモ朕ハ時運ノ趨ク所耐ヘ難キヲ耐ヘ忍ヒ難キヲ 忍ヒ以テ万世ノ為ニ太平ヲ開カムト欲ス 朕ハ茲ニ国体ヲ護持シ得テ忠良ナル爾臣民ノ赤誠ニ信倚シ常ニ爾 臣民ト共ニ在リ若シ夫レ情ノ激スル所濫ニ事端ヲ滋クシ或ハ同胞排 擠互ニ時局ヲ乱リ為ニ大道ヲ誤リ信義ヲ世界ニ失フカ如キハ朕最モ 之ヲ戒ム宜シク挙国一家子孫相伝ヘ確ク神州ノ不滅ヲ信シ任重クシ テ道遠キヲ念ヒ総力ヲ将来ノ建設ニ傾ケ道義ヲ篤クシ志操ヲ鞏クシ 誓テ国体ノ精華ヲ発揚シ世界ノ進運ニ後レサラムコトヲ期スヘシ爾 臣民其レ克く朕カ意ヲ体セヨ 御名御璽 Our Good and Loyal Subjects3 (14 August 1945) After pondering deeply the general trends of the world and the actual conditions obtaining in Our Empire today, we have decided to effect a settlement of the present situation by resorting to an extraordinary measure. We have ordered Our Government to communicate to the Governments of the United States, Great Britain, China and the Soviet Union that Our Empire accepts the provisions of their Joint Declaration. To strive for the common prosperity and happiness of all nations as well as the security and well-​being of Our subjects is the solemn obligation which has been handed down by Our Imperial Ancestors, and which We lay close to heart. Indeed, We declared war on America and Britain out of Our sincere desire to secure Japan’s self-​preservation and the stabilization of East Asia, it being far from Our thought either to infringe upon the sovereignty of other nations or to embark upon territorial aggrandisement. But now the war has lasted for nearly four years. Despite the best that has been done by everyone –​the gallant fighting of military and naval forces, the diligence and assiduity of Our servants of the State and the devoted service of Our

Conspiracy of silence in post-war Japan  25 one hundred million people, the war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan’s advantage, while the general trends of the world have all turned against her interest. Moreover, the enemy has begun to employ a new and most cruel bomb, the power of which to do damage is indeed incalculable, taking the toll of many innocent lives. Should we continue to fight, it would not only result in an ultimate collapse and obliteration of the Japanese nation, but also it would lead to the total extinction of human civilization. Such being the case, how are We to save the millions of Our subjects; or to atone Ourselves before the hallowed spirits of Our Imperial Ancestors? This is the reason why We have ordered the acceptance of the provisions of the Joint Declaration of the Powers. We cannot but express the deepest sense of regret to Our Allied nations of East Asia, who have consistently cooperated with the Empire towards the emancipation of East Asia. The thought of those officers and men as well as others who have fallen in the fields of battle, those who died at their posts of duty, or those who met with untimely death and all their bereaved families, pains Our heart night and day. The welfare of the wounded and the war-​sufferers, and of those who have lost their home and livelihood, are the objects of Our profound solicitude. The hardships and sufferings to which Our nation is to be subjected hereafter will be certainly great. We are keenly aware of the inmost feelings of all ye, Our subjects. However, it is according to the dictate of time and fate that We have resolved to pave the way for grand peace for all the generations to come by enduring the unendurable and suffering what is insufferable. Having been able to safeguard and maintain the structure of the Imperial State, We are always with ye, Our good and loyal subjects, relying upon your sincerity and integrity. Beware most strictly of any outbursts of emotion which may endanger needless complications, or any fraternal contention and strife which may create confusion, lead ye astray and cause ye to lose the confidence of the world. Let the entire nation continue as one family from generation to generation, ever firm in its faith of the imperishableness of its divine land and mindful of its heavy burden of responsibilities, and the long road before it. Unite your total strength to be devoted to the construction for the future. Cultivate the ways of rectitudes; foster nobility of spirit; and work with resolution so as ye may enhance the innate glory of the Imperial State and keep place with the progress of the world. Without using the word “surrender” in the script, Emperor Hirohito appealed to public emotion by expressing his empathy with the desperate plight of his people as war victims and promised to establish a peaceful world for generations to come.4 More importantly, despite the devastating defeat in the war of aggression, Emperor Hirohito declared the unbroken continuity of the imperial narrative of Japan as one patriarchal family from the pre-​ wartime, when he was the Father of the nation. Referring to the Japanese people as ‘Our good and loyal subjects’, he advised them to ‘[l]‌et the entire

26  Conspiracy of silence in post-war Japan nation continue as one family from generation to generation’ in order to ‘enhance the innate glory of the Imperial State’. This fabrication of the continuity of the “peaceful” imperial throne filled the gap between the (pre) wartime and the post-​war Japanese society. This state revisionism –​in other words, the ‘defeat revisionism’ –​is different from so-​called revisionism. The current concept of revisionism distorts or denies the past which became part of public history, whereas ‘defeat revisionism’ ‘revises what is happening in the present before it was history’ (Kersten 2003:16). While the whole nation, including the surviving “comfort women”, was struggling to incorporate their own traumatic experiences of the war into memory, the ongoing state revisionism shattered the memory assimilation process, thereby silencing individual and collective voices of trauma. On 15 August 1945, a new collective memory of post-​war Japan was created by the state regarding what to remember and what to forget in the past. Sato Takumi (2005) calls what happened on that day ‘the myth of 15 August’. This was part of a state strategy of amnesia about the past war, directed by the US, in which Hirohito was cast as the main protagonist. The scenario imposed the new national narrative of war victimhood on the Japanese people from above, and thus released them from their sense of guilt about the aggressive war. Because Emperor Hirohito was not guilty, why should his loyal subjects consider themselves as responsible for perpetrating his war (Dower 1999; Bix 2000)? With the exception of certain wartime leaders such as Tōjō Hideki, this defeat revisionism “democratised” all Japanese people insofar as they were all represented as war victims. This “democratisation” from above elided and erased any distinction between the perpetrator and the victim, such as represented by the relationship between Japanese soldiers and Japanese “comfort women”. However, as the Imperial Rescript revealed, the patriarchal relationship between the Emperor and his subjects was maintained. This state revisionism concealed the reproduction of deeply gendered political and social hierarchies. The Imperial Rescript thus emerged as the ‘social contract’ between the state and its subjects, whereas the hidden ‘sexual contract’ appeared only three days after Emperor Hirohito’s radio broadcast.

A hidden history of the sexual contract: Japanese “comfort women” for the Allied Forces Carol Pateman (1988:1) conceptualises that a new civil society of the modern era is premised upon the ‘original contract’ which consists of the ‘social contract’ and the ‘sexual contract’. She elucidates what the “two-​layered” original contract brought into a new civil society: The social contract is a story of freedom; the sexual contract is a story of subjection. The original contract constitutes both freedom and domination. Men’s freedom and women’s subjection are created through the original contract –​and the character of civil freedom cannot be understood

Conspiracy of silence in post-war Japan  27 without the missing half of the story that reveals how men’s patriarchal right over women is established through contract. (Pateman 1988:2) In short, the hidden sexual contract underlines the social contract as part of the original contract, thereby perpetuating a patriarchal social order in which political right serves as ‘patriarchal right or sex-​right’ (Pateman 1988:1, emphasis in original). The story of ‘sexual contract’ therefore reveals the fiction of democracy in modern civil society where men dominate women by exercising male patriarchal sexual rights. Capitalism and patriarchy are intertwined in modern civil society where female bodies are commodified as sexual objects and women are confined in the private sphere. It results in degrading women as second-​class citizens who have no political rights. Modern Japanese gender codes are synonymous with what Pateman (1988) calls the ‘the sexual contract’, which has widely been known as the “hidden” agreement of modern civil societies to legitimise male ‘patriarchal rights’ to access female bodies and exert control over women. She argues that within modern society there exists a patriarchal structure that perpetuates the domination–​subjugation relations between the sexes. The patriarchal hierarchy has been endorsed by the ‘social contract’ in order to verify male civil rights as well as by the ‘sexual contract’ in order to deny female citizenship by marginalising women as sexual beings. While individual economic life is articulated in the public sphere, the private sphere endorsing male patriarchal rights to access female sexuality is ignored. It discloses that the political significance of women’s equal citizenship implied by the sexual contract theory is still not taken for granted. Following Pateman, Kathy Miriam (2005) contends that the sexual contract theory reveals the impacts of ‘contractarian liberalism’ on the conceptualisation of ‘freedom, agency and power’ because ‘[m]‌ale mastery and female subjection is a power relation structured into liberalism, and thus also into the organization of modern patriarchy’ (Miriam 2005:4, 10). In conclusion, Miriam emphasises that victimisation can be situated alongside agency if the debate about prostitution focuses on the definition of agency, and not on the ownership of agency. Miriam’s abolitionist approach to theorise a symbiotic relationship between victimisation and agency formulation in prostitution will help to frame the analysis of Japanese “comfort women” who were mostly state-​licensed prostitutes. In practice, Japanese “comfort women” could not exercise the freedom to choose their clients, much less to leave prostitution (Yoshimi 2000:202). The narrative of Japanese “comfort women” constitutes the story of the ‘sexual contract’ (Pateman 1988), which tells us about the male domination of female bodies, as well as men’s suppression of women’s political freedom in modern civil society. On 28 August 1945, in the public square in front of the Imperial Palace, an oath of allegiance to Emperor Hirohito was read out by some young Japanese women who participated in a ceremony to launch Tokushu Ian shisetsu Kyōkai, known as the Recreation and Amusement Association (RAA). As the

28  Conspiracy of silence in post-war Japan Japanese word ian (comfort) implies, the RAA was Japan’s post-​war “comfort women” system, which provided Japanese women to the occupying forces stationed around Tokyo.5 As gender historian Hirai Kazuko (2014) argues, the RAA was a product of the sexual politics implemented by the collaboration between Japan and the US government. For the purpose of protecting Japanese women from being raped by the soldiers of the occupation army, the Japanese government initiated and sponsored the establishment of the RAA (Dower 1999; Koikari 1999; Hirai 2014). General MacArthur and the General Headquarters (GHQ) also needed the RAA in order to prevent the spread of venereal disease among US soldiers (Hirai 2014:31). Thus, between the occupier and the occupied, there was a trade-​off of “occupied” female bodies in order to protect their own respective national interests. This power politics between the masculine conqueror and the feminised conquered again reproduces female subjugation to both states and invisibilises their subjectivity. It also reveals the intersection between racism, classism and gender-​ based inequality, where poor women without patriarchal guardians from the “inferior” race are exploited and abandoned in the same way as Japanese “comfort women”. All in all, along with the US democratisation project, which re-​presented Japanese women as oppressed by their own patriarchal state, the US self-​representation as the democratiser was fiction. The proclamation was publicly read by some young Japanese females stipulated to formally provide the services of Japanese “comfort women” to the occupation army (senryōgun ianfu). This is the excerpt from the original Japanese script:6 邦家三千年山容河相河むるなしと雖も、昭和二十年八月十五日の慟 哭を一期とし、極まりなき悲痛と涯しまき憂苦とに縛られ危くも救 い難き絶望のどん底に沈淪せんとす。（中略） 時ありて、命くだりて、予て我等が職域を通じ、戦後処理の国家 的緊急施設の一端として、駐屯軍慰安の難事業を課せられる。命重 く且大なり。而も成功は難中の難なり。（中略） 只同志結盟して信念の命ずる処に直往し、“昭和のお吉”幾千人か の人柱の上に、狂 瀾 を阻む防波堤を築き、民族の純潔を百年の彼方 に護持培養すると共に、戦後社会秩序の根本に見へざる地下の柱た らんとす。（中略） 声明を結ぶに当り一言す。我らは断じて進駐軍に媚びるものに非 ず、節を枉げ心を売るものに非ず、止むべからざる儀礼を払ひ、条 約の一端の履行にも貢献し、社会の安寧に寄与し、以て大にして之 を言へば国体護持に挺身せむとするに他ならざることを、重ねて直 言し、以て声明となす。 An Oath of Allegiance to Emperor Hirohito translated by John Dower (1999:127–​8) Although our family has endured for 3,000 years, unchanging as the mountains and valleys, the rivers and grasses, since the great rending of August 15, 1945, which marked the end of an era, we have been wracked with infinite,

Conspiracy of silence in post-war Japan  29 piercing grief and endless sorrow, and are about to sink to the bottom of perilous, bondless desperation. The time has come, an order has been given, and by virtue of our realm of business we have been assigned the difficult task of comforting the occupation army as part of the urgent national facilities of post-​war management. This order is heavy and immense. And success will be extremely difficult. And so we unite and go forward to where our beliefs lead us, and through the sacrifice of several thousands of “Okichis of our era” [we] build a breakwater to hold back the raging waves and defend and nurture the purity of our race, becoming as well an invisible underground pillar at the roof of the postwar social order. A word as we conclude this proclamation, we are absolutely not flattering the occupation force. We are not compromising our integrity or selling our souls. We are paying an inescapable courtesy, and a service to fulfil one part of our obligations and contribute to the security of our society. We dare say it loudly: we are but offering ourselves for the defence of the national polity. We reaffirm this. This is our proclamation. This declaration provided for Japanese “comfort women” to the US occupation army corresponds to the Imperial Rescript, as shown by the expression ‘the great rending of August 15, 1945’ in the first paragraph, which mourns ‘the end of an era’. This correspondence reminds us of Pateman’s theorisation of the social and sexual contract. By ordering the ‘comforting [of] the occupation army’, the following paragraph of the oath mentions the possible survival of ‘our family’; that is, the 3000-​year-​long patriarchal nation-​state with the emperor at its pinnacle. This “real” mission of the state establishment of the RAA is explained in the last paragraph –​‘defence of the national polity’. Since the national polity, or kokutai in Japanese, refers to the emperor in the post-​war context, the ultimate goal of the RAA was to protect Emperor Hirohito’s official and patriarchal status and combine this with new forms of US intervention. This new US imperialism was characterised by the feminisation of the enemy state, which controlled enemy males by exploiting the bodies of their female fellow citizens. This state-​sanctioned proclamation reveals the continuity of the state rhetoric from pre-​war through post-​war Japan, for the purpose of reproducing the sexual contract that underpinned the modern statecraft through the sexual exploitation of Japanese women. It is signified by the expression ‘the sacrifice of several thousands of “Okichis of our era”’ in the third paragraph. ‘Okichi’ refers to Tōjin Okichi, a geisha in the late Tokugawa era, who was allocated to the first American consul, Townsend Harris, as a “maidservant” who also sexually served him. This was the Tokugawa government’s arrangement to meet his request on his arrival to Japan in 1856 in the wake of Commodore Matthew Perry’s coercive “Open Door” diplomacy. Ever since, Okichi has become the role model for female self-​sacrifice “for the country”; whereas the tragedy that characterised the rest of her life has never been told. After

30  Conspiracy of silence in post-war Japan her “mission” was completed, she was socially stigmatised, and ended up committing suicide (Leupp 2003:146). By glorifying post-​war Japanese “comfort women” as Okichi of the Shōwa Era, the inaugural statement articulates exactly the same nationalist propaganda misused for the recruitment of Japanese “comfort women”, as shown by Kikumaru’s case. The racism and gender-​based exploitation of poor women embedded in the power relationship between the state and its nation were perpetuated again through the catastrophic war in order to formulate the new national identity of war victims. This distorted history and negated the subjectivity of surviving “comfort women”. This nationalist vow is grounded in the patriarchal binary of “good” and “bad” women. In the third paragraph, the state “ordered” the latter to self-​ sacrifice as a human ‘breakwater’ in order to maintain ‘the purity’ of the Japanese race. ‘Sexual and racial purity’ of “good” women was the embodiment of the sacred nation (Koikari 1999:321). Therefore, the protection of “good” women was an urgent national priority. To further this aim, post-​war patriarchal Japan targeted “bad” women as disposable non-​subjects who were to be ‘a breakwater’ – ‘an invisible underground pillar at the root of the post-​ war social order’ as the proclamation clarifies. Here again, the ‘scapegoating’ of prostitutes (Norma 2016) was reproduced in order to protect the virginity of “good” women who would be wives/​mothers of Japanese men, thereby perpetuating the gendered division of labour in the patriarchal state. The initial target for the recruitment of the Japanese “comfort women” for the US forces was “professional” women. In reality, however, “good” women were also subjected to the recruitment, as shown by the numerous newspaper advertisements, which recruited new inexperienced young women as well (Hirai 2014:32–​7). For the defeated, the dire threat was not from the occupied forces but rather from hunger. In 1945, a rumour was circulating around Japan that ‘millions would die of starvation over the coming fall and winter’ (Dower 1999:93). This life-​or-​death situation caused by the state transformed even “good” women to “bad” women for survival. This was illustrated by the case of a 19-​year-​old homeless woman who became a prostitute in the wake of sleeping with a man who offered her several rice balls (Dower 1999:123). Thus, the severe depression of Japan’s post-​war economy blurred the patriarchal binary since even “good” women were left alone without patriarchal protection. As Kaburagi Seiichi, the manager of the RAA intelligence department, recalled in his memoir, most of the women who applied for the RAA were ‘amateurs’ (Hirai 2014:36). The government took advantage of those women’s tragedy for the recruitment of the US military prostitutes. Thus, in conquered Japan, all Japanese women faced the danger of becoming “bad” women. For the conquerors, ‘[e]‌very Japanese woman, in a word, was potentially a whore’ (Dower 1999:138). The “comfort women” proclamation implicates a hidden sexual contract to take an oath of allegiance to the emperor by offering their bodies to the victors, thereby completing the national goal imposed in the Imperial

Conspiracy of silence in post-war Japan  31 Rescript on Surrender. The story of Japan’s post-​war “comfort women” is thus the story of the sexual contract which completes the original contract. Informed by Adrienne Rich (1980:645), Pateman (1988:2) further names what the original contract creates as ‘the law of male sex-​right’. Japan’s post-​war version of the sexual contract “democratised” Japanese men’s sex-​right to the conquerors’ right, whereas it delegitimised Japanese women’s civil freedom. The occupation authorities also shared this gender-​ biased perspective, reflected by the patriarchal social order. The “benevolent” narrative of the US “democratisation” of Japan embedded the liberation of Japanese women from oppression by their own patriarchal state. However, the sexual contract of Japanese “comfort women” for the US army revealed the gender politics agreed between the masculine occupier and the feminine occupied, where the entire society was feminised as “powerless” victims. Both the Japanese and the occupation authorities shared the view of the patriarchal binary and agreed that prostitutes were the source of sexually transmitted diseases (Hirai 2014:86). As a countermeasure against the spread of venereal disease among the soldiers, both Japanese and occupation authorities collaborated in order to carry out the ‘indiscriminate’ karikomi (round-​up) of Japanese women and imposed humiliating internal medical examinations between January 1946 and 1 August 1948 (Hirai 2014:79). The RAA was shut down by the US Pacific Army Headquarters on 27 March 1946, allegedly because of the proliferation of venereal disease among US soldiers (Hirai 2014:73). As a result of the RAA’s closure, US military prostitutes re-​emerged across the country as “streetwalkers”. The “streetwalkers” who served the Allied Forces were specifically called “pan pan” in Japanese.7 Shirota and Kikumaru each made a living as such for a while in post-​war Japan. The Japan–​US collaborating efforts in nurturing Japan’s official narratives of ‘Japanese victimization’ (Conrad 2010:166) and Emperor Hirohito as the peace deliverer were continued until the end of the US occupation. The US-​drafted constitution provided that Hirohito shall be ‘the symbol of the State and the unity of the People’.8 It marked the moment when the post-​ war fiction of the symbol emperor system was incorporated into official history, thereby filling the gap in the foundation of Japan between wartime and post-​wartime. This post-​war revisionism enabled Emperor Hirohito’s ‘democratic continuity’, as opposed to ‘authoritarian continuity’ (Kersten 2003:20). The distorted history that portrayed Emperor Hirohito as the peace-​loving symbol of the nation was consistently inscribed into the Japanese popular consciousness by the SCAP. Besides the Tokyo Trials (May 1946–​ April 1948) and the purge of Japan’s wartime political elites,9 the SCAP’s censorship banned discussion with respect to Emperor Hirohito’s war responsibility, which further contributed to erasing any sense of guilt from Japan’s collective memory (Orr 2001:19–​31). When the US occupation was completed in 1952, Hirohito’s war responsibility was not a concern for either him nor his government (Orr 2001:34). Nevertheless, the Japanese government maintained the so-​called “chrysanthemum taboo”, which implied that any debate regarding

32  Conspiracy of silence in post-war Japan Emperor Hirohito’s war responsibility was a taboo issue within Japanese society. Takahashi Tetsuya, one of the most prominent Japanese philosophers specialising in the issue of war responsibility, concludes that the fundamental weakness of Japanese society lies in the fact that any open or public criticism of the Emperor’s words and representations is not permissible (Takahashi 2007:249–​ 51). The debate would have raised questions about Emperor Hirohito’s legitimacy as the peace deliverer, resulting in the questioning of Japan’s national history and identity. The “chrysanthemum taboo” has effectively silenced the individual and collective voices of war trauma beyond Emperor Hirohito’s death in 1989. As discussed in Chapter 1, in Nippon Hōsō Kyōkai’s (NHK’s) broadcast of its original documentary programme reporting on the 2000 women’s tribunal, it deleted a number of important scenes, including the indictment and guilty verdict of Emperor Hirohito.

Conclusion After Japan’s defeat of the war in 1945, the Japanese militarist state made the drastic transformation into a “democratic” country under the initiative of the US occupation army. In the process of the democratisation and the demilitarisation of Japan, the new official narrative of war victimhood was created in collaboration between Tokyo and Washington to silence the nation’s collective and individual war trauma. Against this backdrop, the raced, classed and gendered power politics between the state and its subjects was perpetuated again through the post-​war contract, which consisted of both the “imperial” social contract and the “hidden” sexual contract. Modernity transformed the relationship between the state and women, which expanded in particular ways, logics and rationalities the sexual contract that solely proposes the male domination of female sexuality. The modern capitalist state used the patriarchal binary of women for economic prosperity. However, as demonstrated with the gendered relations between the US and Japan after 1945, the boundary between “good” and “bad” women is not fixed but redrawn and/​or removed by the state for its own benefit, based upon social circumstances and political relations with other states. It implicates what Edkins calls the state ‘prerogative’ to use violence whereby ‘the modern nation-​state works by processes of enforced exclusion, and it can change the definition of who precisely will be excluded at any time’ (Edkins 2003:6). All in all, capitalism allows women to be the property of the state as a tool to consolidate power. This statecraft also divides women and men through dehumanising the former and undermining the possibilities of humanised and liberated relationships.

Notes 1 According to Dower, Filler was the most influential aid as the expert of the Japanese psyche. His research study entitled “The Psychology of the Japanese Soldier” was

Conspiracy of silence in post-war Japan  33 completed in 1934–​5, when he attended the Command and General Staff School at Fort Leavenworth as an army captain (Dower 1999:280). 2 This was the revised report of ‘The Psychology of the Japanese Soldier’ and became ‘an orientation guide for Allied intelligence personnel’ (Dower 1999:280). Both reports are held in Box 1 at the Hoover Institution of War and Peace at Stanford University. 3 At the request of the then-​Japanese government, this transcript was translated into English by Hirakawa Tadaichi, the host of the Japanese radio show, “Come, Come English”. This English version was broadcast overseas (Wikisource: https://​en.wik​ isou​rce.org/​wiki/​Imp​eria​l_​Re​scri​pt_​o​n_​Su​rren​der (accessed 21 April 2017). 4 The Imperial Rescript on Surrender is uploaded on YouTube with English subtitles: Emperor Hirohito Rescript at WWII end, English. See www.youtube. com/​watch?v=​dw90C4MpHrQ (accessed 21 April 2017). 5 According to Hirai Kazuko (2014:37), the RAA ran 43 brothels around Tokyo. As for the details of the Japanese authority’s decision-​making about the RAA, see Dower (1999:124–​7); Koikari (1999:321); and Hirai (2014:30–​2). 6 The original Japanese script was partly quoted by Makabe Hiroshi (1978:200–​1). According to Makabe, this declaration was drafted by the executive director of RAA, Tsuji Minoru. 7 Regarding the origin of, “pan pan”, see Hirai (2014:22). 8 The Constitution of Japan, Ch. 1; Article 1, states that: ‘The Emperor shall be the symbol of the State and of the unity of the People, deriving his position from the will of the people with whom resides sovereign power’. Compare this new status of the emperor to The Constitution of the Empire of Japan (1889) Ch. 1; Article 4, which stated in the pertinent part: ‘The Emperor is the head of the Empire, combining in Himself the rights of sovereignty, and exercises them, according to the provisions of the present Constitution’, The Constitution of the Empire of Japan, translated by Ito Miyoji, National Diet Library, www.ndl.go.jp/​constitution/​e/​etc/​ c02.html#s1 (accessed 31 August 2013). 9 The Cold War context facilitated what Dower calls the ‘reverse course’, applied by the US government. The US withdrew from their original policy of Japanese demilitarisation and democratisation and returned the once-​purged politicians and bureaucrats to governmental positions (Dower 1999).

References Alexander, J. C. (2012) Trauma: A social theory. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. Bix, H. P. (2000) Hirohito and the making of modern Japan. New York, NY: Harper Collins. Connell, R. W. (1995/​2005) Masculinities. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. Connell, R. W., & Messerschmidt, J. W. (2005) Hegemonic masculinity: Rethinking the concept. Gender & Society, 19(6), 829–​59. Conrad, S. (2010) ‘Remembering Asia: History and memory in post-​cold war Japan’, in Assman, A. and Conrad, S. (eds.) Memory in a global age: Discourses, practices and trajectories. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 163–​77. Dower, J. W. (1999) Embracing defeat: Japan in the wake of World War II. New York, NY: W.W. Norton.

34  Conspiracy of silence in post-war Japan Edkins, J. (2003) Trauma and the memory of politics. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Hirai, K. (2014) Nihon senryō to gender: Beigun ·baibaishun to nihon joseitachi [The occupation of Japan and gender: The US army selling/​buying sex and Japanese women]. Tokyo: Yūshisha. Igarashi, Y. (2012) Bodies of memory. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Kersten, R. (2003) Revisionism, reaction and the ‘symbol emperor’ in post-​war Japan. Japan Forum, 15(1), 15–​31. Koikari, M. (1999) Rethinking gender and power in the US occupation of Japan, 1945–​1952. Gender & History, 11(2), 313–​35. Leupp, G. P. (2003) Interracial intimacy in Japan: Western men and Japanese women, 1543–​1900. London: Continuum. Makabe, H. (1978) ‘Ikenie ni sareta nanaman-nin no musumetachi [Seventy thousands of young girls for sacrifice]’, in Tokyo Yakeato Yamiichi o Kirokusuru Kai (ed.) Tokyo yamiichi kōbō shi [The history of rise and fall of Tokyo blackmarkets]. Tokyo: Sōfūsha, pp. 192–​217. Miriam, K. (2005) Stopping the traffic in women: Power, agency and abolition in feminist debates over sex-​trafficking. Social Philosophy Journal, 36(1), 1–​17. Norma, C. (2016) The Japanese comfort women and sexual slavery during the China and Pacific wars. New York, NY: Bloomsbury Academic. Orr, J. J. (2001) The victim as hero: Ideologies of peace and national identity in postwar Japan. Honolulu, HA: University of Hawai’i Press. Páez, D., Basabe, N., & Gonzalez, J. L. (1997) ‘Social processes and collective memory: A cross-​cultural approach to remembering political events’, in Pennebaker, J., Páez, D., & Rimé, B. (eds.) Collective memory of political events: Social psychological perspectives. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, pp. 147–​75. Pateman, C. (1988) The sexual contract. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Rich, A. (1980) Compulsory heterosexuality and lesbian existence. Signs, 5(4), 631–​60. Sato, T. (2005) Hachigatsu jugonichi no shinwa: shūsen kinenbi no media gaku [Myth of 15 August: Media studies about anniversary of the end of the war]. Tokyo: Chikuma Shobo. Seaton, P. (2007) Japan’s contested war memories: The ‘memory rifts’ in historical consciousness of World War II. London: Routledge. Takahashi, T. (2007) Jōkyō heno Hatsugen: Yasukuni soshite Kyōiku [Remarks on the circumstances: Yasukuni Shrine & Education]. Tokyo: Seidōsha. Yoshimi, Y. (2000) Comfort women: Sexual slavery in the Japanese military during World War II. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.

3  Kikumaru Between voice and silence1

Introduction On 26 April 1972, a 47-​year-​old Japanese woman was found dead in her small apartment in Chiba prefecture, near Tokyo. Her death was attributed to self-​induced carbon monoxide asphyxiation. She left behind only 870 yen, $2.80 (US) at that time, with two suicide notes. Her birth name was Yamauchi Keiko (1924–​1972), but she was widely known by her geisha name, Kikumaru. In order to pay her poor family’s debts back to her geisha house owner, this previous civilian prostitute spent two years between 1941 and 1943 working as a military prostitute at a Japanese naval “comfort station” on Truk Island. Thus, she became one of the euphemistically called “comfort women”. Kikumaru was among 33 “elite” women on Truk Island who were allocated to a single officer per day. In fact, she was reserved for only a few officers during her entire time at the “comfort station”. Other women at the base were forced to serve numerous enlisted soldiers per day.2 Kikumaru’s positive memory of her experience as an “elite” “comfort woman” was expressed in her interviews with the female journalist Hirota Kazuko in 1970 and 1971: ‘I had the best time of my life on Truk Island’ (Hirota 1975/​2009:47). Yet, what led this “elite” “comfort woman” to her tragic death in misery? Hirota published a book about Kikumaru’s life history (1975/​2009) after her death. In 2016, I had a personal interview with Hirota about Kikumaru’s testimony. Hirota emphasised that the real hell for Kikumaru was her post-​war life. This chapter tells Kikumaru’s narrative of trauma in post-​war Japan. Her post-​war story is the manifestation of the complexity of trauma, oscillating between voice and silence. Of importance here is that her positive memory of her past as a “privileged” woman reserved only for a few military officers marked a stark contrast to the majority of women such as Shirota who were allocated to numerous enlisted soldiers. Therefore, such a fragmented narrative as a “comfort woman” survivor like Kikumaru has been (ab)used by Ramseyer and other denialists who have insisted that “comfort women” were prostitutes, not sex slaves. For this reason, it is critical to reveal Kikumaru’s sufferings as a “comfort woman” survivor, in order to problematise the hierarchical dichotomy between the DOI: 10.4324/9781003203698-3

36  Kikumaru: Between voice and silence “privileged” women and the “unprivileged” women that was present at the “comfort women” stations and also mirrored the very same dichotomies in broader patriarchal political discourse.

Reclaiming post-​war life After the war, when Kikumaru was free not only from her military sexual slavery but also from her indentured captivity, she demonstrated her active agency in surviving post-​war destitution. By frequently changing jobs, such as a factory worker, a dancer, an owner of a brothel for the Allied Occupation Forces and a dealer in the black market, she strove to reclaim control over her own life. Her survival, therefore, became an act of resistance against patriarchal domination, within the confines of patriarchy. Her active agency to build a life for herself furthered her rise to potential stardom. She passed an audition for a film company and was provided with acting classes. However, she was arrested for selling goods at a black market without knowing that they were stolen. Although she was only sentenced to three years’ probation, she lost her dream job (Hirota 1975/​2009:124–​45). In the depths of despair, Kikumaru went back to her family in Kushiro, Hokkaido, where she worked for a Japanese restaurant as a high-​ranking geisha who entertained customers solely by singing and dancing (Hirota 1975/​ 2009:36, 78–​94). There, she met the restaurant’s cook, who paid off her debts to her employer, and they started to live together, even though they were not officially married. Then he quit his job and started seeing other women, which prompted her to leave him (Hirota 1975/​2009:25). For Kikumaru, the cook was the first “intimate” abuser in post-​war Japan who exploited her as if she were his property. He financially relied upon Kikumaru while womanising (Hirota 1975/​2009:59). The way he enslaved her was similar to the way wartime Japan commodified her. By buying her personhood from her previous owner through the repayment of her debt, both the state and the individual male abused and exploited her. This comparable gender structure between the patriarchal state and society was based on the tacit ‘sexual contract’ as proposed by Pateman (1988), which tells us about the male domination of female bodies, as well as men’s suppression of women’s political freedom in modern civil society. This hidden contract has perpetuated female enslavement across time and space. Kikumaru’s narrative directly correlates with the post-​war story of the sexual contract. After leaving the “intimate” abuser, Kikumaru was trapped by another abuser, who was described in her suicide note as ‘the worthless man’. At the time of her death, Kikumaru left two suicide notes. One note, addressed to her close female friend, Konuma Sawako, briefly expressed her gratitude for Konuma’s friendship. Konuma had no clue as to why Kikumaru committed suicide because Kikumaru shared none of her traumatised stories with her (Hirota 1975/​2009:19). As Hirota recalled, Kikumaru might have

Kikumaru: Between voice and silence  37 felt unbridgeable gaps between those women who never sold their bodies (Hirota 1975/​2009:161). The other note was addressed to Hiratsuka Masao, a male editor of the publisher Tokuma Shoten, who had initially instructed Hirota to interview Kikumaru. This note was fraught with grievance toward her neighbours. There, Hirota found a different Kikumaru, who was far from the cheerful and entertaining person she appeared to be during her interview (Hirota 1975/​2009:14). The following text is Kikumaru’s suicide note as translated by the author: Dear Mr. Hiratsuka, Who on earth could anticipate my death? Everybody would laugh at the last 19 months of my life. Since I decided to commit suicide, there have been times that I have felt like I cannot work anymore. I could not raise even the smallest of cries. Because I have not been able to pay the house rent since last September, I could not even put my head outside of the window of my room. Even in my room, I have been constantly hiding from my neighbours, by shrinking less than my height, which is nearly 150 centimetres tall. I failed to resist the worthless man who gave me a monthly allowance of 50,000 yen [equivalent to $165.00 (US) at the exchange rate in 1972] little by little. When I told him that I was going to work, he asked me to wait for a moment. Then from his worry about whether I would leave him, he came to see me at five in the morning or midnight. When I became aware that he was not even an educated man, he had already lost everything due to his failure in business. This is why his ex-​wife left him. His current wife doesn’t know anything about him. She is 50 years old, which would be okay, but the age of his ex-​wife plus that of his current wife equals 100 [sic]. It may be my destiny to die right before turning 48 years old. After serious consideration, I wrote everything about my youth because I wanted to remove this endless feeling of agony from the bottom of my heart. You and other members of the Pacific War Research Group might think that many [surviving “comfort”] women would respond to their article. However, other women were clever. They were not as stupid as I was. Please write my post-​war story however you want. I have one thing to ask you. After my cremation, please sprinkle some of my ashes into the ocean surrounding Truk Island. I will give my memorable ‘Abai’3 to you, so please cherish it. Please send my photos kept at your office to my sister. It is okay for you and Mr Inō4 to pay women for fun. But please don’t own those women because they feel so miserable that they will curse you for the rest of your life. As I live in grinding poverty, people stay away from me. When I come across other residents of my apartment outside, they look at me like a nuisance.

38  Kikumaru: Between voice and silence I am despised by my young neighbours. As long as they are alive, I will curse them. They are glib talkers. It might be better if I would be among them. But I am too good-​natured, and it would be better than being greedy. It is getting dark today as usual. The man who deceived me was 59 years old. Dribbling on, he had sex that outshone young people while I was thinking about other things. He hardly takes a bath so that sometimes his grime remains. Who can have a smile and have sex with him? He swallows the dribble from his false teeth. It’s disgusting to think about it. I am sorry to cause trouble to someone. My husband’s address is at Y industry, OO Town, OO Ward, Tokyo. When I visited him, his toes looked like a crab due to neuralgia. When we slept together for the first time, he was sleeping in socks. His fingers looked like a crab. Good to match his toes. He is a dull man with a big penis. I want to see the wife who has been together with him for 10 years. I would like to thank the staff of your publisher for everything. I am very happy with my friend who allowed me to work at her restaurant without asking me any questions. Goodbye. (Hirota 1975/​2009:16–​18) Until her suicide, Kikumaru had hidden the past for more than 25 years, for fear of social stigmatisation, by changing her name whenever she switched jobs (Hirota 2016). However, she could no longer endure the deeply traumatic experiences, including the social stigmatisation and exclusion. At that point, she began to experience multiple dissociations in the abusive surroundings that destroyed her personhood. Her suicide note was her desperate cry as a victim of trauma, confessing that ‘[a]‌fter serious consideration’, she came forward ‘to remove this endless feeling of agony’. Kikumaru’s disengagement with ‘the worthless man’ during sex illustrates dissociation of her consciousness from her body. By ‘thinking about other things’, as she wrote, she repeatedly fragmented herself through the disengagement and the dissociation process for the survival of her real self. Thus, sex with the abuser accelerates the dissociation between the body and soul of the abused (Barry 1995:317–​18). Accordingly, this survival strategy in prostitution sex destroys human integrity and dignity by facilitating self-​ segmentation. In other words, these psychological self-​ defence strategies destroy the connection ‘between the body, mind and spirit’ (Rose 1999:171), resulting in ‘the divided self’ (Laing 1960); a condition in which one loses her unity and is torn apart from the real self. This divided self carries the risk of losing the self because losing one’s self for a long time causes alienation from the self and irresponsibility ‘to and for one’s self’ (Rose 1999:170, emphasis in original). In the same vein, Kikumaru stopped her engagement in relating to the external world. The second line of Kikumaru’s suicide note states: ‘Since

Kikumaru: Between voice and silence  39 I decided to commit suicide, there have been times that I have felt like I cannot work anymore’. This implies her sense of resignation from her efforts to establish her integrity because of the long separation between her body, mind and spirit caused by the multiple dissociations that she went through until her suicide. Finally, she seemingly gave up on the reconnection with both society and her self because she said to the male editor in her suicide note, ‘Please write my post-​war story however you want’. Therefore, based upon Kikumaru’s suicide note, I have further constructed her post-​war story of trauma as follows.

The divided self Kikumaru lost ownership of her self yet again, but there seemed no clear cause for this when compared to the pre-​war and wartime. In her note, she described her post-​war life’s brutality from both Mr. Hiratsuka and Mr. Inō as being: ‘so miserable that they [and she] will curse you [her owner] for the rest of your life’. This passage illustrates the separation between the past self and the present self which divided her self-​identity. That is, Kikumaru was in the condition of the ‘divided self’ (Laing 1960), as represented by the split between her outer manifestations as a ‘nuisance’ in her community and her inner self as ‘good-​natured’, as she expressed in her suicide note. Her body was subjected to social humiliation and exclusion by her neighbours, owing to her dire poverty. In her own eyes, Kikumaru was a better person than her neighbours, describing herself in her note as ‘better than … greedy’. This moral standing of her inner self was in conflict with external moral standards, which posed an unsolvable dilemma for her. As Hirota recognised, unlike her stigmatised body, Kikumaru was a proud human being who valued equal human relationships beyond social status. There were times in Kikumaru’s post-​war life when she encountered former military officers whom she had served on Truk Island, many of whom were promoted in various fields of post-​war society. However, her pride never allowed her to ask these former military officers for financial help (Hirota 2016). Her sense of pride was also evidenced by her openness, humour, friendliness and consideration in her efforts to make her interview with Hirota neither sad nor depressed (Hirota 1975/​2009:14–​15). At the same time, as a proud human being, Kikumaru was not comfortable with the idea of concealing her past as a “comfort woman” (Hirota 1975/​ 2009:160). According to Kikumaru’s memorandum given to Hirota, she was allowing Hirota to write and publish Kikumaru’s story of her time on Truk Island, even though her former colleagues hid their past there owing to a sense of humiliation (Hirota 1975/​2009:36). Kikumaru also allowed Hirota to publish her photographs in the magazine article, saying, ‘it’s OK because I haven’t done anything wrong’ (Hirota 1975/​2009:14). She consistently exerted herself to fulfil the expectations of the social world that forced her to sacrifice herself for the family and country. Her inner self was thus consistent throughout her life, whereas the external world suddenly changed its attitude toward her

40  Kikumaru: Between voice and silence after Japan’s defeat. This coherence of her internal self, however, disallowed her to recognise and accept her outer manifestation that was stigmatised and excluded by society. In other words, her sense of pride as a self-​sacrificial dutiful daughter and as a loyal national subject rejected the social stigmatisation that characterised her post-​war life. The disunity between her outer and inner self intertwines with the inconsistency between her past and present self. On the one hand, she gradually became aware that the two years of her life on Truk Island as a military prostitute completely ruined the rest of her life, which continued on for more than 20 years. On the other hand, she refused to admit this to herself because she also thought that her life on Truk Island was the only time she thought could bring meaning to her life for both herself and the social world. This separation between the positively remembered past self and the publicly humiliated present self is likely to have evoked a feeling of nostalgia for the past. Hirota assumed that this might be a reason why she was looking forward to Hirota’s visit. During the interview with Hirota, Kikumaru may have felt as if she had been reliving the best time in her life (Hirota 1975/​2009:160). In addition, she may have felt happy that her life story was being listened to and recognised by others. The construction of the inner sense of self is relational and, thus, dependent upon relationships with others. Therefore, we need constant negotiation with the outside world for recognition. This relational nature of self-​ identity construction causes tension in the moral standards between the inner self and the outer world, as shown by Kikumaru’s case. Her outer manifestation of carrying a social stigma reflected the ethical judgement imposed upon her life and inner self by the social world. Kikumaru felt a sense of nostalgia for her days on Truk Island because of her privileges attached to her “elite” status embedded within the “comfort women” hierarchy. Kikumaru wrote in her memorandum (Hirota 1975/​ 2009:35–​45): ‘All of a sudden she had been elevated into a high position’ (Hirota 1975/​2009:38). She was provided with the same meals and treatment as the officers whom she served (Hirota 1975/​2009:33–​ 4). In reality, the privileges were attached only to the officers, whereas she was still a victim of the military sexual slavery system. Some human relations created under a particular social structure during wartime also evoked pleasant memories of her life at the “comfort station” (Hirota 2016). The military manipulated the feelings of Kikumaru and some other Japanese “comfort women” who had previously suffered as indentured prostitutes, through war propaganda, Okuni no tame, “for the country”. More importantly, the wartime life-or-​death situation provided an opportunity to develop human attachments that could have never been evoked otherwise (Hirota 2016). For example, another Japanese survivor, Suzumoto Aya (pseudonym) also cherished the memory of her life on Truk Island exactly the same way Kikumaru did, even though she was allocated to numerous Japanese privates as opposed to a few officers (Hirota 1975/​2009:58–​68). As Hirota concludes, when a Japanese “comfort woman”

Kikumaru: Between voice and silence  41 sexually served a soldier who was ordered to fight in the front line, she forgot that her body was bought by him (Hirota 1975/​2009:46). Her sympathy with the soldier released her from her long-​standing sense of humiliation as a captive within the sexual slavery system and allowed her to share bona fide feelings with him. These human attachments enable the dehumanised victim in peace time to feel that she was treated as a human during wartime. As Kikumaru said, she ‘fell in love with all of the officers’ while sexually serving them one by one (Hirota 1975/​2009:46). She also felt sympathy for the soldiers who were destined to die for the Emperor. It marked the first time in her life when she felt as if she were appreciated as an “equal” in human relationships with others. However, this type of human relation is a fiction since war is not a natural human condition. War creates a particular situation in which people are divided into two sides: the abuser and the abused. This abusive relationship ‘does not make sense in the context of humanity’; therefore, we need an explanation in order to restore ‘our dignity’ (Hirota 1975/​2009:4). Japan’s past war was started by the state, which manipulated human emotions of the nation, including nationalism, in order to mobilise all women and men into it. This state manipulation of human feelings concealed the victim situation from Kikumaru’s consciousness and encouraged her to engage in her “mission” for the sake of the country. Nothiing more illustrates this condition that when she wrote in her memorandum: ‘With a surge of patriotism and youthful ebullience, I did my best for Japan and the Emperor’ (Hirota 1975/​2009:36). For any given state, the control of collective trauma is fundamental to perpetuating its sustained national identity. This is articulated through the cultural processes of interpreting social suffering which enable the state to manipulate the collective memory of trauma for the purposes of statecraft (Edkins 2003). With Japan’s defeat, the state thus removed its righteous cause, Okuni no tame, “for the country”, the calling to support the war from Kikumaru’s past, and instead placed a social stigma back upon her body by redefining “comfort women” as prostitutes. This is the usual trick that the perpetrator (state) utilises in order to silence the victim. By destroying her ‘credibility’, the perpetrator silences her voice and/​or manipulates people into not listening to her voice (Herman 1992:8). The perpetrator’s illusion and devaluation of his victim result in her doubting her own self as well as her internalising the sense of shame and guilt that, in reality, the perpetrator deserves. Resisting the forced internalisation of the state’s shame and guilt, Kikumaru fragmented herself, oscillating between her opposing inner voices. One was whispering that she was not worthy; the other inner voice was insisting that she was worthy and urged her to fight for survival. She listened to the latter voice and decided to restore her integrity by breaking her silence. It was unfortunate that Kikumaru jumped to the second stage of Herman’s recovery from trauma (1992) without establishing her sense of safety in the first stage.

42  Kikumaru: Between voice and silence

Kikumaru’s final effort: breaking her silence Kikumaru’s final effort to restore her human integrity and dignity that had been fractured by social humiliation and political silencing was to break her silence, in the hopes of acquiring the public acknowledgement that she was a patriotic national subject on the same footing as soldiers. Her breaking of silence was thus an act of resistance against the abusive social and political world. On 12 August 1971, Kikumaru’s testimonial narrative came out in an unsigned article in a weekly men’s magazine, Asahi Geinō (1971:35–​9). The five-​page article was edited by a male ankāman,5 based upon Hirota’s interviews with Kikumaru (Hirota 2016). The article referred to little of Kikumaru’s plight as an indentured prostitute and a surviving “comfort woman”. Instead, most of the story reproduced her happy memory of her life on Truk Island, which portrayed her as a patriotic gendered subject. Further, her post-​war predicament was offset in the article by her nostalgia for her life on Truk Island. The lack of critical gender perspectives in the Japanese media had been explicitly demonstrated in the previous year. In October 1970, Japan’s first women’s liberation movement (Wōman Libu in Japan) challenged Japan’s patriarchal power structure by criticising the male exploitation of female sexuality. The flyer entitled ‘Benjo karano kaihō’ [Liberation from toilets] written by the organiser, Tanaka Mitsu, denounced Japanese male invasion of female sexuality by mentioning Korean “comfort women”. Kōshū Benjo, or public toilets, referred to “comfort stations” within the Imperial Japanese Military.6 This movement was the first critique of the “comfort women” system by a Japanese feminist (Kinoshita 2016:119). However, the patriarchal media marginalised this new women’s liberation movement, labelling it as ‘female hysteria’ (Tsukamoto 2017:189). Hysteria is a strongly gendered category implicating the feminised form of traumatic neurosis as opposed to the masculinised form of post-​traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), such as shellshock7 (Mitchell & Mishra 2000:128, as cited in Stewart 2003:8). The first women’s collective voice of resistance against the patriarchal imperialist state of Japan was thus banished to silence by the media conspiracy of silence. Accordingly, Kikuamru’s positive accounts of the “comfort station” in the male magazine contributed to reproducing the patriarchal subordination of women to both men and the state. This reveals how this gendered dynamic is used to perpetuate the patriarchal nationalist history since ‘[h]‌istory is the story we tell ourselves about how the past explains our present, and how the ways in which we tell it are shaped by contemporary needs’ (Morales 1998:24). Kikumaru’s life history that appeared in the men’s magazine represented her as a self-​sacrificing woman who provided important services for the war effort of the patriarchal militarist state and, thus, perpetuated ‘hegemonic masculinity’8 (Connell 1995) of the Japanese Imperial Military. Soon after the magazine article was published in 1971, Kikumaru’s rent fell into arrears. Then, she encountered an even crueller reality of life; sh was

Kikumaru: Between voice and silence  43 treated like a ‘nuisance’ by her neighbours, as alluded to in her suicide note. Kikumaru regretted that she had broken her silence. She even blamed herself in her suicide note for being ‘stupid’ and confessing that ‘other [surviving “comfort”] women [in silence] were clever’. Hirota never recognised Kikumaru’s suffering until she had read Kikumaru’s suicide note because Kikumaru never showed her any sign of psychological trauma except in the following one instance. It occurred three months before her suicide when a Japanese former sergeant, Yokoi Shōichi (1915–​97), was discovered in the jungles of Guam. The army straggler, hiding in the jungle for 28 years, was caught on 24 January 1972 and subsequently, on 2 February, repatriated to Japan. On arriving in Japan, Yokoi immediately became a media sensation. Everything he did and said was ‘under public scrutiny’ (Igarashi 2016:12). Thus, public interest in the “back-​to-​the-​future” returnee drove the whole nation into the media frenzy in which ‘all kinds of publications’ contributed to Yokoi’s rise to stardom as an overnight national celebrity (Trefalt 2003:11–​12). Kikumaru vented her indignation at this national frenzy by saying to Hirota: If Yokoi-​san is a victim of war, I should be the same as well. There is no reason that the Health and Welfare Minister should grant money9 and clothing only to him. The minister said that Yokoi-​san did it for the emperor. For the Emperor? We went all the way to Truk Island because we were also told ‘for the emperor’. It’s regrettable. I want to go to the Ministry of Health and Welfare and tell them that because of my past as a “comfort woman”, I can’t get married, living like this instead. … I will tell them that there is a person who lives a more miserable life than living in the jungle. (Hirota 1975/​2009:105–​6) This ‘abusive language’ uttered by Kikumaru, flushed with indignation against the nation-​state, was shocking to Hirota (1975/​2009:105). From Kikumaru’s perspectives, the real war victim should have been her and not Yokoi. This was her first and last voice of trauma that Hirota ever heard in person. In reality, the national enthusiasm to welcome Yokoi was much more complex than Kikumaru’s belief. The belated return of the imperial soldier recalled the forgotten memory of the past war. He came, as a perpetrator, back to the current peaceful and prosperous Japan, where people enjoyed economic success.10 With the full reconstruction from the debris and rubble after the defeat in 1945, Japan made its debut in the international community through the Tokyo Olympics in 1964 and Expo’70 in Osaka. At the height of this public ‘optimism’ for the future, the re-​emergence of a ‘living fallen hero’ of the Imperial Japanese Army created a shock wave across the nation (Igarashi 2016:162). The media was required to create explanations to ‘make sense’ of his presence in the flourishing Japan, which meant finding ‘the place of the past in the present’ (Trefalt 2003:115). Where the media placed Yokoi was not as a soldier-​hero but as a ‘victim of circumstances or of an evil military’,

44  Kikumaru: Between voice and silence which perfectly fit Japan’s new national narrative of war victims (Trefalt 2003:118). This ‘media’s complicity with official discourse’ (Igarashi 2016:8) in the conspiracy of silence stole the opportunity to reconsider Japan’s post-​ war national identity of war victimhood. This opportunity was stolen equally from both the wartime and the post-​war generations. Thus, victim consciousness remained intact. Kikumaru still could not figure out why post-​war Japanese society had excluded surviving “comfort women” from its new collective identity as the victim of war. She also had not recognised that this imperial revisionism11 did not “democratise” all Japanese people as war victims equally and instantly. Even Japanese hibakusha,12 or atomic bomb survivors had undergone multi-​ layered discrimination, stigmatisation and exclusion until their torments were publicly recognised a decade later. Of importance here is that from 1945 to 1952, the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP) press censorship that included the ban on the use of the term ‘atomic bomb’ forced the nation to forget hibakusha, while silencing their sufferings (Chappell 2020:81). Those silenced victims were kept stigmatised and excluded; they were labelled as people with ‘lazy people’s disease (ōchaku byō)’ and deformed offspring (Chappell 2020:81). The Lucky Dragon Incident on 1 March 1954 ‘fired anti-​ nuclear activism’ in Japan and around the globe (Seaton 2007:46), opening the door for formal adoption of the term hibakusha in 1957 (Chappell 2020:82). However, Japanese “comfort women” survivors have never been allowed to be part of the victimhood society, even now in the present. This is still the case even when given opportunities to reflect the war of the past, including by the TBS (Tokyo Broadcasting System) radio interview with another “comfort woman” survivor, Shirota Suzuko in 1986.13 Shirota preceded Kim Hak-​ soon’s breaking of her silence in 1991 by five years. There was another possible opportunity for Japan to reflect upon the trauma of the “comfort women” with the death of Emperor Hirohito in 1989. With these subsequently missed opportunities considered, it was certainly no surprise that in 1972, this societal hypocrisy devastated Kikumaru to the point that led her to admit not only that her present miserable self was caused by her past self as a “comfort woman”, but also that her real sense of self could never be recognised by the external world. Kikumaru’s strong criticism against the Japanese government and society centred on their double standard of war heroism. Although the same oath of loyalty to the Emperor was demanded during wartime, soldiers’ war efforts were always remembered with praise, whereas those of military prostitutes were forgotten and stigmatised. The national fever about Yokoi’s comeback awoke Kikumaru from the wartime fiction in which Japanese “comfort women” were appreciated as patriotic national subjects by both state and society. Kikumaru’s final effort to be publicly recognised as a human being with integrity and dignity through her breaking of silence was rejected by an inhumane patriarchal militaristic society, hiding behind an externally imposed

Kikumaru: Between voice and silence  45 cloak of “national victimhood”. She was initially exploited as a filial daughter by her family, then as a civilian prostitute by her society and, finally, as a military prostitute by the state. What post-​war Japanese society brought her as a surviving “comfort woman” was an endless and excruciating struggle against poverty and social humiliation, which continuously traumatised her. The historian Joanna Bourke (2006) emphasises in ‘When the torture becomes humdrum’ that ‘[t]‌he threshold of the human’ is reached ‘by rendering an individual “non-​human” [victim] through the infliction of pain’. By afflicting Kikumaru through her entire life, Japanese society reached the threshold of human society. Kikumaru’s narrative of trauma tells two stories: ‘the story of the unbearable nature of an event; and the story of the unbearable nature of its survival’ (Caruth 1996:7). The oscillating nature of trauma between life and death is signified by Kikumaru’s voice and silence in the struggle to connect with the inhuman society which permanently silenced her voice. Ironically, she was cremated on 29 April 1972, on Emperor Hirohito’s birthday.

Conclusion Kikumaru’s life history attests to the military state’s sexual exploitation of a girl from a poor family. What post-​war Japan brought her as a surviving “comfort woman” was an endless and excruciating struggle against poverty and social humiliation, which provided the basis of her traumatised experience. The two years of her life on Truk Island as a military prostitute completely ruined the rest of her life which continued for more than 20 years. Because of this, it is all the more painful and ironic that she believed that the happiest time of her life was when she worked as a military sex slave. In my interview, Hirota emphasised that the real hell for Kikumaru was her post-​war life. Hirota’s finding lends support to Caroline Norma’s analysis in her work: Regardless of the pathway that led women into the wartime comfort stations –​whether it was manipulation, abduction, or trafficking out of civilian brothels –​their health, welfare and life-​course outcomes, irrespective of nationality, were depressingly the same. (Norma 2016:3) Kikumaru’s life story tells us the significance of considering victims’ lives in their entirety instead of looking at their fragmented stories. Listening to the memories about the diverse experiences of Japanese “comfort women” survivors, whether those experiences were positive or horrible will help further our understanding of their sufferings. At the same time, it will lead to uncovering the sufferings of all “comfort women” who have silenced their voice particularly because some women, regardless of their nationalities, were civilian prostitutes either before or after becoming “comfort women” (Moon 1999:310–​27).

46  Kikumaru: Between voice and silence Kikumaru’s oscillation between voice and silence discloses the complexity of the politics of integrity in telling a story of trauma. Recovery from trauma requires a trauma victim to construct a coherent life story, which connects the present self to the past self, thereby creating her new identity, such as a victim-​ survivor. However, this new self-​identity needs public recognition through the presence of individual listeners to her narrative. This intimate community, composed of both the narrator and the listener, is integral to her reconnection to society, which enables the reconstruction of her coherent self. Kikumaru’s voice reveals how significant it was to have societal acknowledgement of her sense of self to regain human integrity and dignity. At the same time, her silenced voice raised fundamental questions about Japanese society. Borrowing from the Japanese feminist philosopher, Igeta Midori, those questions are: ‘Are you a human who acknowledges inhumane acts inflicted upon “comfort women” survivors and then responds to their voices?’; and ‘Can I trust this society consisting of you, humans?’ (Ōgoshi & Igeta 2010:82). This inhumane relationship based on deafness and blindness to the abused is deeply connected to the patriarchal militarist state–​society relationships. Here are profound issues concerning the politics of integrity of Japan as a nation-​ state. The Japanese state and society exploited and dehumanised Kikumaru throughout her life; however, when she tried to trust the abusive society through her breaking of silence, it rejected listening to her voice. This indicates rejection of individual and collective reflection within the government and society about the relationships between the past war and the present Japan. This serious lack of a sense of integrity in the post-​war construction of individual and collective social and politico-​historical identities marks a stark contrast with Kikumaru’s efforts to restore her sense of integrity. Her last word to the editor, ‘Please write my post-​war story however you want’ raises a fundamental question. Did she abandon reconstructing the coherent self ? Or did she assert herself in suicide, in the process protecting her sense of integrity? Unlike Kikumaru, many other Japanese have shared victimhood consciousness and appreciated the “democracy” imposed from above whereby they have been assimilated into the self-​less collectiveness that has never raised the issue of integrity.

Notes 1 This chapter reuses material from the article: Tsukamoto, S. (2021) A more miserable life than living in the jungle: A Japanese ‘comfort woman’s story. Gender & History, https://​doi.org/​10.1111/​1468-​0424.12583, available Open Access. 2 See Yoshiaki Yoshimi, Jūgun ianfu (1995) and its English version (2000). 3 Abai is a wooden model handcrafted by local people on Truk Island. Kikumaru brought one back to Japan (Hirota 2009:15). 4 He was a writer who interviewed Kikumaru (Hirota 2009:17). 5 According to Hirota (2016), the ankāman refers to the journalist who writes and completes a magazine article based on what reporters collected. Hirota was one such reporter.

Kikumaru: Between voice and silence  47 6 A discourse employing an obscene and degrading metaphor of “comfort women” as public toilets was mentioned by Asō Tetsuo, a military medical doctor. The architect of the legal and regulatory framework for the operation of the “comfort women” system made references in his reports to military “comfort stations” as hygienic public toilets (Nishino 1992:43). 7 See Mitchell, J. and Mishra, S. K. (2000) Psychoanalysis and feminism: A radical reassessment of Freudian psychoanalysis. New York: Basic Books. 8 R. W. Connell’s concept of ‘hegemonic masculinity’ (Connell 1995) theorises a particular form of masculinity that achieves the governing position in the hierarchy of masculinity. Hegemonic masculinity maintains its dominant position by legitimising patriarchal structures and practices such as the exclusion of all that is and all who are feminised from the public/​political sphere. See R. W. Connell (1995/​2005) and R. W. Connell and J. W. Messerschmidt (2005), pp. 829–​59. 9 According to The Japan Times, ‘[a]‌ll 20 members of the Cabinet pledged to give him ¥100,000 each; and every member of both houses of the Diet, 736 in all, promised ¥50,000 each. (In fact, the only politician who paid up was Prime Minister Eisaku Sato –​and Yokoi received only ¥100,000 in the end.)’ (Pulvers 2009). 10 See Igarashi (2016: Chapter 5); Trefalt (2003) and Bruce Suttmeier, ‘Speculation of murder: Ghostly dreams, poisonous frogs and the case of Yokoi Shōichi, in N. Cornyetz and K. J. Vincent (eds.) (2010) Perversion and modern Japan: Psychoanalysis, literature, culture. New York: Routledge, pp. 22–​38. 11 Imperial Rescript of Surrender was Hirohito’s direct announcement to his subjects and its purpose was to maintain his status by silencing their criticism of his handling of the war as the commander-​in-​chief. For this end, he represented himself as the saviour of the nation who made the painful decision to surrender for the sake of his subjects. 12 As for non-​Japanese hibakusha, mainly Koreans who were brought to Japan as forced labourers, see Seaton (2007:103). 13 Shirota Suzuko, ‘Ishi no sakebi: Aru jūgun ianfu no sakebi’ on TBS Radio in Tokyo on 19 January 1986. Shirota testified about the life-​or-​death battle that she barely survived in Palau.

References Primary sources Asahi Geinō (1971) ‘Senjo no geisha Kikumaru ga 26 nen meni akasu haran no jinsei’ [The sensational life that a geisha Kikumaru at a battlefield reveals 26 years after the end of WWII]. Asahi Geinō. Tokyo. 12 August: 35–​9. Hirota, K. (2016) Interview with Sachiyo Tsukamoto, 5 June.

Secondary sources Barry, K. (1995) The prostitution of sexuality. New York: New York University Press. Bourke, J. (2006) When the torture becomes humdrum. Times Higher Education. Available at: www.timeshighereducation.com/​features/​when-​the-​torture-​becomes-​ humdrum/​201299.article (accessed 30 November 2021).

48  Kikumaru: Between voice and silence Caruth, C. (1996) Unclaimed experience: Trauma, narratives, and history. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Chappell, E. (2020) Hibakusha memories: Between the generations. Wasafiri, 35(2), 79–​86. DOI:10.1080/​02690055.2020.1721143. Connell, R. W. (1995). Masculinities. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. Connell, R. W., & Messerschmidt, J. W. (2005) Hegemonic masculinity: Rethinking the concept. Gender & Society, 19(6), 829–​59. Edkins, J. (2003) Trauma and the memory of politics. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Herman, J. L. (1992) Trauma and recovery. New York: Basic Books. Hirota, K. (1975/​2009) Shōgen kiroku jūgun ianfu/​kangofu: senjō ni ikita onna no dōkoku [Testimonial records of military comfort women/nurses: Lamentations of the women who lived at the front]. Tokyo: Shin Jinbutsu Ōraisha. Igarashi, Y. (2016) Homecomings: The belated return of Japan’s lost soldiers. New York, NY: Columbia University Press. Kinoshita, N. (2016) ‘Ianfu’ mondai no gensetsu kūkan: Nihonjin ‘ianfu’ no fukashika to genzen [The space within discourse of the issue of ‘comfort women’: Invisibilisation and emergence of Japanese ‘comfort women’]. Tokyo: Bensei Shuppan. Laing, R. D. (1960) The divided self: A study of sanity and madness. London: Tavistock Publications. Mitchell, J. (2000) Psychoanalysis and feminism: A radical reassessment of Freudian psychoanalysis. Basic Books, p. 128, as cited in Victoria Stewart (2003) Women’s autobiography: War and trauma. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Moon, K. H. S. (1999) South Korean movements against militarized sexual labor. Asian Survey, 39(2), 310–​27. Morales, A. L. (1998) Medicine stories: History, culture and the politics of integrity. Cambridge: South End Press. Nishino, R. (1992) Jūgun ianfu: Motoheishi no shōgen [Military comfort women: Japanese veterans’ testimonies]. Tokyo: Akashi Shoten. Norma, C. (2016) The Japanese comfort women and sexual slavery during the China and Pacific Wars. New York: Bloomsbury Academic. Ōgoshi, A. and Igeta, M. (eds.) (2010) Gendai feminizumu no eshikkusu [Ethics of contemporary feminism]. Tokyo: Seikyusha. Pateman, C. (1988) Sexual contract. UK: Polity Press. Pulvers, R. (2009) What price heroism for indoctrinated fighters in unjust wars? The Japan Times, 7 June. Available at: www.japantimes.co.jp/​opinion/​2009/​06/​ 07/​commentary/​what-​price-​heroism-​for-​indoctrinated-​fighters-​in-​unjust-​wars/​ #.Wel9MFuCyUk (accessed 1 December 2021). Rose, S. D. (1999) ‘Naming and claiming: The integration of traumatic experience and the reconstruction of self in survivors’ stories of sexual abuse’, in Rogers, K. L., Leydesdorff, S., & Dawson, G. (eds.) Trauma and life stories: International perspectives. New York, NY: Routledge, pp. 160–​79. Seaton, P. (2007) Japan’s contested war memories: The ‘memory rifts’ in historical consciousness of World War II. London: Routledge. Stewart, V. (2003) Women’s autobiography: War and trauma. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. Trefalt, B. (2003) Japanese Army stragglers and memories of the war in Japan, 1950 –​ 1975. London: Routledge.

Kikumaru: Between voice and silence  49 Tsukamoto, S. (2017) ‘Beyond the dichotomy of prostitutes versus sex slaves: Transnational feminist activism of “comfort women” in South Korea and Japan’, in Pension-​Bird, C. & Vickers, E. (eds.) Gender and the Second World War: Lessons of war. London: Palgrave, pp. 185–​99. Yoshimi, Y. (1995) Jūgun ianfu. Tokyo: Iwanami Shinsho. Yoshimi, Y. (2000) Comfort women: Sexual slavery in the Japanese military during World War II. New York: Columbia University Press.

4  Shirota Suzuko The victim-​survivor-​activist

Introduction This chapter narrates the post-​war trauma story of Shirota Suzuko, which makes visible her exercise of political agency as she used her voice to break the conspiracy of silence. As argued in Chapter 1, the notion of political agency assumes the capacity of a victim to transform herself from a silenced non-​ subject to a political and historical subject who creates the counter-​narratives to dominant memory/​history, thus challenging unequal power relationships based on gender, class and race. The gendered, classed and raced “Other” is denied the capacity of both exercising agency and formulating political subjectivity (Motta 2017). Her silence has a complex construction because it is caused by a combination of the conspiracy of silence and self-​silencing for her survival. Silence is, therefore, not a unidimensional sign of non-​agency (Motta 2018). Silence can be a form of agency in a situation where a victim of subjugation chooses to be silent as the only way to survive in the social world. This type of agency is indicative of agency inherent in human beings, which always seeks better conditions; however, it cannot be counted as political agency because it contributes to reconstructing dominant memory/​history, which perpetuates ‘the boundary of the political’ (Motta 2017:7).

The listener As Linde’s theory of the self (1993) suggests in Chapter 1, “comfort women” survivors had considerable difficulties in creating their coherent life stories through the interaction between individual identity construction and the social world. It is thus critical to analyse the life stories of the survivors with a focus on how they struggled to speak of their trauma. In this context, being able to tell their uncommunicable stories of trauma is, per se, an act of political agency as the argument with respect to agency demonstrates in Chapter 1. Shirota was initially sold to geisha venues by her father and then became a “comfort woman” in order to pay her family’s debts owed to her geisha house owners. In her post-​war life, she encountered her listener/​witness who assisted her to construct her respective narratives, and which supported her to finally DOI: 10.4324/9781003203698-4

Shirota Suzuko: The victim-survivor-activist  51 break her silence in her own name, Mihara Yoshie. Trauma adds different dynamics to intersubjectivity since the recovery process from trauma through narrative construction requires others to act as their listeners. In this process, the trauma victim acts as a storyteller, who regains her own voice in order to create alternative history through the dialogue with her listener. This is a transformative process of the oppressed non-​subject into the political subject of knowledge production, which asks the question of ‘whose memory should be remembered?’ The knowledge created out of this remembering of invisibilised histories constitutes counter-​dominant knowledge; that is, other readings of the past and present. As a Holocaust survivor and psychoanalyst, Dori Laub conceptualises, ‘the listener’ to trauma victims becomes ‘a party to the creation of knowledge’ (Felman & Laub 1992:57): [T]‌he listener to trauma comes to be a participant and a co-​owner of the traumatic event: through his very listening, he comes to partially experience trauma in himself. The relation of the victim to the event of the trauma, therefore, impacts on the relation of the listener to it, and the latter comes to feel the bewilderment, injury, confusion, dread and conflicts that the trauma victim feels. … The listener, therefore, by definition partakes of the struggle of the victim with the memories and residues of his or her traumatic past. (Felman & Laub 1992:57–​8) A storyteller of trauma thus needs a listener who can share the unbearable experience through narratives. This ‘shareability of traumatic experiences through narration’ (Peng 2017:126) indicates that storytelling is a collective process. In other words, the narrator and the listener constitute a community for the creation of alternative history. The community is thus a ‘key place of the reinvention of the political’ (Motta 2014:28) and storytelling is collective, collaborative and dialogical.1 ‘The listener’ (Figure 4.1) for Shirota (Figure 4.2) was Christian pastor Fukatsu Fumio (1909–​2000) as well as her inner self. Above and beyond her 1971 autobiography based on the 1958 testimony in hospital and the 1986 radio interview, Shirota left a large number of writings, including diaries and letters, along with some drawings and paintings at her final home, Kanita. Shirota started to keep a diary on 12 February 1956, when she was advised by Kubushiro Ochimi2 to maintain such a diary after moving in to Jiairyō, a women’s rehabilitation centre. Keeping a diary is a method for ‘listening’ to her inner voice. It indicates that this practice signifies a dialogue with her inner self over the meaning of her experience through the prism of the past–​present and the public–​personal relations. In this manner, this everyday practice of self-​dialogue facilitates self-​reflection on her subjectivity. Therefore, keeping a diary is an everyday practice of the political, as well as evidencing the moments and practices of her active agency. Shirota’s case implies that the ‘listener’ in storytelling can

52  Shirota Suzuko: The victim-survivor-activist

Figure 4.1 Fukatsu Fumio. Courtesy of Kanita.

be both external and internal. She kept a journal until 1992, a year before she passed away, and in 1980 wrote about how she felt about it in her diary, Kamisama no gokeikaku [God’s plan] (Shirota 1978–​82, vol. 12): Because I have written everything about my complaints and discontents, I suppose all the irritation and frustration that I have felt is gone. It is important to confess my honest feelings. … It is wonderful for me to keep writing every day like this. My fieldwork interviews with those who cared for Shirota, combined with her diaries and letters to Fukatsu, uncover her individual trauma as a victim of the sexual slavery system. As introduced in Chapter 1, Linde’s theory of the self (1993) focuses on three dimensions: the continuity of the self through time (the past–​present relation), the interaction between the self and social world (the public–​private relation) and self-​reflexivity (ethical judgement). By focusing on Linde’s three aspects of the self, the foregoing analysis addresses how Shirota strove to create her coherent life story, making visible her political

Shirota Suzuko: The victim-survivor-activist  53

Figure 4.2  Shirota Suzuko. Courtesy of Kanita.

agency, which manifests itself as a process of self-​transformation and, at the same time, challenges the dominant memory/​history of the Japanese military “comfort women” system. A poststructuralist feminist, Kimura Maki (2008) raises a fundamental inquiry about the formation of agency in the case of “comfort women”. Her research draws upon narrative research, which centres on ‘individual personal experiences’ (Rustin 2000:40–​1, as cited in Kimura 2008:6) and their linguistic, cultural construction (Crossley 2000:527, as cited in Kimura 2008:6). By incorporating Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s concept of ‘subalterns’ agency (Spivak 1988, 1999) and Louis Althusser’s theory of ‘interpellation’ as expanded by Judith Butler (1997a, 1997b), Kimura concludes that individuals are recognised as ‘subjects’ when an individual voice synchronises with a particular ideology/​discourse (Kimura 2016:185–​92). According to Kimura, ‘[t]‌ estimonies, the representation of particular voices’ should be understood as a space where a complex process of subject formation takes place (Kimura 2016:188). In the case of “comfort women”, as she describes, in the 1990s when the “comfort women” discourses underwent ideological changes from military prostitutes to sexual slaves, survivors’ voices were heard. At that moment, they became subjects whose agency was recognised (Kimura 2008:13). It takes the form of an ‘assertive agency as an outcast victim’ (Wakabayashi 2003:107). Kimura calls this process ‘the subject formation’. She argues that survivors’ testimonies are ‘the site of their subject-​formation’

54  Shirota Suzuko: The victim-survivor-activist and that they are ‘not positioned as helpless victims but are actively involved in the creation of their own narratives and their own selves’ (Kimura 2008:6). In applying the concept of ‘subject formation’ into the “comfort women” case, Kimura aims to transcend ‘the patriarchal dichotomy’ of prostitutes/​sex slaves (Kimura 2008:16). Given that the binary concept of prostitution/​sexual slavery contributes to ‘partisan politics’ polarising Japanese revisionists and transnational feminists (Kimura 2008; Soh 2008) while excluding Japanese “comfort women” from the transnational feminist activism, the concept of subject formation will help to understand the agency construction process of Japanese “comfort women”. Subjectivity is contradictory and it is from within these contradictions that female agency can arise in this context. By examining these three main concepts of survival, resilience and dignity, this chapter seeks how Shirota tackled her trauma in relation to Herman’s three stages of recovery (1992): stage 1: establishment of stability for survival; stage 2: subject formation by building a coherent narrative of the self; and stage 3: reconnection to the external world.

Stage 1: establishment of stability for survival Prior to stage 1, the trauma victim experiences the critical moment to choose either the ‘flight’ mode or the ‘fight’ mode in response to ‘danger’ (Herman 1992:199). The flight response serves as a strategy to ‘obliterate fear’ (Herman 1992:199) by numbing her senses or escaping from the unbearable reality with the abuse of drugs or alcohol. Shirota initially adopted the flight mode, giving in to despair and abandoning herself by ‘choosing gambling and drugs’ (Shirota 1971:89–​90). She, nonetheless, demonstrated acts of resistance to the hierarchy of power within the border of the political in which there seemed no choice left except total subordination. At this pre-​ political stage, her first step to challenge the patriarchal domination in her post-​war life illustrates her efforts to reclaim control of her own life from male hands because she had grown tired of being men’s ‘sex toy’ during her entire life (Shirota 1971:83). It took tremendous courage for Shirota to leave the abusers, such as her patrons and brothel owners. In return, she obtained mobility in seeking places to work. However, social stigma against former prostitutes never allowed her to have a substantive chance of social mobility. For survival, she therefore kept working as a prostitute for the Allied Occupation Forces, which were referred to as “pan pan” in Japanese. She chose her clients carefully, as she said, ‘I snubbed those customers whom I didn’t like, even if they wanted to sleep with me’ (Shirota 1971:115). Even trapped within the boundary of gender and class, she still exercised everyday resistance in order to reclaim some degree of control over her own life; however, elements of her dignity and choice were curtailed. Nonetheless, the flight strategy kept her captured in the circle of re-​traumatisation without any means of breaking the political border of patriarchal domination.

Shirota Suzuko: The victim-survivor-activist  55 In 1955, when Shirota was working at a brothel in Kumamoto, she fell in love with a customer. He looked like her first love whom she had met during her geisha apprentice period. The new customer was a senior student at a university and four years younger than Shirota. They were in love. After his graduation, Shirota ran away from the brothel and eloped with her boyfriend to his home town in Tokyo. However, facing rejection from his family, both were so devastated that they attempted to commit double suicide by taking sleeping pills. Ultimately, Shirota was told by her medical doctor that her loved one had died. This tragedy deepened her sense of hollowness, while she was more desperate for something she could rely on (Shirota 1971:115–​26). For Shirota, the establishment of both a physical and psychological sense of safety was fundamental to switching her strategy to the fight mode. The establishment of a sense of safety constitutes a foundation for the next stage of reconstructing her trauma story (Herman 1992:155). In order to speak the unspeakable, the trauma victim needs to be surrounded by reliable and trustworthy people in a place absent of potential abuse or violence (Herman 1992:155–​74). To establish her sense of safety, Shirota required the provision of not only basic needs, including housing, food and grounding in social/​occupational skills, but also a shelter that protected her from the hostile social situation. In 1955, another tragedy hit Shirota. Her younger sister committed suicide. Shirota did not have a clue about her suicide; however, her sudden death made her strongly determined to wash her hands of prostitution by paying off her debts to her brothel owner in Kumamoto so as to pay a visit to her sister’s tombstone. With the strong support and advice from a sixty-​ something Japanese American traveller from Hawaii, who deeply thanked Shirota for finding his priceless ring, she was still struggling to find a “new” job. Finally, she decided to go to Tokyo for her job hunting. While waiting for her train at a station, she happened to find an article about the women’s rehabilitation centre, Jiairyō, in a weekly magazine, Sandē Mainichi (Shirota 1971:127–​40). Jiairyō seemed to her a perfect haven because the organising entity Kyōfūkai was known as one of the most active feminist groups. Since its establishment in 1886, the group had sought the abolition of prostitution in Japan and developed activities that were effective in supporting the rehabilitation of prostituted women (Shirota 1971:11). She decided to move into Jiairyō instantly. As soon as she arrived at the organisation, she burst into tears with the feeling that she had finally come to the safe place.3 Even in the fight mode, trauma victims who have decided to cope with trauma are likely to fall into a trap during the initial stage of gaining stability. This trap is a form of numbing trauma, which is usually categorised as one of the flight modes. Shirota was trapped in this numbness at the beginning of stage 1. At Jiairyō, Shirota swore to complete her rehabilitation in order to integrate herself into the social world. As Fukatsu wrote Atogaki in 1958, Shirota meant ‘a fully rehabilitated person’ as a person ‘without a past’ (Fukatsu 1958). On 7 March 1956, she wrote in her diary: ‘I want to forget my past. … I want to be born again with a brand-​new body and

56  Shirota Suzuko: The victim-survivor-activist soul, and then start a new life’ (Shirota 1956). At this point, she refused to accept her self-​identity as a former prostitute and decided to erase it by creating her new identity. This illustrates a psychological self-​defence strategy called ‘self-​as-​other’ (Rose 1999:170). On the surface, the eradication of the traumatised memory appears to help stabilise the victim. In reality, the outcome is the opposite, and the strategy of numbness is destructive to her since it prevents her from creating her coherent life history. In other words, she will never be able to heal because she has lost the way to move on to the second stage of life storytelling. Even though her capacity for religious faith and conversion to Christianity at Jiairyō gave Shirota the power to channel her predicaments into her empowerment for recovery, repression and negation of her traumatised memory continued to restrict her survival. For recovery from trauma, it is thus significant to go beyond the binary reactions of fight or flight and to move towards different ways of being and relating and of knowing oneself in the world. Despite her initial impression of Jiairyō as a safe place, Shirota faced institutional and individual judgement based on the patriarchal dualism of “good” versus “bad” women. She was subjected to humiliation and stigmatisation as a former prostitute by other residents, who had previously committed minor crimes or who had run away from home. Shirota fought back against such acts of bullying as opposed to being silenced (Shirota 1971:156–​7). Although her great level of determination and resilience revealed her agency for a potential transformation, even her small female community still refused to listen to her story of trauma. This exclusion by her new community pushed her back again to the narrative of the ‘betrayal of trust’ (Edkins 2003:4), which she had felt from her family and society. This feeling of betrayal re-​confused her about whom she could really trust. Her lack of a sense of stability in life at Jiairyō prevented Shirota, as a former prostitute, from being completely successful in her resistance or agency as a coming to wholeness and integrity; that is, transcending the political boundaries between what was allowed and what was not. In this first stage, listening to the inner voice of the self constitutes an integral part of building stability for survival and resistance against the ‘conspiracy of silence’ (Danieli 1998). When the inner listening ends up silencing her own voice of trauma, this initial stage becomes so unstable that her political agency as a survivor is jeopardised. At Jiairyō, recognising her new self-​identity as a victim and survivor of prostitution in general, Shirota started to exercise her agency of resistance. She became active in rescuing other prostituted women facing the same fate as she did by appealing to them through the media. For example, she conducted a radio interview on the 1956 NHK (Nippon Hōsō Kyōkai) programme entitled ‘Kieru Kanrakugai’ or ‘Disappearing Pleasure Districts’ (Kinoshita 2017:239). Over the course of the interview, she explained her reason for accepting the interview in her diary on 13 February 1956: ‘I wish even one of my old friends will come to this women’s centre for rehabilitation’ (Shirota 1956).

Shirota Suzuko: The victim-survivor-activist  57 Nearly a month later, all of a sudden, she exercised her agency as a survivor in an opposite way. She refused to grant any further interviews, writing again in her diary on 7 March 1956 that she did not want to be used by the media for their benefit and became concerned about stigmatising her family, fearing that her real identity had been disclosed (Shirota 1956). Her dialogue with her inner self through keeping a diary altered her way to exercise her agency, resulting in self-​silencing. This self-​reflection reveals the complexities and complicities of her agency as a survivor. It also uncovers the fragility of stage 1, illustrating the oscillating nature of trauma between a thin layer of resistance and multiple layers of silencing. Given that it is ‘the survivor’ who makes the choice between the two (Herman 1992:174), the establishment of stability is central to nurturing her political agency. Jiairyō finally removed Shirota’s opportunity for establishing stage 1 by refusing to re-​admit her after her initial seven-​month hospitalisation, due to the multiple gynaecological diseases4 caused by her long-​term prostitution (Shirota 1971:189). Given the mission and purpose of the women’s rehabilitation centre and the organiser, Kyōfūkai, it was overwhelmingly shocking for Shirota to face their betrayal of her trust because she had been thus far traumatised by the continuous betrayals of trust by both her family and society. Shirota reveals her feelings in her 1958 reflection on her past ordeals by writing them in 1965: Whenever I desired to be loved, I was deceived and betrayed, resulting in being sold. … I lost everything while dangerous diseases undermined my health so severely that I finally found myself lying on a bed in a gynaecological ward. … What is left with me is desperation, fear of the diseases, unbearable mental pains, and hatred towards the betrayers. (Shirota 1965, vol. 1) Jiairyō’s rejection of Shirota’s re-​entry completely devastated her to the point that she started to think of working as a prostitute again (Shirota 1971:180). This incident in Shirota’s life demonstrates how fragile the initial stage is in that all of her previous work in order to establish a stable life began to unravel, jeopardising her chances of survival. It also plays into the dominant narrative, which shames her as a “bad” woman who deserves her pain, thereby pushing her into closure and crisis. Recognising the importance of safety to the trauma recovery process, after this experience, Fukatsu literally pulled Shirota out of a dangerous situation by providing her with a physical and psychological sense of safety that facilitated her growth. This bloomed into her political agency as the survivor of the civilian and the military sexual slavery systems. First, he provided Shirota with a temporary shelter and a caregiver in Karuizawa, Nagano prefecture, from 16 October 1957 to 20 March 1958. Then, he admitted her into a newly established rehabilitation centre for former prostitutes, Izumiryō. He

58  Shirota Suzuko: The victim-survivor-activist became the director of the centre run by the Bethesda Houshijo Haha no Ie (Mother’s House of Schwester5). His unwavering support and continuous encouragement of her rehabilitation not only elicited trust from her heart frozen by mistrust and confrontation, but also kept enhancing her faith and commitment to rehabilitation. This strong bond between Shirota and Fukatsu foregrounds the significance of collectiveness in recovering from trauma as an everyday practice of the political. Recovery cannot take place without connecting to other people (Herman 1992:133). In Herman’s words, Fukatsu played ‘the role of a witness and ally’ who continued to empower her to ‘confront the horrors of the past’ (Herman 1992:175). On the one hand, he was the only person she ‘trusted and respected with all her heart’ (Shirota 1978–​82, vol. 25). On the other, he considered Shirota as ‘his teacher’, as he wrote on 15 August 1985 for the afterword to the second edition of Shirota’s biography: Whenever I get lost about what to do for the residents [of this rehabilitation centre], she gives me suggestions. They come neither from what she has by nature or from what she has learned at school. They are based on the human wisdom possessed only by those who have risen from the quagmire. (Fukatsu in Shirota 1985:285) His faith in her experience, knowledge and recovery was central to encouraging her to exercise her political agency, as well as increasing her chance of survival. Her dialogue with him was a conversation with an intimate sense of the external world for her reflection. His openness to listening to her voice of trauma laid the ground for the second stage of reconstructing her life story.

Stage 2: subject formation by building a coherent narrative of the self The establishment of safety enables a victim to restore ‘a sense of power and control’ robbed by trauma, whereby she is ready to proceed to the next stage of telling her trauma story (Herman 1992:159–​74). In the second stage, she tells her story of trauma ‘completely, in depth and in detail’ (Herman 1992:175). Yet, this stage increases the risk of her suicide as a way of rejection of a world where she confronts the horror and despair of her life (Herman 1992:194). This vulnerability of stage 2 foregrounds the fragility of the entire process of the complex formation of political subjectivity. Shirota faced the risk in Karuizawa, where she was constantly exposed to the oscillating threat of trauma between life and death in her fierce battle against multiple illnesses. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, she attempted suicide twice: once when she lost all hope for her future, and also when her lover’s family opposed their marriage due to her occupation as a prostitute. In both cases, she blamed

Shirota Suzuko: The victim-survivor-activist  59 the heavens and people for rescuing her life (Shirota 1971). However, in Karuizawa, resisting the temptation of death, she finally found the meaning of her life: ‘Showing women in the prostitution industries the path for rehabilitation’ (Shirota 1971:209–​12). Her stronger commitment to the survivors’ mission evoked the energy for life and drove away thoughts of dying/​suicide. Shirota’s new identity as a survivor of civilian and military prostitution emerged from her ethical reflection of her own past. In Herman’s words, she recognised a political and historical dimension in her ‘misfortune’ and found that she could ‘transform the meaning’ of her ‘personal tragedy’ by converting it to ‘the basis for social action’ (Herman 1992:207). For Shirota, social action meant sharing her experience with others suffering the same fate, thereby encouraging them to regain hope for life. This personal action manifests ‘collective healing’ for the dehumanised under a similar form of oppression and victimisation whose dignity and hope are stripped (Morales 1998:5). This political act of collective healing empowers those fractured by abuse to reclaim the integrity of their soul and body, recovering their humanity. This ‘politics of integrity’ is central to hope for their present and future life (Morales 1998:5). The ‘politics of integrity’ is also key to the establishment of ‘a culture of resistance’, a milieu where ‘the oppressed are able to diagnose our own ills as to the effects of oppression’ (Morales 1998:18). The diagnosis needs a body that can perceive external harms of oppression by using all five senses: sight, smell, hearing, taste and touch. The integrity of her senses, thought and body compensates each other for a firm self-​diagnosis and determined resistance (Motta 2018). In this vein, Shirota’s witness to terrible deaths of “comfort women” and Japanese soldiers completed her listening to her inner self for the culture of resistance against the dominant memory/​history. She became engaged in the politics of integrity when she had a narrow escape from death when her spine was broken in the shower room of Izumiryō, after she had just moved into the new women’s rehabilitation centre. She confessed her fear facing death: ‘I shuddered with fear. I am thinking of dying in this shower room, without being known by anybody’ (Shirota 1965, vol. 1). It was a shared knowledge among the staff of the centre that she could live only one more year, as she wrote in December 1978 (Shirota 1978–​82, vol. 3). Recovering from her close encounter with death, Shirota appreciated the value of being alive. In 1965, she recalled the great joy she felt in 1959 and wrote it in her 1965 diary: ‘Various desires such as sexual desire, materialistic desire and desire for fame disappeared. Desire for life remained’ (Shirota 1965, vol. 2). In 1958, Shirota accepted Fukatsu’s request to publish her life story in order to ‘empower people facing predicament’ (Shirota 1965, vol. 1). Then, she told her trauma story in her bedridden situation to his secretary, Schwester Morikawa Shizuko (1932–​present).6 Fukatsu asked Morikawa to visit the hospital every day in order to look after Shirota and to transcribe her testimony (Morikawa 2016). In my interview in 2016, Morikawa described an episode that illustrated how Shirota appreciated the fact of being alive:

60  Shirota Suzuko: The victim-survivor-activist When I was wiping Shirota’s body with a towel, she was excited by her finding of the grime coming out. I did not understand the reason for her excitement. Then she said to me, ‘Grime is a proof of being alive. Don’t you understand that simple thing?’. (Morikawa 2016) Shirota miraculously survived, transcended the boundary of the hegemonic political and constructed her subjectivity and voice as a survivor of civilian and military prostitution by breaking her silence. This was the moment when her unwavering political agency emerged and led her to resistance against the conspiracy of silence. Shirota’s (1958) trauma story is the testimony of a Japanese “comfort woman” survivor. By connecting personal memory and public history, a testimony transforms an individual trauma story of ‘shame and humiliation’ into a collective narrative of ‘dignity and virtue’ (Anger & Jensen 1990, cited in Herman 1992:181). In her testimony, recognising her past self as both a civilian and a military sex slave, rather than eliminating it from her life story, Shirota established the coherence of the self as a survivor of the sexual slavery system, both in Japan’s peace time and wartime. Further, by identifying her victimhood of ‘the feudal family’ in 1978 (Shirota 1978–​82, vol. 4), and ‘the military’s unreasonable demands’ in 1988 (Shirota 1988), she turned her life-​long shame and humiliation, which she had been forced to internalise in her outer and inner self, on to her perpetrators. Shirota’s manuscript thus constituted the intersection of her political and historical subject formation and the act of her resistance to the dominant narrative of the “comfort women” history. In this way, she became not only ‘the author and arbiter of her own recovery’ (Herman 1992:133), but also the author of her history and her life. Women’s writing signifies ‘the invention of a new insurgent writing which, when the moment of her liberation has come, will allow her to carry out the ruptures and transformation in her history’, as opposed to men’s writing, which represents ‘a locus where the repression of women has been perpetuated’ (Cixous 1976:660, 679, emphasis in original). For this reason, in 1971, Kanita self-​published Shirota’s autobiography by the title of Maria no Sanka [Maria’s Song of Praise]. In Japanese society of the 1950s and 1960s, finding a publisher for Shirota’s story of her survival, resistance and transformation proved difficult. During this period, Japanese society witnessed a nationwide movement against the Japan–​US Security Treaty, whereas the “comfort women” as prostitutes discourse was the social norm.7 Against this backdrop, some of her testimonial accounts were extracted in a women’s magazine, Fujin Kōron [Women’s Public Opinion] under the title ‘Tenraku no Shishu’ [An Anthology of a Fallen Woman’s Life] as opposed to ‘Kōsei no Kiroku’ [Biography of a Woman’s Rebirth], as expected by Fukatsu (Shirota 1971:4). In 1962, the entire transcript was edited and published by a minor publisher, Ōtōsha. Their edition, entitled Ai to Niku no Kokuhaku [Confession of Love

Shirota Suzuko: The victim-survivor-activist  61 and Flesh], also disappointed Fukatsu because he thought that their edited version would be nothing more than reproduction of patriarchal gender roles intended to stimulate the sexual desire of men and women (Shirota 1971:4). Here, her female writing was revised into the male writing of masculinity in order to maintain the dominant narratives and legitimacy of the patriarchal state and nation. Unfortunately, Shirota’s (1971) testimonial narrative of trauma did not resonate even with Japan’s first women’s liberation movement (Wōman Libu in Japanese language), which challenged Japan’s patriarchal power structure based on male exploitation of female sexuality in October 1970. The flyer entitled ‘Benjo karano kaihō’ [Liberation from toilets] written by the organiser, Tanaka Mitsu, denounced Japanese male invasion of female sexuality by mentioning Korean “comfort women”. Tanaka, as the standard-​bearer for the first Japanese Wōman Libu, theorises what the ruling power gained from its control over women’s bodies and sexuality in modern Japan (Tanaka 2004:333–​47). Her 1970 manifesto for the group Tatakau Onna [Fighting Women] emphasises the political function of the patriarchal dichotomy between “good” and “bad” women, namely, ‘affectionate’ mothers who are the reproductive symbol and ‘toilets’ who represent the disposal of male sexual lust. Therefore, ‘sexual liberation’ was the goal of the movement: …the ‘double structure of rule’ means that ‘the ruling power has been accomplishing its class will by the control and oppression by the male sex of the female sex’. In brief, ‘sex has existed as a fundamental means of human subordination’, so, recovering, with their own hands, their sexual power, which has been stolen from them and controlled by the system and by men… (Tanaka, A Short History:47, as translated by and cited in Mackie 2003:155) As the German sociologist Ilse Lenz notes, Tanaka’s theorising of women ‘as an embodied sexual and political subject represents a ground-​breaking departure in view of the Japanese gender order’ (Lenz 2014:219), in which the ruling patriarchal power structure utilises both types of women to control men’s sexuality and ultimately to control all people in the service of the state. Tanaka finds sadness in such society: By forcing women to be the toilet, men end up being excrement. Given that women and men are mutually related, female sexual misery means male sexual misery, which symbolises the misery of the modern society. (Tanaka 2004:339–​40) In modern society, a woman ‘who by nature owns both affectionate nature and sexual pleasure as a physical expression of love’ has been divided into two patriarchal dichotomies, thereby being forced to live ‘as a fragment’ rather

62  Shirota Suzuko: The victim-survivor-activist than ‘as a whole human being’ (Tanaka 2004:333–​8). However, men who allow women’s existence to be reduced to fragmented pieces are also forced to live as a segment by suppressing their own sexuality (Tanaka 2004:338). This fragmentation of both men and women runs counter to the politics of integrity. Tanaka further emphasises the nature of dehumanisation embedded within modernity, which resonates with Motta’s critique (2018). Tanaka’s theorising of the relationship between power and male/​female sexuality is of value for understanding how the state has controlled males both in peace time and wartime by exploiting and sacrificing female sexuality. This was the first critique of the “comfort women” system by a Japanese feminist (Kinoshita 2017:119). In her book, ‘Ianfu’ mondai no gensetsu kūkan: Nihonjin ‘ianfu’ no fukashika to genzen [The Space Within Discourse of the Issue of ‘Comfort Women’: Invisibilisation and Emergence of Japanese ‘Comfort Women’], Kinoshita Naoko analyses why Wōman Libu8 could not raise the issue of Japanese “comfort women”: On the one hand, Wōman Libu activists had potential sensibility to be able to understand the pains inflicted upon Japanese “comfort women” without contempt. On the other hand, the victims of the “comfort women” system were not those women to whom they had a feeling of closeness. This is because the victimised women were the symbol of sexual oppression and different from these activists in class and generation, even though both lived in the same times. Wōman Libu was the movement of self-​liberation and its basic policy was not to support others. It would appear that they had little interests in the surviving victims since their priority was to establish liberated female agency. In the era when the survivor did not officially come out yet, Wōman Libu could not pose the unresolved issue of “comfort women” to the public and find the survivors. (Kinoshita 2017:144) Tanaka and her group launched the movement for liberating women from the patriarchal dichotomy between virgins and whores; however, the patriarchal media marginalised this new women’s liberation movement by labelling it as ‘female hysteria’ (Tsukamoto 2017:189). As discussed in the previous chapter, hysteria is a strongly feminised category of traumatic neurosis, in contrast to shellshock as a masculinised form of post-​traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Thus, the first women’s collective voice of resistance against the patriarchal imperialist state of Japan was banished to silence and removed from history by the hegemonic conspiracy of silence. Accordingly, Shirota’s life story of resistance never came to the attention of even Japanese feminists. However, Tanaka’s argument inspired future activists who would participate in the transnational justice movement for “comfort women”, such as Ikeda Eriko, the honorary director of WAM or Women’s Active Museum on War and Peace (Ikeda 2016).

Shirota Suzuko: The victim-survivor-activist  63 Despite the fact that Shirota’s life story was subsumed within the asphyxiating nature of Japan’s patriarchal structure, the establishment of her coherent story of trauma nonetheless empowered Shirota to move forward to the final stage for reconnection. Herman describes the survivor at this transition step: Time starts to move again. When the ‘action of telling a story’ has come to its conclusion, the traumatic experience truly belongs to the past. At this point, the survivor faces the tasks of rebuilding her life in the present and pursuing her aspirations for the future. (Herman 1992:195) Shirota’s engagement with life and aspirations for her future opened up the opportunity to foster solidarity within her intimate community of Izumiryō. During her six-​year hospitalisation caused by her broken spine, she suggested to Fukatsu that he establish a permanent care home for former prostitutes who had had difficulties with social reintegration. Instantly, the pastor realised Shirota’s long-​cherished dream, which was the construction of her final home, where she could spend the rest of her life. It could be a life-​long shelter for formerly prostituted women who were assessed as having low potential for social reintegration under the anti-​prostitution law. In order to realise her dream, he and Schwesters launched diverse political activities, such as lobbying the Ministry of Health and Welfare for the inclusion of funds in the state budget for the establishment, holding demonstrations in front of the parliament building and asking visitors to Izumiryō for their help and support in 1959 (Shirota 1965, vol. 2). Due to her broken spine, Shirota was paralysed from the waist down and on the left half of her body. All she could do in hospital was to keep praying for their success, full of determination in the face of what she called the ‘persecution’ inflicted upon her by some other patients, doctors and nurses, who knew her plan for the permanent residence, as she recalled in her diary (Shirota 1965, vol. 2). Shirota’s bed-​ridden fight against what Motta calls ‘othering’, in which they denied her capacity for exercising political agency (Motta 2017:7), manifests the awakening of her political activism as a survivor. Her alliance with Fukatsu and Schwesters nurtured her trust in humanity. This development also expanded the community of everyday politics, in which all are ‘equal members and participants’ (Motta 2009:35). This intimate community nurtures the political agency of autonomy in order to reclaim dignity. Shirota’s political campaign ended successfully and Kanita (Figure 4.3) was completed with state subsidies in 1965.9 Settling down in Kanita brought her a feeling of safety for the rest of her life, which enabled her to engage in day-​to-​day life.

Stage 3: reconnection to the external world This section demonstrates the complexities of Shirota’s political agency through the political literacy that enabled her to understand the interaction

64  Shirota Suzuko: The victim-survivor-activist

Figure 4.3  Kanita Fujin no Mura in Tateyama, Chiba, 2016. The office is in the building on the left. In the foreground, the three houses serve as residence for female survivors. Source: Photograph of the author.

between state violence and women as well as the relationship between war memory and history. The trajectory of developing her political agency marked the two sites of her subject formation: the 1958 oral history and the 1986 radio interview. Both signify the culmination of the exercise of her political agency, which develops and declares her self-​identity in public. Her journey to those culminations informs us of her life-​and-​death struggle to complete the continuity between the past and present self. To bring some coherence into her life and alternative history manifests the sign of her agency to survive, resist the dominant narrative and restore her dignity. In the third stage of recovery from trauma, a trauma victim who has already faced her past self by telling her story must ‘develop a new self’ by ‘reconnecting with others’ (Herman 1992:196, 205). In this vein, the stage of reconnection signifies the political stage of Shirota’s further evolution in gaining her agency and self-​identity from a survivor to the survivor of the military sexual slavery system. Her mourning of all dead “comfort women” in Kanita made the self-​transformation possible and opened up the channels for reconnection to the external world beyond her intimate community, as

Shirota Suzuko: The victim-survivor-activist  65 well as activism for their justice and dignity. This form of mourning should be differentiated from Herman’s model, in which a trauma victim mourns the past self because she feels that she lost ‘her moral integrity’ due to ‘the profound feelings of guilt and shame’ internalised by the perpetrator (Herman 1992:192–​3, 196). Shirota found her own way to mourn all deceased “comfort women”, which allowed her to develop new relationships beyond Kanita. Her radio interview signifies the culmination of her political agency for collective resistance and dignity. Therefore, in this specific case, mourning is included in stage 3, as opposed to stage 2 in Herman’s analysis (1992). In this final stage, recognition and acknowledgement of testimonies by others are central to reconnection to the wider community since they allow the survivor to feel that her subjectivity is recognised and accepted by the external world. This feeling also gives her a sense of dignity. From stage 1, Shirota understood the social and political values of her testimony as a witness to and survivor of sexual slavery upon raising awareness of the issue of prostitution and venereal diseases. For example, in 1978, an abolitionist activist told Shirota that her reflective narrative of rehabilitation published in the women’s magazine, Hataraku Fujin no Koe [Voices of Working Women],10 could facilitate the passage of the Anti-​Prostitution Law (Shirota 1978–​82, vol. 3). The law was passed on 24 May 1956 and, accordingly, the country’s red-​light districts were abolished, marking the end of the state-​licensed prostitution system. The law also changed Shirota’s situation, in which she became a subject of the relief project of former prostitutes. In stage 3, Shirota became increasingly more active in testifying in interviews with the media or in personally lobbying politicians, activists and reporters by letter. In 1978, she became excited while watching a programme broadcast by the Japanese public broadcaster, NHK, because it focused on the issue of juvenile delinquents and prostitution, which she had already raised in her letter to the broadcasting company, as she described in her diary (Shirota 1978–​82, vol. 6). Although it is unknown whether either the parliament or NHK actually listened to her voice, these incidents convinced her that her testimony was gaining public recognition. The self-​acknowledgement of acceptance by others encouraged her to promote more connection to the social world through testifying. In 1978, she wrote in her diary: ‘After writing letters to Asahi Shimbun and NHK, something solid uncomfortably stuck in my throat disappeared’ (Shirota 1978–​82, vol. 6). This indicates both the embodiment of the nature of trauma and the process of healing. By reconnecting with wider society, she healed her psychological scars and regained the basic human capacities for trust, autonomy and dignity. Shirota further developed her capacity for inner listening, which facilitated the profound transformation of her self-​identity from a survivor to the survivor of the military sexual slavery system. Having witnessed numerous brutal deaths of her colleagues at “comfort stations”, Shirota considered the meaning of her luck in surviving having been at the brink of countless deaths, including her two suicide attempts. Her conclusion was that the spirits

66  Shirota Suzuko: The victim-survivor-activist of many “comfort women” who had died in foreign countries protected her because they wanted her to ‘clamour for their plights on their behalf’, something she wrote about in her 1986 letter to the then-​prime minister. This ‘clamour’ is the voice of resistance against the hegemonic boundary of the political. By bringing in other temporalities and subjects from the past, the collective voice disrupts the present politics as normal. This collective resistance manifests ‘the struggle over who has the authority to tell the stories that define us’ (Morales 1998:5). The connection between silence and death of the victimised is the key to the legitimate authority. Based upon her interviews with the offspring of Holocaust survivors, Nadine Fresco (1984 as cited in Felman & Laub 1992:64–​5) emphasises that the site of ‘concentration of death’ marks the site of silence. This notion of silence indicates how significant it is to imagine the whole picture of countless deaths behind much fewer survivals. Further, silenced survivors are not visible; however, as the Japanese psychologist, Miyaji Naoko (2007:214) notes, we can imagine their inner voices by listening to survivors who raised their voice. Shirota recognised that she was among the survivors who could speak for all “comfort women”, saying ‘I assume that many of those women could not survive. Even if some of them do, none of them will come forward because they may feel the act as shameful’, as she said in her letter to Fukatsu on 10 March 1984. Her new identity emerged as the survivor-​activist who represented the silenced voices of both dead and surviving “comfort women” for resistance against their collective victimisation and for their collective reclamation of their dignity. This is a political movement that connects victims and witnesses for empowerment as well as collective recovery from trauma (Herman 1992; Morales 1998; Motta 2018), where testimony serves as a vehicle of activism for social justice. The role of spirituality is integral to stage 3 in that bringing the dead from the past disrupts the status quo as granted. Different from religious beliefs, spirituality is political in that it prescribes individual and collective ‘peacefulness’ and ‘compassion’ for others in pursuit of a just society (Gottlieb 2013). This moral and psychological dimension of spirituality is essential to ‘promote a better society by promoting better individuals’ (Gottlieb 2013:170). Since 1983, Shirota was haunted by a different type of traumatised memory as a witness to the brutal end of her former “comfort women” colleagues. Suffering from nightmares, she finally wrote about them in a letter to Fukatsu in 1984: My former [“comfort women”] colleagues show up in various appearances. Those images are very vivid. Then they begin to sob as if they were appealing to me. I cannot stop them by myself. I want you to establish the monument to soothe the spirits of military “comfort women” in Kanita. (Shirota 1984) For the most part, this haunting by ghosts could be a threat to her political agency since it could inhibit the completion of her subject formation. As the case study of shell-​shocked soldiers reveals, ‘repetitive nightmares’ affect ‘the

Shirota Suzuko: The victim-survivor-activist  67 formation of subjectivity in the face of assaults on its coherence’ (Stewart 2003:9). Conversely, Shirota further developed her political agency as the survivor-​activist by recognising her long-​time indignation that had been accumulating over the past 40 years. Shirota criticised the state and society in that they had repeatedly consoled the spirits of dead soldiers and war victims while totally ignoring those women who were forced to provide soldiers with sexual service: No matter how many “comfort women” or sex providers died, there has been nothing to console their tormented souls. Now, looking back on the past forty years, I wonder how stupid it was. (Shirota 1986) Of importance here is that, based on Japanese traditional spirituality, she thought that the souls of those dead ‘sex providers’ (Shirota 1986) were far from resting in peace and actually were haunting Japanese society. For her, the establishment of the monument for consoling those haunting spirits from the past manifested the collective resistance against the collective violence, combined with the collective healing with respect to both victimhood and the inhumane society through the official recognition of their traumatised experiences. This was her activism for justice and dignity of the victims who were forced into what Morales calls, ‘the most individual and the most collective places of violence’ (Morales 1998:5). Shirota launched her own activism by urging Fukatsu and all Schwesters to lobby the Health and Welfare Ministry as well as the media for actions and promised him that she would testify if he needed her assistance in these efforts (Shirota 1984). After seriously considering this issue for a year, Fukatsu decided to establish a wooden memorial because he thought that it might be his best way to make an apology to those victimised women.11 On 15 August 1985, a wooden monument inscribed Chinkon no Hi [Monument for soothing the spirit] was established on the top of the hill in Kanita. The day marked the fortieth anniversary of Japan’s defeat, which ended World War II. Shirota returned thanks to him in tears, in her wheelchair (Figures 4.4–​4.7). The wooden monument emerged as the engine to empower her political agency as the survivor who engaged in and appealed to wider society for the purpose of fundraising to replace the wooden monument with a far more permanent stone monument. The stone monument might be a gift to younger and future generations in that it bestowed an official vow never to repeat the same mistake again. Reflecting on Japan’s future, she wrote in her diary: If the militarist era comes back, Japanese citizens will suffer. It is obvious that young lives will be lost in the war. Never give up, Japanese citizens. The Self-​Defence Forces is a military. It scares me because I feel as if the dark period will come back again. (Shirota 1988)

68  Shirota Suzuko: The victim-survivor-activist

Figure 4.4 Fukatsu and other members carrying the wooden statue to the top of the hillside overlooking Kanita. Courtesy of Kanita.

Figure 4.5 Two Schwesters and a staff member assisting Shirota to attend the establishment of the wooden memorial. Courtesy of Kanita.

Shirota Suzuko: The victim-survivor-activist  69

Figure 4.6  The wooden memorial located in Kanita. Courtesy of Kanita.

Figure 4.7  A joyous Shirota reacts to the establishment of the “comfort women” memorial. Courtesy of Kanita.

70  Shirota Suzuko: The victim-survivor-activist As the survivor-​activist, Shirota understood that ‘those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it’ (Herman 1992:208). She expanded connection with the larger world by testifying in interviews with the media and in letters to politicians or activists for lobbying. Asahi Shimbun posted the article based on Shirota’s interview about Kanita’s private ceremony for the erection of the wooden monument. Moreover, TBS (Tokyo Broadcasting System) launched the Kangaroo campaign coinciding with her radio interview in an effort to facilitate her fundraising activities. The successful establishment of the stone monument in Kanita (Figure 4.8) was the material manifestation of the victory of Shirota’s activism as

Figure 4.8  The permanent stone memorial, 2016. Source: Photograph of the author.

Shirota Suzuko: The victim-survivor-activist  71 well as her reconnection to the external world. The money contributed to its establishment embodied the public recognition of her activism and restoration of her personal dignity. She received both the prize money that the TBS radio interview won along with monetary donations from 166 people12 who had listened to her interview or read the article in Asahi Shimbun. Given the considerable social pressure to silence the survivors within Japanese society, Shirota’s courageous exercise of her political agency without any collective support organised by feminist or other groups deserves great admiration. None of the politicians, from either the ruling or the opposition parties,13 journalists or feminist activists14 who visited or contacted Shirota ever raised the issue of Japanese “comfort women”. Until she passed away at Kanita in 1993, she continued to grant interviews as far as her health condition permitted. She never gave up her solitary activism in the pursuit for social justice, which ‘connects the fate of others to her own’ (Herman 1992:209). Shirota’s ‘feeling of solidarity with survivors of military sexual slavery from other countries’ (Norma 2016:2) was demonstrated by her commitment to the establishment of the stone monument for ‘a hundred of thousands of Japanese and two hundreds of thousands of Korean comfort women’ (sic), as she wrote in her letter to the then-​prime minister. Her solidarity beyond national borders was also indicated by ‘her expression of happiness with Kim Hak-​soon’s silence break’ (Amaha 2016). After watching the NHK programme featuring the upcoming lawsuit against the Japanese government by Korean “comfort women” survivors, Shirota wrote in her diary on 29 November 1991: Get compensation or whatever [from the Japanese government]. Some Japanese veterans finally came to testify. As many as fifty years have already passed [since Japan’s defeat of the war]. Come forward, more and more. (Shirota 1991–​2) Both Shirota and Kim Hak-soon highly understood the significance of the interaction between memory and history; as Shirota said in her diary, ‘history will repeat itself unless witnesses testify’ (Shirota 1988). Therefore, their strong desire to pass historical facts about the sexual slavery system on to younger generations constituted their driving force to come forward. By testifying about their own plight, both Shirota and Kim Hak-soon broke the boundary of the political and established their political and historical subjectivity as the survivor of and activist against military sexual slavery. In the end, Shirota seems to have come to terms with her traumatised memory by establishing the coherent self as the survivor. However, recovery from trauma is ‘never complete’, since a traumatised memory continues to influence the survivor throughout her life (Herman 1992:211). In the last period of stage 3, Shirota suffered a haunted memory as the flashbacks of graphic images depicting the scattered pieces of dismembered Japanese soldiers’ bodies, which she experienced at the front line as she confessed in her

72  Shirota Suzuko: The victim-survivor-activist diary on 6 January 1992 (Shirota 1991–​2). The flashback memory indicates the complexity of the conditions for possible healing. Even if the survivor resolved her trauma sufficiently at one stage of recovery, she may suffer its return at a more developed stage (Herman 1992:21). Sufficient resolution depends on what indicator is employed in order to evaluate it. The best one is ‘the survivor’s restored capacity to take pleasure in her life and to engage fully in relationship with others’ (Herman 1992:212). Overcoming both the fear of death and the desire for suicide, Shirota finally celebrated life. Her appreciation of being alive was her driving force to develop and exercise the political agency for survival, resistance and dignity.

The victim-​survivor-​activist Shirota never filed a lawsuit against the Japanese government. The idea of appealing to the court never occurred to her. She might have been more concerned about her family. When she learned of Kim Hak-​soon’s breaking of silence and the subsequent lawsuit against the Japanese government filed by her and two other Korean survivors in 1991, Shirota wrote of her physical weakness in her diary: ‘I have been living with this body for seventy years. I cannot control my body even if I try to stand up’ (Shirota 1988). The Japanese feminist researcher, Kinoshita Naoko, who focuses solely on Shirota’s own interpretation of her experience as a “comfort woman”, concluded that Shirota could not develop her subjectivity as a victim of a state crime (Kinoshita 2017:237). This conclusion assumes that political agency to facilitate her political subject formation can be traced only by visible acts of challenge to the dominant power and, therefore, implies that political agency is a zero-​sum construction. This assumption is likely to ignore the complex construction of political agency since actual acts against the dominant power represent not only the culmination of the fully developed political agency, but also the tip of the iceberg of a wide range of activities exercised by the growing political agency. However, the ‘politics of knowledge’ dominated by the masculinised knower never allows the feminised other to challenge the border of the political between the ‘knowing-​subject’ and the ‘known-​subject’ (Motta 2014, 2017). For the feminised known, who is ‘subject to logics of elimination and dehumanisation’ in the terrain of the political, it is impossible to become visible in the dominant narrative; rather, she is ‘tamed and assimilated’ by the knower, thereby legitimising the knower’s logics (Motta 2017:3). This move reinscribes her as being without agency, negating the complexities of her knowing and political subjectivity. The construction of political agency is a multi-​phased process in which a victim of trauma develops different layers and forms of political agency at different stages. For example, Shirota countered the dominant memory/​ history of the Asia-​Pacific War in her journals. She repeatedly chronicled the horror of the past war and her anger against those who started the cruelty.

Shirota Suzuko: The victim-survivor-activist  73 Her explicit criticism directed against the Japanese government was expressed in her two letters to lobby the then-​prime minister15 for the completion of the stone monument to commemorate “comfort women”: Knowing that in wartime women are deceived by the propaganda, ‘okuninotameni’ (for the country) and end up with their miserable deaths, are you going to deceive them again? The past textbooks glorifying loyalty to the head of the nation and families, or patriotism contributed to mobilising a great many naïve youths who ended up dying for nothing. This tragedy evokes my feelings of sorrow and anger. While writing this letter, I can’t stop shedding tears. … I am wondering how many times I have wandered back and forth between life and death. Given only the painful feelings of those times, the sin committed by the Japanese government would be inexpiable. (Shirota 1984–​5) Here, Shirota connected both impoverished young men and women as victims of state violence. During the war, she saw through the disguise of the emperor-​ worship nationalism as a war mobilisation apparatus. In 1979, she wrote in her diary that during the war, she heard what many young soldiers said: ‘I don’t want to die’ (Shirota 1978–​82, vol. 8). On the one hand, she showed her sympathetic feelings for the young and poor soldiers who were forced to sacrifice their lives for the state in the same way that she and other destitute girls were. In this regard, she demonstrates understanding through empathy of the complexities of the militarised patriarchy in that it also justified the victimisation of men, particularly poverty-​stricken young men for the sake of the Emperor. On the other hand, she never lost the feminist perspectives on female victimisation by males. Her understanding of the complex relations of the domination–​subordination nexus demonstrates her capacity to recognise intersectionality. Intersectionality is central to both the analysis of ‘the dynamics of structural power’ (Wilson 2013:1, emphasis in original) and to the understanding of intra-​group tension (Crenshaw 1991:1242, as cited in Wilson 2013:1). In 1991, Shirota grieved in her diary over what she had lost: My young days were trampled by soldiers. I cannot retrieve my lost youth anymore. I don’t want money. Rather, give me back the first twenty years of life. (Shirota 1991–​2) Her outspoken demand to reclaim her life occurred because she strongly desired to start a brand-​new time of youth over again if she could. Instead of seeking official compensation for her victimisation, she demanded that she be given back her life that had been stolen by the many facets of the patriarchal capitalism/​militarism that characterised Japanese society and state.

74  Shirota Suzuko: The victim-survivor-activist

Conclusion Based on Herman’s three-​stage model, this chapter has analysed Shirota’s recovery stage from trauma in order to conceptualise her political agency as a victim of state-​sponsored sexual violence. As Shirota’s case reveals, trauma has a complex construction with multiple psychological wounds deeply embedded within different layers. Therefore, a victim of trauma needs to construct her political agency through a multi-​phased process in which she can develop different forms and layers of political agency according to the stages of recovery she inhabits. The self-​identification as a victim is essential to the development of her political agency at the pre-​political stage, where she can nurture and exercise it through the everyday practice of resistance even within the political border of otherness by developing her subjectivity and identity as such. For a trauma victim, the establishment of her physical and psychological safety is the foundation for developing her political agency by which she takes up the fight mode to cope with her trauma, as opposed to the flight. Given the nature of trauma, which oscillates between resistance and surrender complicated by the presence of the conspiracy and the complicity of silence that continuously threaten to silence her voice, the creation of her intimate community where people share her traumatic experience as listeners allows her to enter the next stage: speaking of her trauma story. Telling her story of trauma is a manifestation of the exercise of political agency for the following reasons. First, it resists the dominant narrative of patriarchal domination, thereby making visibile and breaking the political boundary of patriarchy. Second, the establishment of her coherent story of trauma in constant reflection of both the past–​present self and the public–​ personal interaction demonstrates the politics of integrity. It is through the politics of integrity, which encourages her to recognise the full complexity of her whole self as a survivor, that she can transfer shame and guilt inflicted upon her to the perpetrator. Third, this individual act of recovery from trauma can nurture the culture of resistance against oppression, thus eradicating the culture of victimhood. In other words, a personal act of rehabilitation from trauma leads to a collective political act as part of the process for the collective healing of dehumanised society. Re-​connection to the external world beyond the intimate community opens a door for the expansion of the political act from the personal to the collective level. As Shirota’s case demonstrates, the moral dimension of spirituality is integral to this re-​connecting stage, where an act of mourning plays a pivotal role in reflecting the moral integrity of individuals and society about past collective oppression. Through this mourning process, a survivor establishes her political and historical subjectivity as an activist against sexual violence. Her testimony constitutes the site of collective resistance against collective structural violence. Therefore, in this research, unlike Herma’s model, mourning is incorporated into the third recovery stage. Shirota’s fully developed political

Shirota Suzuko: The victim-survivor-activist  75 agency as a victim-​survivor-​activist finally allowed her to restore human dignity and integrity, transcending national borders in order to spiritually connect to the Korean silence breaker.

Notes 1 Storytelling constitutes a dialogue between the speaker and the listener. 2 Kubushiro was a leading figure in Kyōfūkai, the Japan Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), which founded and ran the rehabilitation centre. She dedicated her life to abolishing prostitution and winning women’s suffrage. 3 Japan’s 1996 Anti-​Prostitution Law allowed former prostitutes to have state protection and rehabilitation as well as punishment and guidance (The Anti-​Prostitution Law, 1996): h t t p : / / ​l aw. e g ov. g o. j p / ​c g i ​b i n / ​i d x s e l ​e c t . c g i ? i d x _ ​o p t = ​1 & h _ ​n ​a m e =​ %94%84%8f%74%96%68%8e%7e%96%40&h_​na​me_​y​omi=​%82%a0&h_​n​o_​ge​ ngo=​h&h_​no_​y​ear=​&h_​no_​t​ype=​2&h_​no​_​no=​&h_​fi​le_​n​ame=​s31ho​118&h_​ry​ aku=​1&h_​ctg=​1&h_​y​omi_​gun=​1&h_​ctg_​gun=​1 (accessed 13 September 2017). 4 Shirota had all her gynaecological organs removed in her 1956 surgery. Then she was diagnosed with five diseases, including syphilis, articular rheumatism and intestinal adhesions (Shirota 1971:182–​6). 5 ‘Schwester’ is a German word meaning ‘sisters’ (Shirota 1971:202). Although Schwesters is equivalent to Christian sisters, the main purpose of Schwesters is to engage in volunteer work at church or in hospital (Morikawa 2016). 6 According to a note by Fukatsu, kept in Kanita, Morikawa transcribed Shirota’s life story in accordance with Kubushiro’s request for the purpose of keeping a record of her story of rehabilitation (Kinoshita 2017:238). Kubushiro made every effort to produce a film based on her story of rehabilitation. When it was about to start shooting, it was cancelled because the board of directors regarded it as too religious (Shirota 197:3). 7 The first publication of a Japanese “comfort woman” survivor’s memoir was Senjō ianfu [Battlefield comfort woman] by Ajisaka Miwa (Tomita 1953). However, Ajisaka’s life story was described as a story of a patriotic high-​school girl at the front line by the editor, Tomita Kunihiko. 8 For more about the analysis of the text written by Tanaka and other Wōman Libu activists, see Kinoshita (2017:110–​44). 9 On 26 April 1965, Shirota described those who participated in Kanita’s inauguration ceremony in volume 5 of her diary, Anjū no chi wo motomete [Seeking my final home]. It said that among participants were bureaucrats of the Ministry of Health and Welfare, female Members of Parliament, Kyofūkai members and Emperor Hirohito’s brother, Mikasanomiya. 10 The name of the magazine came from Kinoshita Naoko’s assumption (Kinoshita 2017:239). 11 Fukatsu confessed that it would be sad if the establishment of the monument justified victimisation of “comfort women”, in the process of acquitting their perpetrators (Fukatsu 1985). 12 Fukatsu referred to the figure of donors. ‘Given that all letters in response to the article by Asahi Shimbun posting to Kanita were written by Japanese veterans’

76  Shirota Suzuko: The victim-survivor-activist (Fukatsu 1985, no. 46, p. 04), ‘most of the financial donors were also supposed to be former Japanese soldiers’ (Fukatsu 1985, no. 41, p. 04). 13 Shirota wrote letters to members of parliament, such as Tanaka Sumiko and Yashiro Eita, as she wrote in Vol. 9 of her diary Kamisama no gokeikaku [God’s plan] in 1979. In the inauguration ceremony of Kanita, those who participated included bureaucrats from the Health and Welfare Ministry, female members of parliament, some members of Kyōfūkai and Emperor Hirohito’s younger brother, Mikasanomiya. She described it in Vol. 5 of her diary Anjū no chi wo motomete [Seeking my final home] in 1965. 14 Shirota appreciated advice and support from Kubushiro Ochimi and Ichikawa Fusae, among others. The former was a leading figure in Kyōfūkai and dedicated her life to abolishing prostitution and winning women’s suffrage. The latter was a pioneer in Japan’s women’s suffrage movement and was elected to parliament. 15 Her letter to the prime minister was undated. It was presumed that the letter was written between 1984 and 1985. The prime minister was Nakasone Yasuhiro, who held office between1982 and 1987. Nakasone (1918–​2019) boasted in his book, Owarinaki Kaigun [The Navy Forever] (1978) that as the navy paymaster officer, he put a lot of hard work into establishing “comfort stations” in Indonesia. See LITERA: https://​lite-​ra.com/​2019/​11/​post-​5119.html (accessed 6 December 2021). Shirota also wrote a letter to Ōhira Masayoshi (1910–​80), who became the prime minister from 1978 to 1980. However, she did not receive any response from him (Shirota 1984–​5). Whether her letters to those prime ministers were actually posted is unknown.

References Primary sources Amaha, M. (2016) Interview with Sachiyo Tsukamoto, 11 May. Fukatsu, F. (1958) Atogaki [Afterword]. Tokyo: WAM. Fukatsu, F. (1985) ‘Chinkon no uta’ [Requiem]. Kanita Dayori [Kanita News Letter], 20(41 & 46), Kanita Fujin no Mura. Ikeda, E. (2016) Interview with Sachiyo Tsukamoto, 26 May. Morikawa, S. (2016) Interview with Sachiyo Tsukamoto, 26 April. Shirota, S. (1956) Nikki [Diary]. [Diary] Held at: Tokyo: WAM. Shirota, S. (1957) Arekara Ninen [Two years have passed since I moved to Jiairyō]. [Diary] Held at: Tokyo: WAM. Shirota, S. (1960) Byōin de kaita [I wrote this in my hospital]. [Manuscript: Essay] Held at: Tokyo: WAM. Shirota, S. (1960–1) Yashi no tsuki [The Moon of coconut]. 4 volumes. [Manuscript: Novel] Held at: Tokyo: WAM. Shirota, S. (1961–2) Subarashiki tatakai [My wonderful battle]. [Diary] Held at: Tokyo: WAM. Shirota, S. (1963) Aruhito no shi ni omou [My thought about someone’s death]. [Manuscript: Essay] Held at: Tokyo: WAM. Shirota, S. (1963) Q fujin no shōten [The death of Mrs. Q]. [Manuscript: Essay] Held at: Tokyo: WAM.

Shirota Suzuko: The victim-survivor-activist  77 Shirota, S. (1964) Awarena musuko [A pitiful son]. [Manuscript: Essay] Held at: Tokyo: WAM. Shirota, S. (1965) Anjū no chi wo motomete [Seeking my final home]. 5 volumes. [Diary] Held at: Tokyo: WAM. Shirota, S. (1965–6) Shakunetsu no onai womote megumitamau [Blessing with burning love]. [Diary] Held at: Tokyo: WAM. Shirota, S. (1971) Maria no sanka [Maria’s song of praise]. Tokyo: Kanita Shuppanbu. Shirota, S. (1978–​ 82) Kamisama no gokeikaku [God’s plan]. 74 volumes (65–​ 69 missing). [Diary] Held at: Tokyo: WAM. Shirota, S. (1982–3) Omoitukumama [Something coming into my mind]. [Diary] Held at: Tokyo: WAM. Shirota, S. (1984) Shirota to Fukatsu, Fujimaki and all Schwesters, 10 March. [Letter] Held at: Tokyo: WAM. Shirota, S. (1984–​5) Shirota to the then Japanese Prime Minister, n.d. [Letter] Held at: Tokyo: WAM. Shirota, S. (1986) Interview with Kamizono Osamu in Ishi no sakebi: Aru Jūgun ianfu no sakebi (An outcry of stone: an outcry of a “comfort woman”). TBS Radio, 19 January. Shirota, S. (1986–8) Watashi no okkanai taikenki [My scary experience]. 2 volumes. [Diary] Held at: Tokyo: WAM. Shirota, S. (1988) Aa inochi toutoshi [How precious life is]. [Diary] Held at: Tokyo: WAM. Shirota, S. (1991–​2) Arinomama nichijō no arinomama wo kakimaseu [As it is. I will write my everyday life as it is]. [Diary] Held at: Tokyo: WAM.

Secondary sources Butler, J. (1997a) Excitable speech: A politics of the performative. London: Routledge. Butler, J. (1997b) The psychic life of power: Theories in subjection. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Cixous, H. (1976) The laugh of the Medusa. Signs, 1(4), 875–​93. Crenshaw, K. (1991) Mapping the margins: Intersectionality, identity politics, and violence against women of color. Stanford Law Review, 43(6), 1241–​99. Crossley, M. (2000) Narrative psychology, trauma and the study of self/​identity. Theory and Psychology, 10(4), 527–​46. Danieli, Y. (ed.) (1998) International handbook of multigenerational legacies of trauma. New York, NY: Plenum Press. Edkins, J. (2003) Trauma and the memory of politics. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Felman, S., & Laub, D. (1992) Testimony: Crises of witnessing in literature, psychoanalysis, and history. Florence, KY: Taylor & Francis Group. Fresco, N. (1984) Remembering the unknown. International Review of Psycho-​analysis, 11, 417–​27. Gottlieb, R. S. (2013) Spirituality: What it is and why it matters. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Herman, J. L. (1992) Trauma and recovery. New York, NY: Basic Books. Kimura, M. (2008) Narrative as a site of subject construction: The ‘comfort women’ debate. Feminist Theory, 9(5), 5–​24.

78  Shirota Suzuko: The victim-survivor-activist Kimura, M. (2016) Unfolding the ‘comfort women’ debates: Modernity, violence, women’s voices. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Kinoshita, N. (2017) ‘Ianfu’ mondai no gensetsu kūkan: Nihonjin ‘ianfu’ no fukashika to genzen [The space within discourse of the issue of ‘comfort women’: Invisibilisation and emergence of Japanese ‘comfort women’]. Tokyo: Bensei Shuppan. Lenz, I. (2014) From mothers of the nation to embodies citizens: Gender, nations and reflective modernisation in Japan, in Germer, A., Mackie, V., & Wöhr, U. (eds.) Gender, nations and state in modern Japan. London: Routledge, pp. 211–​29. Linde, C. (1993) Life stories: The creation of coherence. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Mackie, V. (2003) Feminism in modern Japan: Citizenship, embodiment and sexuality. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Miyaji, N. (2007) Kanjō tō: Torauma no chiseigaku [The ring island: Geopolitics of trauma]. Tokyo: Misuzu Shobo. Morales, A. L. (1998) Medicine stories: History, culture and the politics of integrity. Cambridge, MA: South End Press. Motta, S. C. (2009) Old tools and new movements in Latin America: Political science as gatekeeper or intellectual illuminator? Latin American Politics and Society, 51(1), 31–​56. Doi:10.1111/​j.1548-​2456.2009.00039.x Motta, S. C. (2014) ‘Reinventing revolutions: An “other” politics in practice and theory’, in Stahler-​Sholk, R., Vanden, H. E., & Becker, M. (eds.) Rethinking Latin American social movements: Radical action from below. London: Rowman & Littlefield, pp. 21–​44. Motta, S. C. (2017) Latin America as political science’s other. Social Identities, 23(6), 1–​17. Doi:10.1080/​13504630.2017.1291093 Motta, S. C. (2018) Liminal subjects: Weaving (our) liberation. London: Rowman & Littlefield. Norma, C. (2016) The Japanese comfort women and sexual slavery during the China and Pacific wars. New York, NY: Bloomsbury Academic. Peng, J. (2017) ‘When the “comfort women” speak –​shareability and recognition of traumatic memory’, in Auestad, L. (ed.) Shared traumas, silent loss, public and private mourning. London: Karnac Books, pp. 115–​35. Rose, S. D. (1999) ‘Naming and claiming: The integration of traumatic experience and the reconstruction of self in survivors’ stories of sexual abuse’, in Rogers, K. L., Leydesdorff, S., & Dawson, G. (eds.) Trauma and life stories: International perspectives. New York, NY: Routledge, pp. 160–​79. Rustin, M. (2000) ‘Reflections on the biographical turn in social science’, in hamberlayne, P., Bornat, J., & Wengraf, T. (eds.) The turn to biographical methods in social science: Comparative issues and examples. London: Routledge, pp. 33–​52. Soh, C. S. (2008) The comfort women: Sexual violence and postcolonial memory in Korea and Japan. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Spivak, G. C. (1988) ‘Can the subaltern speak?’ in Nelson, C., & Grossberg, L. (eds.) Marxism and the interpretation of culture. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, pp. 66–​111. Spivak, G. C. (1999) A critique of postcolonial reason: Toward a history of the vanishing present. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Stewart, V. (2003) Women’s autobiography: War and trauma. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. Tanaka, M. (2004) Inochi no onnatachi he [For women of life]. Tokyo: Gendaishokan.

Shirota Suzuko: The victim-survivor-activist  79 Tomita, K. (ed) (1953) Senjō ianfu: Ajisaka Miwako no shuki [Battlefield comfort women: The memoir of Ajisaka Miwako]. Tokyo: Fuji Shobō. Tsukamoto, S. (2017) ‘Beyond the dichotomy of prostitutes versus sex slaves: Transnational feminist activism of “comfort women” in South Korea and Japan’, in Pension-​Bird, C., & Vickers, E. (eds.) Gender and the Second World War: Lessons of war. London: Palgrave, pp. 185–​99. Wakabayashi, B. T. (2003) Comfort women: Beyond litigious feminism. Monumenta Nipponica, 58(2), 223–​58. Wilson, A. R. (ed.) (2013) Situating intersectionality: Politics, policy, and power. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.

Bibliography Shirota, S. (1957) Arekara Ninen [Two years have passed since I moved to Jiairyō]. [Diary] Held at: Tokyo: WAM. Shirota, S. (1960) Byōin de kaita [I wrote this in my hospital]. [Manuscript: Essay] Held at: Tokyo: WAM. Shirota, S. (1960–​1) Yashi no tsuki [The Moon of coconut]. 4 volumes. [Manuscript: Novel] Held at: Tokyo: WAM. Shirota, S. (1961–​ 2) Subarashiki tatakai [My wonderful battle]. [Diary] Held at: Tokyo: WAM. Shirota, S. (1963) Aruhito no shi ni omou [My thought about someone’s death]. [Manuscript: Essay] Held at: Tokyo: WAM. Shirota, S. (1963) Q fujin no shōten [The death of Mrs. Q]. [Manuscript: Essay] Held at: Tokyo: WAM. Shirota, S. (1964) Awarena musuko [A pitiful son]. [Manuscript: Essay] Held at: Tokyo: WAM. Shirota, S. (1965–​6) Shakunetsu no onai womote megumitamau [Blessing with burning love]. [Diary] Held at: Tokyo: WAM. Shirota, S. (1982–​3) Omoitukumama [Something coming into my mind]. [Diary] Held at: Tokyo: WAM. Shirota, S. (1986–​8) Watashi no okkanai taikenki [My scary experience]. 2 volumes. [Diary] Held at: Tokyo: WAM.

5  The state-​licensed prostitute as a dutiful daughter

Introduction In this chapter, the silenced narratives of surviving Japanese “comfort women” reveal how, as a modern patriarchal state, Japan constructed and consolidated state power by controlling female bodies; in particular, by exploiting poor Japanese women. The extant literature has concluded that many Japanese “comfort women” were indentured prostitutes in private brothels at the time of their recruitment into military “comfort stations”. Both Kikumaru and Shirota were not exceptional. This realisation implies that their experiences as Japanese state-​ licensed prostitutes were homogenous to some extent. Therefore, more focus on fundamental similarities in their life as indentured civilian prostitutes is integral to uncover a particular form of sexual slavery system within which to situate the specificities of their experiences.

The conspiracy of silence: forced internalisation of the abusers’ shame and guilt into their victims Only a handful of surviving Japanese “comfort women” have broken their silence thus far (see Appendix). This reality demonstrates the effectiveness of a state conspiracy of silence to bury the individual and collective voice(s) of trauma. Yael Danieli, a clinical psychologist, victimologist and traumatologist,1 defines the ‘conspiracy of silence’ by the state as ‘[p]‌olitically dictated or officially sanctioned silence’ (Danieli 1998:680). She further expands the concept of ‘conspiracy of silence’ to the silence forced upon individuals by society, which utilises ‘indifference, avoidance, repression, and denial’ (Danieli 1998:4) in order to stifle any potential individual voices of trauma. Danieli’s concept of ‘conspiracy of silence’ is of value for grasping how the external world forces a traumatised victim to internalise the perpetrator’s shame and guilt into her inner self by making her feel mad, shamed and invisible. In a patriarchal state, the patriarchal binary of “good” and “bad” women is the most useful discourse for silencing the victim’s voice about sexual violence. It is effective because the abuser can shift his shame and guilt into the DOI: 10.4324/9781003203698-5

Prostitute or dutiful daughter  81 victim’s body by stigmatising her as a prostitute. The gendered dichotomy of good wives and prostitutes further allows the community to force the internalisation of the perpetrator’s guilt and shame into the self of his victim. The honorary head of Kanita, Sister Amaha’s remark after caring for Shirota on her deathbed signifies the forced silence of Japanese survivors. Sister Amaha said, ‘[t]‌here is an unspoken pressure not to come forward and bring shame on the nation. I think that is why none have spoken out’ (Talmadge 2007). The ‘conspiracy of silence’ between the state and society successfully transferred the abuser’s shame and guilt on to the abused. The state–​societal complicity of silencing is historically woven into the fabric of modern Japan. Such logic of silencing the voices of prostituted women emerged when a capitalist economy was introduced into late Tokugawa Japan (1600–​ 1868). The Tokugawa Shogunate government adopted a class-​based hierarchy consisting of samurai warriors on the top followed by peasants, craftsmen and townspeople. Amy Stanley’s insightful analysis in Selling Women: Prostitution, Markets, and the Household in Early Modern Japan (2012) demonstrates how the emergence of a market economy promoted the stigmatisation of prostitutes in early modern Japan. According to Stanley, during the Tokugawa period, indentured prostitutes carried no stigma because the definition of them as filial daughters fulfilling their obligation to support their parents was a social norm. The community showed feelings of sympathy towards them and the government provided legal protection to safeguard them from exploitative brothel owners. Prostitutes could make a juridical claim of their abusive treatment to magistrates, thereby terminating their indenture contract. Brothel keepers even permitted prostitutes to take family care leave in times of need (Stanley 2012). The purpose of the ruler’s protection of prostitutes was to establish a ‘benevolent’ patriarchal social order in a ‘benevolent’ paternalistic state (Stanley 2012:62). Here, benevolence implies provision of security in return for loyalty from the governed to the governing. The benevolent paternalistic relationship between the state and society/​families transformed women’s status from ‘the property of men’ to the property of the state (Stanley 2012:xii). A ‘traditional’ form of patriarchy ruled by state paternalism (Pateman 1988:23) in the Tokugawa era thus restricted ‘men’s control over women’s bodies’ (Stanley 2012:9). However, the emergence of a market economy in the nineteenth century altered the state’s priority from seeking ‘the benevolent patriarchal gender order’ to economic prosperity/​accumulation, which promoted male domination over female sexuality through the commodification of social relations (Stanley 2012:191). Since prostitution became an integral part of the state/​ local economy, late Tokugawa Japan promoted prostitution as a way to earn revenue by securing a large number of prospective prostitutes from ‘communities of poor peasants and townspeople’ (Stanley 2012:191). The gender historian Joan W. Scott (1986) points out the construction and consolidation of the state power by controlling women’s bodies and status:

82  Prostitute or dutiful daughter …emergent rulers have legitimized domination, strength, central authority, and ruling power as masculine … and made that code literal in laws (forbidding women’s political participation, outlawing abortion, prohibiting wage-​earning by mothers, imposing female dress code) that put women in their place. (Scott 1986:1072) However, Scott does not fully develop the capitalism–​patriarchy nexus, claiming that this control of women brought no ‘immediate or material to gain’ to the state (Scott 1986:1072). In contrast, Gerda Lerner points out the sexual control of women by the state, which already began in Assyria in 1250 BC and facilitated class formation/​consolidation (Lerner 1986). During this epoch, commercial prostitution thrived at the expense of female members of impoverished families. Poor famers sold their daughters to brothels in order to pay off their debts. Through an existing social structure that kept poor farmers in perpetual poverty, the source for commercial prostitution –​debtbond slavery –​was never exhausted (Lerner 1986:133). A fundamental component of this patriarchal institution thus constituted ‘the patriarchal family’ in which the male head of a family controlled the sexuality of female members in order to protect their virginity or marriage loyalty (Lerner 1986:212). On the other hand, poor patriarchal families sold their female members into debt-​ bond slavery ‘for the benefit of the head of the family’ (Lerner 1986:133). This enslavement of daughters of poor families supported the primitive form of commercial prostitution, while at the same time constructing the class distinction among women as being “good” and “bad” women (Lerner 1986:134). Lerner’s conceptualisation of state control of female sexuality explains both the trans-​historical nature of the commercial system of prostitution and how both Kikumaru and Shirota became civilian prostitutes in the first place. As Stanley (2012) points out, exploitative market forces destroyed a benevolent paternalistic structure, which had connected the state and community/​families, and broke the family bond between filial daughters and their families. The elite commoners and samurai officials who were overwhelmed by the social disorder, in Norma’s expression, ‘scapegoated’ prostitutes as the source of social corruption and claimed that they were egotistic women motivated by their own material interests (Norma 2016). Consequently, the dutiful daughters were reduced to ‘shameless women’ who symbolised the sex objects/​commodity, and social stigma was deeply inscribed on them (Stanley 2012:18). Ironically, the capitalist interpretation of prostitutes’ agency as being autonomous individuals was subjected to a demeaning discourse, which provided no space for their assertion of agency, which had been partly secured by the presence of a benevolent patriarchal system (Stanley 2012:192). The patriarchal binary of “good” and “bad” women thus became institutionalised. For Japan’s full modernisation, local governments substantially relied on tax revenue from brothels’ so-​called ‘instalment payments’ (Stanley 2012:193). The Meiji government ‘industrialised’ prostitution and developed the industry

Prostitute or dutiful daughter  83 in a stratified form, that included prostitutes, geisha and barmaids (Norma 2016:64). The Taishō administration (1912–​26) further diversified indentured sexual servitudes in a variety of non-​brothel venues, such as geisha houses, restaurants and traditional inns where regulations were less stringent (Norma 2016:69). As a result, a large-​scale trafficking network of recruiting underage girls into the sex industry already existed in the Taishō Era (Norma 2016:69). In particular, indentured contracts with geisha venues provided a legal loophole to procure a vast number of underage girls into the sex industries. Most of the Japanese survivors who broke their silence were sold to geisha houses by their families (see Appendix). Their ordeal reminds me of Lerner’s words: by keeping poor families chronically poor, the source for commercial prostitution was never exhausted (Lerner 1986:133). The marriage between capitalism and patriarchy completes the story of the ‘sexual contract’ in which the sex-​right of the male head of a household in the domestic realm was universalised as the male sex-​right in the public realm through prostitution (Pateman 1988). In other words, this male sex-​ right expanded and finally transcended the private–​public division. The system of patriarchal capitalism transformed the social norm of filial daughters to an empty slogan by stigmatising prostituted women. On the other hand, the public appreciation of loyal daughters allowed the institution of the family and the state to elide and avoid their shame and guilt at the exploitation of these women, as well as at the institutionalisation of their servitude. As a result, loyal daughters such as Kikumaru and Shirota were forced to carry this shame and guilt and finally internalised this paternal rhetoric. Their stories as “dutiful” daughters will be told in the following section.

Kikumaru (Hirota 2009) Kikumaru was born as the first child in 1925 in Hakodate, Hokkaido, where her father was employed as a marine engineer on a state-​run shuttle ship between Hakodate and the Japanese mainland. Kikumaru was a mischievous tomboy. Brought up under her father’s strict discipline, she learned how to read and write. In 1934, a massive fire broke out in Hakodate. The fire initially started in one house and instantly spread, causing the entire city to be burned down. The Great Fire in Hakodate was known to be as catastrophic as the Great Kantō Earthquake in 1923. In the wake of this tragedy, Kikumaru and her family moved to Aomori on the mainland, since she and her mother had always been concerned about her father’s safety at sea. After quitting his public servant job as a marine engineer, Kikumaru’s father spent all his retirement allowance on starting one new business after another; however, all of his business ventures failed. While he ended up drinking heavily every day, the Japanese economy sank into recession. Japan was in the depths of the Great Depression and experienced massive unemployment rates, like so many other countries around the globe. Aomori and other Tōhoku areas in the northern part of the mainland also endured a massive blow from an unprecedentedly

84  Prostitute or dutiful daughter poor harvest, which forced daughter selling among poor farmers. In the 1930s, it was an accepted social norm for impoverished families to sell their daughter into prostitution (Hirota 2009:78–​88). As the first daughter, Kikumaru nurtured a strong sense of responsibility as a “filial” daughter who sacrificed her life for the sake of her family, Oie no tame. Then, she came upon the idea of becoming a geisha in order to look after her younger sister and brother. Geisha venues exploited loopholes in recruiting girls under 18, which was prohibited under Japan’s licensed prostitution system (Onozawa 2017:155–​6). Her mother opposed her suggestion, but Kikumaru, aged ten, was sold as a geisha apprentice for 300 yen in return for a ten-​year contract to a geisha house in Tokyo. Even though the filial daughter became a social stigma after being sold to brothels, it was convenient to normalise the social practice of daughter-​selling in the notion of self-​sacrifice for the family since it concealed the patriarchal structure in which young females were regarded as the property of their fathers. For Kikumaru, her new life as a geisha apprentice at the young age of ten was tougher than ever. Along with strict training on dancing, singing and playing the traditional Japanese guitar (shamisen), she was required to do errands, clean the house and attend to senior geishas. Furthermore, she owed the geisha house owner for all the money she spent on her training, cosmetics and kimono. Thus, her debt to the geisha house owner was ballooning rather than shrinking. Under the state-​ sanctioned prostitution system, the police issued a prostitution licence to a geisha apprentice when she began to menstruate. The licence allowed her to serve customers as a fully fledged geisha. The geisha debut, called mizuage in Japanese, came to Kikumaru at the age of 14. In the interview with Hirota, Kikumaru confessed that she never forgot her first customer, who was prominent in the world of Japanese politics. She took great pride in his high profile (Hirota 2009:88–​90). Kikumaru learned from her senior geishas what sleeping with men was like. She felt that it was strange, but within a few years, she became overwhelmed by the cruelty of her job. Suffering injuries caused by sexual services, she was sick in bed for a week. Even while undergoing gynaecological treatment, she was forced to sexually serve different customers every day. This was the normal practice for a geisha whose debt kept mounting. For Kikumaru’s young body, however, the physical torment combined with the mental injuries caused by selling sex was unbearable. Around 15 or 16 years old, she fled to the Salvation Army, which promoted the abolition of prostitution in Japan. When Kikumaru confessed to one of her customers her pain in working as a geisha, the university student gave her information regarding this organisation. Kikumaru sought refuge there and found an overwhelming number of debt-​bond females (Hirota 2009:90–​2). Kikumaru stayed with the Salvation Army for a month, while the three-​ party discussion among her father, her geisha house owner and the staff of the organisation was ongoing. In the end, all agreed that Kikumaru would pay the debt back to the owner not by selling sex but by finding another

Prostitute or dutiful daughter  85 job. Kikumaru returned to Hokkaido with her father, but she was seriously concerned that her existing debt would cause trouble with her family. Finally, she returned to Tokyo and became a geisha again to complete her indentured contract for her family. At the same time, she felt sorry for the Salvation Army, because she thought that she had wasted their time and effort. Unfortunately, her new geisha house in Azabu was closed down shortly after she had started her job. Then, she moved to the other geisha house in Nishikoyama, where she met a geisha, with the name of Isuzu. They met in 1941, when Kikumaru was 16 years old, and became good friends afterwards (Hirota 2009:92–​3). One day, Isuzu heard that the Japanese military would assume the debts of indentured prostitutes if they provided sexual services to the military. When she was sharing that information with Kikumaru over a meal, both decided to work for the military without hesitation. Both had debts that were continuously mounting up, so working for the military seemed like a dream job. They wondered: after working on some island in the South Seas for two years, they would be released from their indentured contract and could then begin to save some money. As part of this reverie, both were dreaming of getting married back in Japan and having a happy family life, similar to what the average Japanese young woman experienced. Even though Kikumaru’s father was opposed to her decision, she persuaded him by saying, ‘This is for our country. Someone needs to go anyway. Please let me go’. Finally, in March 1942, both Isuzu and Kikumaru were transported to Truk Island (Hirota 2009:24–​5).

For the family to for the country In the militarist Japanese state, the patriarchal signifier, a “filial” daughter, was replaced by the nationalist motto, “for the country”, shifting loyalties from the father to the Emperor, as a loyal imperial subject. Accordingly, Japan’s wartime slogan “for the country” was often used by “comfort women” recruiters. These tactics were intended to manipulate a sense of nationalism in the recruitment of “comfort women” (Yoshimi 2000:101) and are present in the life stories of other survivors such as Shimada Yoshiko and Suzumoto Aya (both pseudonyms, see Appendix). Shimada was offered ‘a job for the country’ by a recruiter who said that he was connected with the twenty-​fourth regiment of the infantry division from Fukuoka (Shimada 1972:121). She thought that she would be able to pay off her debt by working as a “comfort woman” and went to a “comfort station” in Manchuria (Shimada 1972). This gendered nationalist fiction was further perpetuated in the stories of both Suzumoto and Kikumaru. They were each separately told by their “comfort women” recruiters that if “comfort women” died, their spirits would be enshrined at Yasukuni War Shrine along with the spirits of dead soldiers (Hirota 2009:33, 59). Both Kikumaru and Suzumoto were transported by the same military ship to Truk Island on the same day in 1942 and returned home at the end of December in 1943. Nevertheless, they never met each other. Suzumoto

86  Prostitute or dutiful daughter served enlisted soldiers, whereas Kikumaru was reserved for officers (Hirota 2009:58). The wartime slogan “for the country” also meant that males were to sacrifice their own lives for Emperor Hirohito. The Meiji modernisation anchored this new emperor system to the foundation of state paternalism. The modern emperor system, as Pateman (1988:32) explains, is one in which ‘the relationship of the loving father to his son provides the model for the relation of the citizen to the state’. In peace time, the Japanese state articulated a discourse to the nation that the Emperor was the Father who protected and secured citizens’ lives. In modern Japanese patriarchal society, however, the father’s political right was ascribed to all men by the ‘sexual contract’, which defines political right as ‘sex-​right, the power what men exercise over women’ (sic) (Pateman 1988:1). The emperor system, therefore, depended upon the paternal model of political order to control all legitimate citizens, namely men. This system of a quasi-​traditional patriarchy allowed the divine authority of the Emperor, who was also the commander-​in-​chief, to coerce the entire nation to sacrifice their lives for the preservation of his life and status. The so-​called kokutai literally means national polity, which implicates the emperor. This sacrifice for national polity was itself classed as well as gendered. In the process of the state’s exploitation of women, the wartime propaganda “for the country” became magic words to justify the scapegoating of all women under the name of Emperor Hirohito just as the paternal rhetoric “for the family” was used to rationalise the familial exploitation of their daughters. The wartime slogan “for the country” manifests Japan’s patriarchal militarist nationalism, which silenced the individual voices of complaints and objections to the state’s war policy, including the system of “comfort women”. Yet, there did exist a nationalist discourse in which society started to admire “comfort women” as loyal subjects who sacrificed themselves to support the country. Kikumaru’s customer at her last geisha house in Nishikoyama, Nishiyama, was impressed by her as an admirable young prostitute, who said to him that she was going to (work at) a “comfort station” on Truk Island “for the country” (Hirota 2009:94). However, this admiration for “comfort women” as loyal national (gendered) subjects was only temporary. As soon as Japan was defeated by the Allied Forces, the patriarchal social stigma deeply inscribed in prostitutes and prostitution was reattached to them as if the shame of the “Father” Emperor had been passed on to his “daughters”, as mentioned in Chapter 2. Hirota assumed that Kikumaru and Suzumoto never truly had a sense of patriotism (Hirota 2016). For example, Kikumaru testified to Hirota that she ‘jumped’ at the opportunity to have her debts repaid by the military (Hirota 2009:36). Hirota also pointed out that they wanted something to justify their jobs as “comfort women” because they had no other option. For Japanese people, the wartime propaganda “for the country” was nothing more than a fiction which became a tool for self-​justification of their own decision or actions through its articulation of a discourse of state building (Hirota 2016).

Prostitute or dutiful daughter  87

Shirota Suzuko (Shirota 1971) In 1921, Shirota was born as the first child/​daughter of five into a relatively wealthy family who operated a bakery along with a café and a Chinese restaurant in their two-​story house. This boisterous girl grew up in a traditional working-​class town in Tokyo and, by all accounts, had a happy childhood. However, her life took a horrible turn a year after she began attending a girls’ vocational school. All of a sudden, her loving mother, who ran the family business, died of a ruptured ectopic pregnancy. At that time, Shirota was 14 years old and living with her nine-​year-​old sister and brothers aged twelve, seven and five. Shirota left school to look after her younger siblings. Around the time of her mother’s death, her father used his business as collateral for a bank loan for his sister (Shirota’s aunt) in order to maintain her confectionery factory. Ultimately, he could not pay her debt back to the bank as her guarantor for the loan. Only a year after Shirota’s mother passed away, her father’s house and personal possessions were repossessed and his shops were seized. Shirota moved with her father to his mother’s house, accompanied by her two youngest brothers. Shirota’s sister and eldest brother were taken care of separately by her relatives. Shirota and her father opened a new store to sell yakitori, Japanese-​style grilled chicken, but the money derived from the business could not provide even meagre sustenance for the family. Her father suggested to Shirota that she could work as a babysitter at a geisha house. She thought that the job might not be so difficult and agreed to his suggestion. Around the age of 17, she began to live in the geisha house. Shirota’s life at the geisha house was different from what she had expected. She was required to wear a kimono and make-​up as well as to practise traditional Japanese dance, while at the same time, attending to senior geishas. Given her geisha name, Shinachiyo, initially she was buoyant and cheerful. While living at the geisha house, she met and fell in love with Makihara Tadasumi, a university student and the son of an owner of a Western-​style clothing shop in her neighbourhood. Both enjoyed dating in secret, concealing their relationship from her geisha house owner. Unbeknownst to Shirota, her father had come to borrow more money from her geisha house owner. She became aware of this turn of events when the owner asked her to serve the first customer for her debut as a fully fledged geisha (mizuage). Finally, she recognised two things: her father owed the geisha house more than his original debt; and in order to pay off his debt, she had no choice but to accept the geisha house owner’s demand. Even though she had no idea what it meant to receive a customer, she agreed to have her first customer, who was said to be the sixty-​something president of a pharmaceutical company. During her mizuage, Shirota suddenly changed her mind and tried to escape from the room where she was left alone with her customer. Behind the locked door, she was raped. It was an absolutely horrific experience for her. Furthermore, he infected her with chronic gonorrhoea, which resulted in her hospitalisation lasting several months. Finally, the owner of the geisha house

88  Prostitute or dutiful daughter sold her to a brothel, which made her realise the harsh reality of indentured prostitutes: No matter how many customers I will get, I will never pay off my debt because I owe the everyday expenses including clothing and cosmetics to my brothel owner. Moreover, I am not healthy enough. It is a lie that I will pay off my debt after working at a brothel for two or three months. (Shirota 1971:28) Her father’s debt to her geisha house owner was in total around 1,800 yen. At the time, a three-​year indentured prostitution contract enabled young women to borrow as much as 500 yen. Shirota’s debt was so high that no owners wanted to accept her. Then, she was advised to meet a couple who ran a brothel, Tokiwarō in Makou, Taiwan. They were visiting Japan (and went back to Taiwan). Shirota’s father told her that she could go to Taiwan if she wanted. Shirota was going to discuss it with her younger sister, Kyoko, who had been living with her maternal grandmother in the wake of her mother’s sudden death. However, her grandmother firmly rejected Shirota’s visit with her sister due to her job. Shirota mentally contested this perception because ‘her father sold her to the prostitution place in the first place’ (Shirota 1971:28). Feeling as if her younger sister also looked down on her, Shirota shouted, “I will never come back”, and left. Shirota recalled that she would have missed them if her grandmother had told her to stay in Tokyo, no matter what happened. Nothing really mattered any more to Shirota, who was told not to come back again by her grandmother. The owner of Tokiwarō lent Shirota 2,500 yen on a three-​year contract. Shirota paid off her debt to the geisha house owner and left the rest, 700 yen, to her father. In the summer of her eighteenth year, Shirota was shipped to Taiwan.

Patriarchal family as a unit of patriarchal society Like the majority of Japanese “comfort women”, both Kikumaru and Shirota were initially indentured servants within the state-​licensed prostitution system. Both were the first child and daughter in a relatively wealthy family; however, after their sudden tragedies, their fathers sold them to prostitution in order to pay their fathers’ debts. Their tragic stories illustrate, in Pateman’s definition, a ‘traditional’ form of patriarchal family which is ruled by ‘the authority of the father’ (Pateman 1988:23, emphasis in original). In traditional patriarchy, familial relations are bound by the subjection of sons and daughters to their father; therefore, traditional patriarchy is synonymous with paternalism. Poor patriarchal families thus sold their female members into debt-​bond slavery ‘for the benefit of the head of the family’ (Lerner 1986:133). In pre-​wartime Japan, the selling of daughters to prostitution in order to pay family debts was a common practice among impoverished parents. At

Prostitute or dutiful daughter  89 the same time, their daughters, in particular, the first-​born, regarded self-​ sacrifice for their families as their responsibility and duty. The general public also admired girls who fulfilled their duty as filial daughters. This distortion of the patriarchal relationship between a father and a daughter conceals the class structure which not only perpetuated the victimisation of girls from impoverished families, but also reproduced the patriarchal structure in which young females were considered the property of their fathers. Given these prevailing structures, Japan’s pre-​war state-​sanctioned prostitution system was a system of civilian sexual slavery (Norma 2016). The indenture contract with brothel/​geisha house owners entailed selling not only sexual services to clients, but also the ownership of female personhood to brothel/​geisha house owners. In short, these owners traded women in person between brokers, traffickers and other brothel/​geisha house owners, for their benefit. As Catharine MacKinnon (1993:14) points out, prostitution trades the robbed personhood between clients. In this way, the indenture prostitution contract reconstructed the patriarchal structure in which females were deemed the property of their clients. Patriarchal families thus constitute modern patriarchal society, where the father’s and the husband’s patriarchal rights in the domestic sphere are extended to the male patriarchal rights to have free access to female bodies through prostitution contracts endorsed by the ‘sexual contract’ (Pateman 1988). The state also maintained the patriarchal social structure by controlling the licensed prostitution system. In peace time, the state successfully fixed class divisions among women by promoting the state-​licensed prostitution system which preserved the human-​trafficking system. In wartime, the state fully utilised the system of civilian sex slavery for the recruitment of “comfort women”.

Betrayal of trust Trauma becomes a threat to both individual and collective identity since it disrupts the temporal coherence of both personal and public/​ official narratives due to the impossibility of language to comprehend and express traumatic experiences. Narrative is a constituent part of identity construction because it is central to remembrance of the past individual and collective sense of identity. It is trauma that all of a sudden shatters the illusion of familial or social safety and uncovers the real face of our protectors as ‘our tormentors’ in various ways, such as child abuse or conscription (Edkins 2003:4). Consequently, our absolute trust in our family or society is completely broken. Jenny Edkins calls this feeling a ‘betrayal’ of trust by ‘the social order that gives us our existence meaning and dignity’ (Edkins 2003:4). The consequence of this condition is that people cannot find a place to fit the traumatic events in either individual or official narratives in order to make sense of them in their lives. The betrayal of trust by Shirota’s father traumatised her; however, the patriarchal society did not provide her with any language to speak of her father as

90  Prostitute or dutiful daughter her abuser. Her feelings of powerlessness and her silence about how her family victimised her led to her internalisation of the conspiracy of silence between her patriarchal family, community and the state. Public–​personal relations are determined through negotiation with the social world where public recognition as a communal member is essential for private personhood. People seeking a harmonious patriarchal community and family blame and isolate prostituted women, which forces them to internalise their fathers’ shame and to silence their victimisation. The conspiracy of silence at familial, societal and state levels is completed by transplanting the shame and guilt of the perpetrator on to the victim’s inner self. Shame is much more salient for the construction of self-​identity than guilt since the former is related to ‘the integrity of the self’ whereas the latter links to ‘feelings of wrongdoing’ (Giddens 1991:65, 67). Shame destroys the foundation of ‘trust in others’, which is integral to establishment of the coherence of the self (Giddens 1991:66). Helen Lynd (1958) describes what happens once trust in the outer world is betrayed: We experience anxiety in becoming aware that we cannot trust our answers to the questions, ‘Who am I?’ ‘Where can I belong?’ … with every recurrent violation of trust we become again children unsure of ourselves in an alien world. (Lynd 1958:46–​7, as cited in Giddens 1991:66) Shirota had the feeling of betrayal of trust when she was rejected by her grandmother because she was a prostitute. Her grandmother’s betrayal of trust was so devastating that she accepted the offer to work at a naval “comfort station” in Taiwan. Nominal traditional patriarchy was thus abused to justify daughter-​ selling in the modern patriarchal state to the point that young women and girls were transformed from filial daughters to commodities and, ultimately, to stigmatised victims of trauma. The act of being sold by their fathers/​families was, in short, a traumatising experience for young women and girls.

Prostitution sex as a dehumanised process Japan’s pre-​war state-​sanctioned prostitution system allowed minors such as Kikumaru and Shirota to work in prostitution. When they had their first clients, Kikumaru was around 14 and Shirota at 17. Thus, they were mere children who had little knowledge about sex and agreed to service customers without knowing what it meant. For customers, their virginity was more valuable than any other thing; therefore, wealthy men were willing to pay handsomely for being their first customers. A similar case was Tanaka Tami (pseudonym, see Appendix), aged 16, who was raped by her own brothel owner before she took her first customer (Kawata 2014:29). All were victims of childhood sexual abuse.

Prostitute or dutiful daughter  91 For survivors of childhood sexual abuse, dissociation through mental escape is helpful to prevent their destruction. Susan D. Rose describes the process: The mind or spirit leaves the body and the child may come to feel no pain, may leave the scene entirely, neither experiencing the abuse at the time nor remembering it afterwards. The escape from self –​from what is being done to the self –​creates a safer space, a retreat. (Rose 1999:167) This process suggests that dissociation ‘allows the mind, in effect, to flee what the body is experiencing’ (Waites 1993:14). Therefore, dissociation can also become a tactic of escape from prostitution sex. As Rose’s description shows, dissociation protects victims of sexual violence not only from the traumatic experience of prostitution, but also from their traumatised memory of prostitution. However, dissociation is a dangerous tactic because continuous disconnection between the mind and body causes loss of the self. Rose continues: To be ‘lost in the moment’, is one thing. To be lost for months, or years, or for a lifetime is quite another; it is to become alienated from one’s self, and less responsible to and for one’s self. (Rose 1999:170, emphasis in original) It is indicative of prostitution sex as the process of not only self-​dissociation, but also a process of self-​dehumanisation. Based on her 20-​ year research interviewing prostituted women, the radical feminist scholar Kathleen Barry (1995) theorises the process of self-​ dehumanisation by prostitution sex. This process consists of four stages: ‘Distancing’; ‘Disengagement’; ‘Dissociation’; and ‘Disembodiment and Dissembling’ (Barry 1995:29). Distancing and disengagement describe how prostituted women are disconnecting their selves from the ongoing act of prostitution. Disengagement signifies intentional negation of emotional feelings in their selves. It functions as a barrier to avoid access to their real selves by numbing their senses during the sexual act, which is basically interactive. In this way, prostituted women are consciously and intentionally convincing themselves that they are ‘not there’ in interactive acts of sex. In order to protect her real self, a woman further segments her body into sex objects and pretends to be a totally different woman (Barry 1995:30–​5). Prostituted women thus undergo a simultaneous process of dehumanisation during prostitution sex because their survival strategy promotes their self-​ segmentation and self-​fragmentation. The ongoing and belated process of the self-​objectification/​commodification of and self-​fragmentation of prostituted women is against being human and, therefore, strips away their human dignity (Barry 1995:31–​3).

92  Prostitute or dutiful daughter This dehumanisation process underlining prostitution also signifies the oscillating nature of trauma between survival and destruction. Japanese survivors such as Kikumaru and Shirota experienced multiple dissociations throughout their lives –​dissociation in prostitution sex, disconnection between the inner self as a filial daughter and the outer manifestation as a prostitute as well as detachment from the memory of trauma. Another Japanese survivor named Mizuno Iku (pseudonym, see Appendix) told Miyashita Tadako, an activist writer, that she could not provide prostitution sex without killing her self (VAWW RAC 2015:211). This brutal procedure implies that prostituted women are trauma victims of double dehumanisation through both a simultaneous dehumanisation process during prostitution sex, as well as a belated, but endless, dehumanisation mechanism for survival embedded in the struggle with their traumatic experiences. The story of indentured prostitutes such as Kikumaru and Shirota manifests what Cathy Caruth (1996:7) calls ‘double telling’ that illustrates ‘the story of the unbearable nature of an event; and the story of the unbearable nature of its survival’. This conflicting, but inextricable, interaction between traumatic experience and survival in the narratives of Kikumaru and Shirota also illustrates the process of double dehumanisation.

Conclusion The ‘double telling’ (Caruth 1996:7) narratives of both Kikumaru and Shirota as indentured prostitutes reveal the relationship between women and the state. For the modern patriarchal capitalist state of Japan, female bodies were important resources of revenue; therefore, the state secured them through the state-​licensed prostitution system. As Stanley’s gender-​sensitive history of pre-​ modern Japan uncovers, the national policy of modernisation followed a project apportioned from the Western imperialists, which allowed the sacrificing and scapegoating of daughters from poor families for economic development. After introducing the Western model of the state-​licensed prostitution system from France and Britain (Fujime 1997), as discussed in Chapter 2, the state made prostitution indispensable to the establishment of the infrastructure for modernisation. In this transition from the “benevolent” patriarchal state to the patriarchal capitalist state, “filial” daughters were deeply inscribed through social stigma and bound by the capitalist labour indentured contract for their entire lives. The trauma stories of Kikumaru and Shirota also uncover how they were forced to keep silent about their plight in a conspiracy of silence perpetuated by their families, society and the state. The forced internalisation of shame and guilt of the perpetrator(s) into the victims through stigmatisation is central to perpetuating the story of the ‘sexual contract’ (Pateman 1988) since their voices of the trauma of prostitution make visible and destabilise the dominant narrative about the modern state and nation’s construction. In the modern patriarchal state, female subjugation to men is embedded in the

Prostitute or dutiful daughter  93 social contract and a pillar upon which capitalist militarism is reproduced and legitimised. Behind this statecraft, prostituted women were continuously forced to go through a multiple dehumanisation process for their own survival.

Note 1 Danieli is the founder and director of the International Center for the Study, Treatment and Prevention of Multigenerational Legacies of Trauma: https://​icm​ glt.org/​.

References Primary sources Hirota, K. (2016) Interview with Sachiyo Tsukamoto, 5 June. Shimada, Y. (1972) Imamo tsuduku “ianfu senyukai” no kanashimi no kiroku [The secret record of the continuing sad reunion between soldiers and comfort women]. Gendai, 120–​6. Shirota, S. (1971) Maria no sanka [Maria’s song of praise]. Tokyo: Kanita Shuppanbu.

Secondary sources Barry, K. (1995) The prostitution of sexuality. New York, NY: New York University Press. Caruth, C. (1996) Unclaimed experience: Trauma, narratives, and history. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Danieli, Y. (ed.) (1998) International handbook of multigenerational legacies of trauma. New York, NY: Plenum Press. Edkins, J. (2003) Trauma and the memory of politics. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Fujime, Y. (1997) Sei no rekishigaku: kōshō seido, dataizai taisei kara baishun bōshihō, yūsei hogohō taisei e [History of sexuality: From the system of state-​licensed prostitution and anti-​abortion to the system of anti-​prostitution and eugenic protection]. Tokyo: Fuji Shuppan. Giddens, A. (1991) Modernity and self-​identity: Self and society in the late modern age. London: Polity Press. Hirota, K. (1975/​2009) Shōgen kiroku Jūgun ianfu/​kangofu: Senjo ni ikita onna no dokoku [Testimonial records of military comfort women/​nurses: Lamentations of the women who lived at the front]. Tokyo: Shinjinbutsuōraisha. Kawata, F. (5 December 2014) Nihonjin ‘ianfu’ Tanaka Tami san no shogen [Testimony of a Japanese “comfort woman”, Tanaka Tami]. Shukan Kinyobi, 1019, 28–​31. Lerner, G. (1986) The creation of patriarchy. New York: Oxford University Press. Lynd, H. M. (1958) On shame and the search for identity. New York: Harcourt, Brace. MacKinnon, C. A. (1993) Prostitution and civil rights. Michigan Journal of Law and Gender, 1, 13–​31. Norma, C. (2016) The Japanese comfort women and sexual slavery during the China and Pacific wars. New York: Bloomsbury Academic.

94  Prostitute or dutiful daughter Onozawa, A. (2017) ‘The two sexual slavery systems: “Comfort women” under the Japanese military and licensed prostitution’, in Tomás, J. & Epple, N. (eds) Sexuality, oppression and human rights. Leiden: Brill, pp. 153–​62. Pateman, C. (1988) The sexual contract. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Rose, S. D. (1999) ‘Naming and claiming: The integration of traumatic experience and the reconstruction of self in survivors’ stories of sexual abuse’, in Rogers, K. L., Leydesdorff, S., & Dawson, G. (eds.) Trauma and life stories: International perspectives. New York, NY: Routledge, pp. 160–​79. Scott, J. W. (1986) Gender: A useful category of historical analysis. The American Historical Review, 91(5), 1053–​75. Stanley, A. (2012) Selling women: Prostitution, markets, and the household in early modern Japan. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Talmadge, E. (2007). Memoir of Japanese ‘comfort woman’ recounts ‘this hell’. The Japan Times, 9 July. Available at: www.japantimes.co.jp/​text/​nn20070709a6.html (accessed 12 December 2012). VAWW RAC (eds.) (2015) Nihonjin ‘ianfu’:Aikokushin to jinshin baibai to [Japanese ‘comfort women’: Nationalism and trafficking]. Tokyo: Gendai Shokan. Waites, E. (1993) Trauma and survival: Post-​traumatic and dissociative disorders in women. New York, NY: Norton. Yoshimi, Y. (2000) Comfort women: Sexual slavery in the Japanese military during World War II. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.

6  “Comfort women” as a gendered national subject

Introduction Masculinity is not only plural but also complex, fluid and contradictory, since all different constructions of masculinity compete or collaborate with one another over the hierarchy of ‘hegemonic masculinity’ (Connell 1995/​2005). This structural relationship among masculinities exists ‘in all local settings’ and ‘motivation toward a specific hegemonic version varies by local context’ (Connell & Messerschmidt 2005:847). This chapter elucidates the complexity of masculinities in wartime Japan, revealing the interaction between the construction of the hegemonic masculinity of the Imperial Japanese Military and its relationship to the wartime “comfort women”. The structural relations among masculinities (re)construct patriarchal hierarchy; therefore, the analysis of hegemonic masculinity of the Japanese military is key to understanding not only a specific form of patriarchy embedded within wartime Japan, but also how it is contested, resisted or refused within this complexity of masculinities itself. In this aim, exploring the ‘emphasised femininity’ (Connell & Messerschmidt 2005:848) represented by “comfort women” is critical. ‘Emphasised femininity’ is also referred to as ‘hegemonic femininity’, and is regarded as ‘compliance to patriarchy’ (Connell & Messerschmidt 2005:848). It is important to note that ‘[g]‌ender is always relational, and patterns of masculinity are socially defined in contradistinction from some model (whether real or imaginary) of femininity’ (Connell & Messerschmidt 2005:848). Hence, experience of Kikumaru and Shirota at “comfort stations” manifests ‘the asymmetrical position of masculinities and femininities in a particular gender order’ (Connell & Messerschmidt 2005:848), thereby making visible the formation of gendered domination. For the purposes of this chapter, the term ‘soldiers’ refers to both officers and enlisted members of the Imperial Japanese Military. However, in a context in which the difference in rank is critical, the latter are referred to as enlisted soldiers.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003203698-6

96  “Comfort women” as a gendered national subject

Hegemonic masculinity and homosocial male bonding A modern form of patriarchy is constructed through the ‘sexual contract’ that legitimises men’s patriarchal right or sex-​right as the male right of domination over women, as well as the ‘social contract’ which protects male political rights as universal human rights (Pateman 1988). Therefore, modern patriarchy constitutes a form of ‘fraternity’ (Pateman 1988:77). R. W. Connell’s theory of ‘hegemonic masculinity’ (Connell 1995/​2005) helps to understand the mechanism of the patriarchal power structure. As the historian John Tosh notes, the concept of hegemonic masculinity reveals ‘how the maintenance of patriarchy actually depends on unequal relations between different masculinities’ (Tosh 2004:45–​6, emphasis in original). Connell expands Gramsci’s concept of hegemony (1971) based on domination and leadership, as explained in Chapter 1, into gender relations, elucidating the plurality of masculinities and their competition for dominance within the hierarchy of masculinity (Connell 1995/​2005). A particular form of masculinity that achieves the governing position in the hierarchy of masculinity is called ‘hegemonic masculinity’. Hegemonic masculinity maintains its dominant position by legitimising patriarchal structures and practices (Connell 1995/​2005:77) such as the exclusion of all that is and all who are feminised from the public/​political sphere, as set forth in the concept of the sexual contract. The complicity between hegemonic masculinity and non-​hegemonic masculinities such as subordination, marginalisation and protest masculinity brings ‘the patriarchal dividend’ to other marginalised masculinities (Connell 1995/​2005:76–​9, 109–​12). Hence, the competitive/​complicit interaction between various types of masculinities is central to pecking ‘a patriarchal social order’ (Connell 1987:183). An understanding of the interaction between hegemonic masculinity and non-​ hegemonic masculinities in the Imperial Japanese Military allows the accounts of Kikumaru and Shirota to be read as narratives revealing relationships between women and/​or men and the state during wartime. The military is an essential component of state power that institutionalises hegemonic masculinity. In the military, both men’s bodies and a particular form of masculinity have been historically predominant and normalised (Connell 1995/​2005:77) to the extent that ‘masculinity is not a gender; it is the norm’ (Kronsell 2006:109). Consequently, hegemonic masculinity is thus both a historical and a cultural construction (Connell 1995/​2005). In other words, a form of hegemonic masculinity differentiates in both the historical and cultural context. In the institution of hegemonic masculinity, leadership is constituted by rigid hierarchy and prowess as well as power of male figures within the higher ranks, and manifests itself in conquering, subduing and controlling other men within the lower ranks. Within the Imperial Japanese Military, orders from officers were equal to those from the divine commander-​ in-​chief, Emperor Hirohito, who was also regarded as the Father of the nation. In this regard, “comfort women” were considered the ‘Emperor’s gift’1 to Japanese Imperial soldiers, that is to say, a gift from the Father to his sons.

“Comfort women” as a gendered national subject  97 The marriage between militarised nationalism and imperial patriarchy is significant to interpret the meaning of the “comfort women” system to the state. It reveals the state’s intention to establish the “comfort women” system. Homosocial male bonding is a key concept for analysis of the gender relations and practices within a patriarchal structure. Modern civil society is dominated by ‘heterosexual masculinity’, which subordinates women and homosexuals (Connell 1987:186; Chapman & Rutherford 1988:22–​3). In order to reproduce the hegemony of heterosexual masculinity, the bond between other heterosexual men is more important than any others. Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick (2015) calls the desire for this male bonding ‘male homosocial desire’, and it is informed by René Girard’s concept of ‘triangular desire’ (Girard 1965). Triangular desire refers to the rivalrous relationship between the ‘subject’ and the ‘mediator’ for possession of the ‘object’ (Girard 1965). In Sedgwick’s concept of ‘erotic triangles’, the subject and the mediator are both male and compete against each other over the object, who is female (Sedgwick 2015). Here, women are marginalised as nothing more than ‘the vehicles by which men breed more men, for the gratification of other men’ (Sedgwick 2015:33).2 In this male homosocial relation, how can men ‘accomplish masculinity’ (Messerschmidt 1993)? The leading Japanese scholar of masculinity, Itō Kimio, conceptualises three male desires that drive male competition: desire for superiority; possession; and power (Itō 1993, 1996). In short, men want to be superior to other men, to own more than other men and to control other men. In order to prove their own masculinities, men need to show off a ‘prize’, such as money, social status or women in their control. As the notion of the ‘erotic triangles’ (Sedgwick 2015) reveals, women are once again nothing but objects in order to win recognition for manliness from other men. This is because a ‘fully fledged’ man should be intellectually, physically and psychologically superior to women, and should own and control women (Itō 1996:105). In this vein, women are the most useful resource for men to accomplish masculinity, particularly in the combat situation, where other resources such as money are barely available. The three desires for masculinity break the myth of rape, which justifies that the perpetrator’s sexual desire is the motive for the act of rape (Itō, as cited in Kobayashi 2017). The real motive for sexual violence against women is to accomplish masculinity by fulfilling the three masculine desires. The “comfort stations” were ‘rape centres’3 (McDougall 1998:28), where Japanese soldiers reinforced not only homosocial male bonding but also the hierarchy of men between them by owning and controlling women. The relationship between homosocial male bonding and hegemonic masculinity is significant to interpret what “comfort women” meant to Japanese soldiers. Hegemonic masculinity requires the ‘asymmetrical position’ of femininities in ‘a patriarchal gender order’ because the concept of gender is recognised by the relationship between masculinities and femininities (Connell & Messerschmidt 2005:848). The above-​mentioned concept of ‘emphasised

98  “Comfort women” as a gendered national subject femininity’ describes a woman as a good mother and wife who always supports men and sacrifices herself for the benefit of men, thereby reproducing the patriarchal structure, norms and practices. For example, the complicity of hegemonic masculinity and emphasised femininity (re)constructs the patriarchal binary of “good” and “bad” women. In return, this fabricated binary is used as the justification for dispensing prostituted women for the protection of “good” women’s virginity as ‘sei no bōhatei’, or the ‘sexual breakwater’, as Shirota mentioned (1986).

Masculinities of citizen-​soldiers in modern Japan A modern form of patriarchy which granted privilege of equal citizenship to men, regardless of class, was a product of Western modernisation, which created a new form of masculinity: the masculinity of the citizen-​soldier (Nye 2007; Guardino 2014). Before the American and French Revolutions, ‘[m]‌ilitary service was not associated with political rights or participation’, since the military consisted of officers from the aristocracy and privates from the bottom of a social hierarchy (Guardino 2014:25) and/​or mercenary soldiers. However, as Stefan Dudink and Karen Hagemann point out, ‘[t]he rise of political and military modernity since 1750 intersected again and again with the history of masculinity … helped to produce … new configurations of state and society’ (Dudink, Hagemann & Tosh 2004:19). In the early modern era, the state required its citizens who were males to defend their own sovereignty ‘with their own bodies’ (Guardino 2014:25) and imposed conscription upon them. This amalgamation of ‘[u]niversal male citizenship and general conscription’ (Dudink, Hagemann & Tosh 2004:11) enabled the modern state to combine civilian masculinity with military masculinity. The merged masculinity of the citizen-​soldier was ‘elided in the equation of “man” with “human” and “universality” ’ (Dudink, Hagemann & Tosh 2004: xii). This is the modern civil society manifested by the ‘sexual contract’ (Pateman 1988). In the modern nation-​state, this citizen-​soldier masculinity typifies hegemonic masculinity, which James W. Messerschmidt (1993:83) defines as ‘the idealised form of masculinity in a given historical setting’. Hegemonic masculinity in the modern form of patriarchal Japan was articulated around citizen-​soldier masculinity. The Meiji government (1868–​ 1912), in pursuit of Western-​style modernisation of the economy and the military, abolished the hereditary samurai-​warrior class, which was at the top of the Japanese social hierarchy during the Tokugawa era (1600–​1867). In 1872, the government promulgated the Conscription Ordinance based on the French model (Fujiwara 2000:21), which universalised a male privilege of citizenship in return for their responsibility to defend the nation-​state (Tsurumi 1970:82). Over the course of several revisions to the Conscription Ordinance, the universal male obligation of military service was established by the Conscription Law in 1927. As a result, pre-​war Japan implicitly equated being male with being both a citizen and a human.

“Comfort women” as a gendered national subject  99 The state regulation of conscription constituted the social contract of male civil freedom, while at the same time, the state-​licensed prostitution system, combined with the modern mistress (mekake) system, embodied the sexual contract which normalised the subjugation of females by males. Western modernisation brought monogamy to Meiji Japan;4 however, the state permitted its “citizens” to break their commitment to their wives by legalising both the mistress system and the state-​licensed prostitution system. On the one hand, the state-​sanctioned prostitution system allowed all men to buy women’s bodies for the sole purpose of casual sex for a short duration of time; on the other hand, the mistress system enabled an elite man to own a woman other than his wife for a certain period of her lifetime, exchanging sex for money (Yoshimi 1995:185). Therefore, husbands’ ‘sexual relations out of wedlock’ were not regarded as ‘adultery’ (Kumagai 1983:89). For the purpose of the continuity of the agnate family line, the mistress system was incorporated into both the Imperial Household Law and the Civil Code (Yoshimi 1995:186), permitting mistresses’ children to be legitimate heirs to the throne/​head of the family at the sole discretion of the husband (Hayakawa 2005:18). Unlike concubinage, this regulation blurred the boundary between the wife and the mistress. These gender relations within the imperial family became the model and guiding norm for modern Japanese civil society. In other words, the male patriarchal right to access female bodies outside the bonds of marriage was legitimised and institutionalised by the state and the practice was normalised by its “citizens”. Accordingly, this gendered legal status reduced women to non-​subjects who were divided into merely two roles: reproduction of male offspring; and men’s sexual objects. This class-​ based dual system for male access to female bodies was incorporated into the “comfort women” system, constructing a hierarchy among women according to whom they served. Consequently, Kikumaru and other “elite” “comfort women” were reserved only for officers, whereas Shirota and other non/​Japanese women were allocated to the enlisted ranks. These “elite” women were usually Japanese; however, where Japanese women were not available, non-​ Japanese counterparts were reserved for officers. Because one woman was shared only by a few specific officers (Jūgun Ianfu 110 Ban Henshū Iinkai 1992:53), an officer seemingly treated his “comfort woman” like his wife/​mistress. As Kikumaru testified, the “elite” women on Truk Island were served the same meals as the officers along with being provided with furniture, daily necessities and even luxury goods such as tobacco (Hirota 2009:33–​4, 38, 48). The practice of keeping mistresses, that had been normalised among male elites during peace time, became a wartime sexual practice reserved for elite military officers on the battlefield. Both the mistress system and the state-​licensed prostitution system were justified by the propagation of a universal myth about male sexuality. This claims that men’s sexual appetite is out of control because it is a base physical function analogous to the need for food (Pateman 1988:198). This naturalisation of male sexual urge rationalises men’s sexual right to access

100  “Comfort women” as a gendered national subject women as a male ‘human right’ (Norma 2016:38). Accordingly, female personhood is commodified and reduced to nothing but the outlet to discharge male sexual desires. This hegemonic masculine view of women was also naturalised and maintained in the military. Japanese soldiers called Korean “comfort women” ‘Chōsen pi’5 and despised them (Matsumoto 2016). Pi is a Chinese slang word for ‘cunt’ (Soh 2008:39). Moreover, a discourse employing an obscene and degrading metaphor of “comfort women” as public toilets (kōshū-​benjo), was mentioned by Tetsuo Asō, a military medical doctor. The architect who developed the legal and regulatory framework for the operation of the “comfort women” system made references in his reports to military “comfort stations” as hygienic public toilets (Nishino 1992:43). As Japanese veteran Abe Hisashi testified, Japanese soldiers waiting in a long queue at a “comfort station” not only looked like they were outside a public toilet, but the ‘women inside the station seemed to be nothing more than a public toilet’ serving the bodily functions of male military men (Nishino 1992:33–​4). Along with this naturalisation of a male sexual urge, the patriarchal division of “good” and “bad” women was used to rationalise the institutionalisation of prostitution. In short, “bad” women were necessary in order to protect “good” women from being rape victims due to this “primordial” male sexual urge. Okabe Naosaburō, a Senior Staff Officer in the Shanghai Expeditionary Force, made the following entry into his diary: ‘Soldiers have been prowling around everywhere looking for women’ (Yoshimi 2000:45). Accordingly, to prevent rapes, the Japanese army established its first “comfort station” in Shanghai in March 1932 (Yoshimi 1995:17; 2000:45). This masculine vindication of “comfort women” as “necessary” continues to be circulated as a justification in post-​war Japan, as represented by Tōru Hashimoto’s comments on 13 May 2013. The then Mayor of Ōsaka and co-​head of Nihon Ishin no Kai, the right-​wing Japan Restoration Party, said, ‘[a]‌ll militaries have needed to establish mechanisms to relieve the sexual energy of troops’ (Norma 2016:37). The state legitimation of civilian prostitution greatly contributed to releasing soldiers from any feeling of guilt about their access to military prostitution. Kondō Hajime, a Japanese veteran who testified in public, confessed that he had regarded the “comfort women” system as the overseas expansion of Japan’s state-​licensed prostitution system (Utsumi, Ishida, & Katō 2005:88). According to public testimony by a Chūkiren member, Yuasa Ken (1916–​2010), who worked as a military surgeon in China, soldiers regarded “comfort women” as kōshō, the Japanese word for state-​licensed prostitutes, in that they paid those women in return for sexual services (Yuasa 2004). Chūkiren, an association of returned war veterans from China, was comprised of approximately 1,100 former prisoners of war who were confined for six years in two Chinese prisons, one in Fushuen and the other in Taiyuan. During their imprisonment, they confessed to their individual war crimes, including murder and rape, in the humane treatment in the Chinese prisons. After they were freed and repatriated to Japan in 1957, they founded the association in a

“Comfort women” as a gendered national subject  101 commitment to challenge ‘the silence about Imperial Japanese war crimes’. At the 2000 Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal (WIWCT) on Japan’s Military Sexual Slavery in Tokyo, two Chūkiren members, Kaneko Yasujirō and Suzuki Yoshio, testified to their rape crimes in China. While the media and the Japanese political right wing labelled Chūkiren silence breakers as being brainwashed by communist China, they had achieved their anti-​war activism and attempted to construct themselves as historical subjects until 2002,6 when most members had difficulties in testifying in public due to age-​ related health issues. More credence to the claim of the blurring of the state-​sanctioned prostitution system and the “comfort women” system can be uncovered when one examines an interview with a former the military police officer referred to only by his initial ‘I’. He explained in his interview with Nishino Rumiko that the soldiers’ conflation of the civilian and the military prostitution systems affected their perception of women. ‘I’ said, ‘We spent our youth under the state-​licensed prostitution system. It was the era when buying women was neither a shame nor a guilt’ (Nishino 1992:60). As many soldiers testified on the phone to Jūgun Ianfu 110 Ban (the Military Comfort Women Information Call Centre), or in interviews, during wartime, the “comfort women” system was necessary but not “evil” (Nishino 1995:62; Jūgun Ianfu 110 Ban Henshū Iinkai 1992). This indicates that the state gave credibility and legality to the military prostitution system by sanctioning the civilian prostitution system, thereby erasing a sense of guilt and shame from the perpetrators’ feelings.

Kikumaru as the wife/​mistress for officers In March 1942, Kikumaru, aged 18, was transported as a ‘special nurse’7 to the navy “comfort station” on Truk Island by a Japanese military ship. On the way, her ship visited Busan, where a great number of Korean “comfort women” got on board. Kikumaru never forgot the sad sailing between Busan and Truk Island. In retrospect, she confessed it to Hirota: I cannot forget what a sad feeling I had undergone until we arrived on Truk Island. … Unlike us, they [Korean girls] seemed not voluntary [to become “comfort women”]. In traditional Korean costumes, they kept crying out, ‘Aigō, Aigō’.8 It struck me so much that I also burst into tears. (Hirota 2009:26) However, once she stepped on the tropical island surrounded by beautiful coral reefs and covered with green palm trees and hibiscus in full bloom, Kikumaru felt a ‘spiritual uplift as if she had come to another world’ (Hirota 2009:30–​1). The Japanese military secured a fortified zone on several small islands near the equator, including Truk Island (Hirota 2009:31). Approximately a

102  “Comfort women” as a gendered national subject hundred “comfort women” arrived on Truk Island. Kikumaru was among 33 females allocated to serve only officers. During her interview with Hirota in post-​war Japan, Kikumaru explained her contract with the Japanese navy: I had a year-​and-​half contract not with a geisha house owner but with the navy directly running the “comfort station”. That’s why I was a military civilian employee who was categorised as a special nurse by the military. Sixty percent of proceeds from my work went to the navy; the rest was mine. When I paid off my debt back to the navy and returned to Japan, around 10,000 yen was left with me. (Hirota 2009:33) Thus, Kikumaru spent two years on the peaceful ‘Paradise of the South Seas’ before Japan entered into a total war against the Allied Forces (Hirota 2009:32). In her memorandum about her “happy” time on Truk Island, she recalled it: In those days, Truk Island was such a peaceful tropical island that I could not recognise where the battleground was. When we arrived on the island, the Battle of the Coral Sea9 (April 1942) just broke out. I would get up at 6 am and take a bath for work because around 7 am became already hot. I was given three meals with just cooked Japanese rice. … Kanaka’s women did my laundry. (Hirota 2009:43–​4) Kanakas was the collective name for Pacific islanders. According to Kikumaru, Kanakas would look after her from 6 am so that she needed to do nothing. Furthermore, she enjoyed the same traditional Japanese food as served to the officers and had access to tropical local fruits in a foreign country far away from Japan in the middle of the war (Hirota 2009:34). Her sufferings as an indentured prostitute considered, it might not be difficult to assume that Kikumaru would be over the moon on Truk Island. Kikumaru also said to Hirota, ‘If I died, my spirit will be enshrined at the Yasukuni Shrine along with the spirits of soldiers because I was a military civilian employee on Truk Island’ (Hirota 2009:33). According to Hirota (2009:33), this was what Kikumaru was greatly proud of for herself. The following excerpt was from Kikumaru’s memorandum: All of my friends on Truk Island might get married and keep their past in secret. Or they might not be able to write about it from a feeling of shame. However, I will do. … On 17 March 1942, I left Japan. In those days, with surge of patriotic spirit and youthful ebullience, I made my best efforts for the sake of my country and the Emperor. Young people in Japan today will burst into laughter at it. Also, women will talk about it as obscene and vile. … I am overjoyed at my safe comeback to Japan. … One day, as

“Comfort women” as a gendered national subject  103 the commander’s order, I made a trip inside the island, accompanied by two young officers. … I felt like, all of a sudden, elevating into a high position. … In retrospect, I have never felt prouder of myself than that time. (Hirota 2009:36–​9) Even though Kikumaru was a captive within the system of military sexual slavery, the military might make her life appear meaningful to the outside world, as a gendered patriotic national subject. However, Hirota uncovered the fact that the military never registered any “comfort women” as their employees (Hirota 2009:33). In post-​war Japan, none of the “comfort women” were enshrined in the war shrine, nor granted a military pension by the government. As already mentioned in Chapter 3, however, Kikumaru felt her life on Truk Island as the best time in her whole life not only because of her privileged status as an “elite” woman embedded within the “comfort women” hierarchy. Also, she experienced “humane” relations which she had never encountered since she had been sold by her father. Kikumaru’s memorandum started to recall what Lieutenant Matsuo told her: —​—​Singing ‘You and I are Dōkino Sakura’ [fellow cherry blossoms] to myself today as usual, with a wig of a traditional Japanese hairstyle on, Kikumaru is doing her best for her country on this tropical hot Truk Island. You, son of a gun, get back to Japan safely. I will protect your way back in Pacific so that your ship can arrive to Japan. When you go back to Japan in safe, come to see me in Yasukuni shrine. If we die at the time of cherry blossoms in bloom, let’s meet up under the cherry blossoms at Yasukuni shrine. You will bloom at lower branches, whereas I will come out at higher ones because I am male. If we are blown away, we will have a talk. In future, I am sure that Japan will transform to a peaceful country. Until then, hang in there. Leaving me these words, Lieutenant Matsuo was gone like cherry blossoms. I sometimes remember him still now. (Hirota 2009:35) Dōkino Sakura was a popular Japanese war song during the Asia-​Pacific War. The lyric represents an analogy between the graceful sudden fall of cherry blossoms and honourable death of fellow soldiers for the Emperor. The first paragraph above implicates that Kikumaru regarded herself as a soldier at heart. Lieutenant Matsuo’s account illustrates how popular Kikumaru was in the navy. Kikumaru’s beautiful look and open-​hearted personality attracted officers, whereas she fell in love with all of the officers while sexually serving them one by one, as she said to Hirota (2009:46–​7). Thus, Kikumaru, for the first time in her life, underwent and appreciated “equal” human relationships with others. Here, we need to remember again the case of Suzumoto Aya

104  “Comfort women” as a gendered national subject (pseudonym, see Appendix), as introduced in Chapter 3. She was a “comfort woman” serving numerous enlisted soldiers each day on Truk Island during the same period as Kikumaru did. Suzumoto also cherished the memory of her life on Truk Island as much as Kikumaru did. Their similar testimonies regardless of their hierarchical position in the “comfort stations” signify how brutal their previous lives as state-​licensed prostitutes must have been. Emotional attachments, including sympathy for soldiers on the front line who were supposed to never return (Hirota 2009:62), allowed long-​standing dehumanised victims such as Kikumaru and Suzumoto to feel re-​humanised through sharing bona fide feelings with them on the battlefield. However, this type of human relation is the product of manipulation created under a particular social structure during wartime. As mentioned in Chapter 3, war divides us into the abuser and the abused; Kikumaru was the abused perpetrated by the state and military. It was the state manipulation of human feelings under a particular social structure during wartime that concealed their victim situation from the consciousness of Kikumaru and Suzumoto and further encouraged them to engage in their “mission” for the sake of the country. The militarist state also fragmented male sexuality, by taking advantage of women’s sexuality that was segmented through the division into mothers/​ wives and whores as a means of its control of male sexuality (Tanaka 2004:338). As argued in Chapter 4, this segmentation of female sexuality also divided male sexuality into that for reproduction and the other for pleasure, suppressing men into fragmented pieces (Tanaka 2004:338). Furthermore, the two different prostitution systems in peace time –​the state-​licensed prostitution system and the mistress system –​divided the male fraternity into elite and non-​elite males. That is, elite men enjoyed the monopoly of a mistress whereas non-​elite men shared prostituted women. As a result, the fragmentation of male sexuality was more promoted among elite men. For poor men, both mistresses and prostitutes were financially out of reach. This class-​based hierarchy was embedded within the military, which seemingly democratised male access to female bodies among all soldiers through the “comfort women” system. Accordingly, officers owned their personal “comfort women” like mistresses, whereas enlisted soldiers were strictly restricted to visit “comfort stations”, which were few and far between on the front line. Thus, the parallel fraternities were preserved from peace time through wartime. However, Kikumaru’s “privileged” position disappeared after she completed her “mission” on Truk Island in 1943. She had already faced her severe reality on the ship back to Japan, as testified below: We were “comfort women” who had served officers. Dealing with those people on higher positions in the military, I felt like I had been great. … But it happened only on Truk Island. In the ship back to Japan, I was sleeping by the side of coals. At first, all passengers including former

“Comfort women” as a gendered national subject  105 “comfort women” like me went on board separately to two shipping vessels. However, the other one was attacked on the way back home. Then, many people moved to my ship, where we were packed like sardines at the bottom of the vessel. It was really horrible. Recalling my life on the island, I had a feeling of empty sadness. (Hirota 2009:109–​10) Yet, Kikumaru was pleased with her safe return to Japan, as she continued: Still, when I arrived at Yokosuka port and saw a war plane with the national flag of the Rising Sun flying over the sky, I was really happy. I said to myself, ‘I am back to Japan’. … I was bursting into tears. (Hirota 2009:110) The actual war situation in Japan, however, left little room for optimism. Hirota wrote: Tokyo was totally different from two years ago, when Kikumaru departed for Truk Island. The capital was already attacked from the air by the US. In preparation for possible air-​raids, the Japanese government implemented very strict restrictions on lights. Accordingly, the capital city illuminated by neon lights during its best days fell into pitch black darkness. The nation’s resources were concentrated on war industries; daily necessities started to be remarkably running short. Distribution of clothing was based on a point system. When food was distributed by the government, people made a long queue between air-​raids. (Hirota 2009:110) At this point, Kikumaru had not yet recognised that she would go through ‘real hell’ after the end of the war (Hirota 2009:330).

Shirota Suzuko as a witness to brutality at war Around July in 1938, at the age of 18, Shirota left for Taiwan along with seven other female prostitutes who were in their twenties and thirties. They said about Shirota, who was the youngest, ‘How come such a young girl is going with us?’ (Shirota 1971:29). Her father came to send her off at Yokohama Station and cried, ‘Suzuko, I am sorry. Forgive me’ (Shirota 1971:29). This took Shirota by surprise because her father did not burst into tears even when his wife passed away. Staying overnight at Kobe, Shirota went on board in the steerage of a ship, Takasago-​maru, with her brothel owner and colleagues. On departure, Shirota shed tears of sorrow. In the red-​light district at Magong on Taiwan, there were 20 houses lined up displaying the sign board, ‘Purveyor to the Japanese Navy’. Shirota was taken to one of them, Tokiwa-​rō, with Waka-​chan,10 who had been sold several times

106  “Comfort women” as a gendered national subject by her husband. A valid prostitution licence required a prostituted woman to clear a medical inspection for sexually transmitted disease (STD). For Shirota, who had never undergone the examination before, it felt frightening. When a military doctor called her turn, her legs were too shaky for her to get on the examining table. Finally, she summoned up all her courage and had the licence issued. She recalled the day: ‘The life of slavery has begun both in name and in reality’ (Shirota 1971:34). Shirota’s retrospective account in her autobiography described her inhumane life at the “comfort station” in Magong: On weekdays, it would be better if I had one overnight customer. On weekends, however, soldiers were racing each other queuing up for women. The “comfort station” turned to literally a flesh market. There, ten to fifteen soldiers with no expressions of human emotions were swarming over a single woman, driven by their sexual thirst. It was like a beast war. (Shirota 1971:35) Shirota was overwhelmed by soldiers’ endless queues and their aggressive attitude towards sex. Another Japanese survivor, Keiko (see Appendix) was also astonished by ‘a soldier next in the queue banging the door and shouting “hurry up” when her customer was not completed yet’ (Senda 1985:176). Keiko recalled that ‘one in two soldiers joining the queue already put their military trousers down and finally dashed into the room’ (Senda 1985:176). Echoing the experience in a similar way to Keiko, Shirota proclaimed: I have never anticipated how many soldiers clung to me one after another as if ants were swarming over sugar. … My body was not free from them at any moment. It was so shocking to me that I kept crying every day. (Shirota 1986) The radio interview introduced Shirota’s memory as a “comfort woman”, which further exposed the brutality of the sexual slavery system: We were forced to sexually serve soldiers one after another without even cleansing our vaginas between prostituted sexes. I wonder how many times I wanted to strangle soldiers during prostitution. We were thus half insane. Dead “comfort women” were abandoned in holes in the jungle. There was no way to inform their parents of their death. I witnessed hell for these women. (Shirota 1986) Above and beyond the sheer brutality she encountered, Shirota and other “comfort women” had no freedom to go out of their houses. First of all, they were required to obtain an exit pass with their brothel owner’s seal on. Then, they needed to submit the pass to the police station, which issued them an

“Comfort women” as a gendered national subject  107 official outing permit. When they returned from their outings, their permits were returned to the police. Shirota felt as if they had been ‘under constant surveillance’ (Shirota 1971:36). What was worse, eight months after commencing her job in Magong, Shirota discovered that her father’s debts to her brothel owner had barely decreased. Her prostitution proceeds were offset by her daily expenses, including her kimono. Shirota became so overwhelmed by her enslaved life as a “comfort woman” that she exerted herself to find an exit. Then, she was released from the brutal life a couple of times. When she received a letter informing her that her younger brother was suffering from tuberculosis, she strongly desired to return to Tokyo. Fortunately, her debts were paid off by an Okinawan seaman whom she promised to marry. Back in Tokyo, however, she again decided to work as a “comfort woman” in Saipan in order to pay the hospital bills of her ill brother. This ended up with a lawsuit with the seaman, who finally agreed to her monthly repayments. When she moved from Saipan to Truk Island, her debt was redeemed by Niijima, a factory owner aged around 50, who had already sent his wife and children back to Tokyo. Shirota became his mistress. When the war was approaching Truk Island, Niijima also returned Shirota to Tokyo for her safety. Tokyo had nothing to attach Shirota’s heart to. Her younger brother died of tuberculosis and no one in her family even attempted to persuade her to stay in Tokyo. People tend to rely on something when they are in desperation; and Shirota was no exception. When she was hopeless, she became easily trapped by the deception of nationalism. In her radio interview, she recalled this moment in a ‘self-​deprecating’ way (Kinoshita 2017:69): Rumour had it that the mainland would be attacked by air-​raids. Then a stupid idea occurred to me: If I were to die after all, I would do some good for my country by helping Japanese soldiers. Then I heard the “comfort women” recruiters were looking for women who would work in Palau. I earned barely enough to stay alive. (Shirota 1986) Shirota also recognised that she would not have any viable employment options other than prostitution. Finally, she left Japan and chased after Niijima to Truk Island. Her feeling at that point seems similar to the ones she had retrospectively confessed when she previously had gone after another man to Truk Island: It didn’t matter who it was. At this time, I squarely realised what I wanted was just love. Since then, I had felt like being chased by some feeling of quest for something from loneliness. ‘I want to be loved. Is there anybody who really loves me?’ Thinking about these, I could not sleep at night. I was wondering how many sleepless nights in a row had happened to me. (Shirota 1971:52)

108  “Comfort women” as a gendered national subject With the same emotion, Shirota tried to ship out to Truk Island, where Niijima was staying. Unfortunately, the aggravating war situation kept Shirota stuck in Palau, where she found a job as a receptionist/​accountant at a naval “comfort station”. Then, she became a witness to the hell on the front line from different perspectives. The Japanese military took “comfort women” wherever they went, even to life-​or-​death battlefields. In her 1986 radio interview, Shirota testified to the life-​or-​death battle that she barely survived in Palau: When Palau was bombarded by the US Forces, I stayed deep in a cave with other women on a mountain. Soon the mountain was destroyed completely by air raids, which prevented us from hiding in the cave. When the attack stopped, I went to the jungle with another ten women and witnessed real brutality. Human flesh [of killed Japanese soldiers] looked like a piece of pork; dismembered bones and heads lay scattered about. The horror was overwhelming. Picking up those scattered pieces of flesh and bones by hand and placing them into corn-​made bags, I came to feel really sick. There were more than 100 bags containing all the soldiers’ bodies from one unit. At this point, I did not shed tears anymore. (Shirota 1986) The last line indicates the immensity of her traumatic experience on the front line. This resulted in her numbing her senses in order to survive. If she had not dissociated herself from the brutality of the war by numbing the inner self, she could have gone insane and she might not have survived. In Palau, as an accountant, Shirota looked after the navy “comfort women”, all of whom were either Korean or Okinawan females. She also testified to their brutal deaths at the peak of US air raids: By a river, we built a “comfort station” with palm trees. There, “comfort women” led really tragic lives. Seamen, who were reduced to skin and bones, still visited the “comfort station”. It would be intolerable if you were assaulted by such a mere skeleton. As a matter of fact, many “comfort women” could no longer endure life and committed suicide. Their dead bodies were left in the jungle, where wild dogs or strange animals that I had never seen before came and ate their bodies at night. Then, their bones were scattered. … Dead “comfort women” were abandoned in holes in the jungle. There was no way to inform their parents of their death. I witnessed hell for these women. (Shirota 1986) These narrative accounts reveal the inhumane treatment of “comfort women” by the Japanese military, regardless of women’s nationalities. Further, as disposable as the “comfort women” were in death, they were just as disposable in life in post-​war Japan.

“Comfort women” as a gendered national subject  109 Shirota survived the war and knew, through the military unit radio, Japan’s unconditional surrender. She was also aware of the fact that Japanese people cried at Emperor Hirohito’s radio announcement. On a ship back to Japan, a thousand emotions, such as painful memories, joy at being alive and concerns for the future in Japan, filled passengers’ hearts. On arriving at her own country, Shirota clearly recognised the catastrophe of the defeat, saying, ‘It was worse than anticipated. How can I lead a life in such a disastrous situation?’ (Shirota 1971:76).

Nationalism as a conspiracy of silence In the process of the state’s exploitation of women, the wartime propaganda “for the country” became a magic phrase to justify the scapegoating of all women in the name of Emperor Hirohito, just as the paternal rhetoric “for the family” was used to rationalise the familial exploitation of their daughters. The wartime slogan “for the country” manifests Japan’s patriarchal militarist nationalism, which silenced the individual voices of complaints and objections to the state’s war policy, including the system of “comfort women”. Yet, there did exist a nationalist discourse in which society started to admire “comfort women” as loyal subjects who sacrificed themselves to support the country. Kikumaru’s customer at a civilian brothel, Nishiyama, was impressed by her as an admirable young prostitute, who said to him that she was going to work at a “comfort station” on Truk Island for the country (Hirota 2009:94). However, this admiration for “comfort women” as loyal national (gendered) subjects was only temporary, as implied above by the accounts of both Kikumaru and Shirota. This emperor-​worship nationalism not only attempted to silence those traumatised voices of military prostitution, but also deceived some “comfort women” into gaining a sense of pride about their loyalty to the country. Kikumaru, an “elite” “comfort woman” reserved only for officers, and Suzumoto, who was allocated to enlisted soldiers, were among those who rationalised their lives at “comfort stations” by convincing themselves that they were dutiful national citizens. As the story of ‘sexual contract’ (Pateman 1988) reveals, however, women were never allowed to become legitimate citizens equal to men. Hirota assumed that either Kikumaru or Suzumoto never truly had a sense of patriotism (Hirota 2016). For example, Kikumaru, who persuaded her parents to allow her to become a “comfort woman” “for the country” (Hirota 2009:25), testified to Hirota that she ‘jumped’ at the opportunity to repay her debts (Hirota 2016). Hirota also pointed out that they wanted something to justify their jobs as “comfort women” because they had no other option. For Japanese people, the wartime propaganda “for the country” was nothing more than a fiction which became a tool for self-​ justification of their own decision or actions through its articulation of a discourse of state building (Hirota 2016).

110  “Comfort women” as a gendered national subject As soon as Japan was defeated by the Allied Forces, the patriarchal social stigma deeply inscribed into prostitutes and prostitution was reattached to them as if the shame of the “Father” Emperor had been passed on to his “daughters”. However, against this conspiracy of silence in post-​war Japan, Kikumaru, Shirota and some other Japanese “comfort women” (see Appendix) raised their voices, testified to the brutality of military sexual enslavement and narrated the reality of their multi-​layered trauma. The following section recounts additional stories of “comfort women” through the eyes of Japanese soldiers. The hierarchy of masculinities and male ‘homosocial bond’ (Sedgwick 2015) in the Imperial Japanese Military revealed individual soldiers’ diverse aspirations for hegemonic masculinity and/​or personhood. Their different masculine desires were demonstrated by their different attitudes toward different representations of “comfort women”.

From “fully fledged” citizens to “fully fledged” soldiers The myth of hegemonic manhood circulating within pre-​war Japan played a pivotal role in the construction of soldier masculinity. This myth claimed that a man who had not had sex with a woman was not yet a man and many soldiers were already ‘obsessed’ with ‘this logic of male privilege’ (Yoshimi 1995:223, 2000:200). For example, Kondō and other young male virgins in their hometown, Kuwana, were told that to become a “fully fledged” man, they had to visit the red-​light district, after receiving their induction notes or their military call-​up paper called Akagami (Utsumi et al. 2005:86). Thus, losing male virginity to prostitution rings before being conscripted into the army became a normalised practice (Utsumi et al. 2005:86). The exercise of male masculinity was intertwined with sexuality in modern Japan, where a “fully fledged” man, namely, a “fully fledged” citizen, exhibited his masculine power by putting women under his control via sex with prostitutes and/​ or mistresses. However, not all male virgins grew to be “fully fledged” citizens before their induction. For example, Kondō was still a virgin when he was drafted because his employer prohibited him from visiting prostitutes (Utsumi et al. 2005:86). For the most part, there was nothing but disdain exhibited in public by the Japanese military toward the “comfort women”. This gives the impression that the representation of “comfort women” by the Japanese military was fixed. Yet, as mentioned below, dominant or official narratives, stories and representations of hegemonic masculinity within wartime Japan appear more fluid, nuanced and possibly contradictory. For example, there were instances when virgin soldiers looked at “comfort women” as sacred figures who helped them to become “fully fledged” men. Motoyama Toshinori, who was drafted at age 21 and served with the Second Regiment in Herbing, recalled his first “comfort woman”, who was Korean, as his first love and committed himself to her at the “comfort station” (Nishino 1992:46). According to Hirota, who interviewed numerous Japanese veterans as well as Japanese “comfort

“Comfort women” as a gendered national subject  111 women” survivors in the 1970s, many soldiers regarded “comfort women” as ‘goddesses’ (Hirota 2009:342). Ōyama Shōgorō, who was in charge of looking after “comfort women” in his position in the Fourteenth Division’s Health Administration, told Hirota that “comfort women” looked like ‘Buddhist angels’ descending from heaven (Hirota 2009:54). This sacred representation of “comfort women” indicates the soldiers’ highest appreciation of their women who were “dedicated” to their accomplishment of masculinities. Herein lies the ambiguity within the hegemonic masculinity representing “comfort women”, which oscillated between the sacred and the profane. This ambivalent characteristic of masculinity is explained by the scholar of masculinity, Itō Kimio, who points out in an interview with Kobayashi Akiko that ‘women are men’s properties, whereas men depend on women for healing when they get hurt’ (Itō, as cited in Kobayashi 2017). All in all, whether as an object to rule from above or to admire from below, men are rarely conscious of women as equal subjects with individual personalities (Itō 1996:109). The most egregious manifestation of hegemonic masculinity during the war is illustrated by how the Imperial Japanese Military channelled the power of the myth of manhood into the driving force to send young virgin draftees to conduct kamikaze suicide attacks upon Allied naval vessels. At the “comfort station” established near the air base in Mobara, Chiba prefecture, Tanaka Tami (pseudonym, see Appendix), a 16-​year-​old Japanese girl, testified that she sexually served kamikaze pilots who were as young as she was (Kawata 2014:28, 30). The military manipulated these young soldiers’ perceptions of their manhood, which were already cultivated by state myths and representations in order to convince them to die for the Emperor. For example, prior to conducting his kamikaze mission, a 19-​year-​old pilot was advised to visit a “comfort station” by his immediate commander. In response, he said to his commanding officer, ‘Then, there is nothing that I regret. I will be able to sacrifice my life for the Emperor’ (Nishino 1992:61). Thus, the state constructed the hegemonic masculinity, which established and controlled the hierarchies not only between soldiers and women, but also between elite and non-​elite soldiers in order to reproduce the imperial war machine. However, a former kamikaze pilot, Kuwahara Keiichi (1924–​present), who returned in May 1945 from two failed suicide attacks due to engine trouble, testified to the young soldiers’ inconsolable grief (Kuwahara 2006:101): At heart, nobody wanted to participate in the suicide attacks. Nevertheless, young soldiers could not resist the absolute authority that was imposed upon them when given unilateral orders. Believing their officer’s promise to definitely follow them, they plucked up their courage and flew to their place for death. (Kuwahara 2006:101) Like other military structures, the Imperial Japanese Military maintained an absolute hierarchy based on rank, yet orders from immediate commanders

112  “Comfort women” as a gendered national subject were equal to those from the divine commander-​in-​chief, Emperor Hirohito. Further, soldiers could be allowed neither to express their real feelings nor decline orders. Unlike kamikaze pilots who were ranked as junior un-​ commissioned officers, most senior commissioned officers in charge of the kamikaze pilots’ fate never flew to follow them (Kuwahara 2006:334). During the war, the Imperial Japanese Military never considered the human lives of un-​commissioned officers, let alone those of enlisted soldiers (Hidaka 2004:151). This inequality of human life based on military hierarchy reveals the asymmetrical nature of hegemonic masculinity. In short, some men were forced to sacrifice their lives, whereas other men profited from their sacrifice in order to maintain their power and privileged position. This lack of concern for human life as a manifestation of hegemonic masculinity can also be illustrated as the Imperial Japanese Military transformed a “fully fledged” citizen to a “fully fledged” soldier. This process was equivalent to the transformation from a human being into a killing machine, as described below. As some Chūkiren members testified in interviews with Matsui Minoru, the director of a documentary film entitled Riben Guizi,11 during their first year of military service named Shonenhei Kyōiku, enlisted soldiers were trained to stab Chinese people to death with a single bayonet thrust (Riben Guizi: Japanese Devils 2000). One of the members, Kaneko Yasuji, said, ‘if a new conscript could not successfully thrust his bayonet into his target, he was severely punished which entailed beating and kicking’ (Riben Guizi: Japanese Devils 2000). Once Kaneko successfully passed his military training, he began to compete against other soldiers in the number of people whom they killed, so that military service became synonymous with the enjoyment of killing people (Riben Guizi: Japanese Devils 2000). As “fully fledged” citizens became transformed into “fully fledged” soldiers, the hegemonic masculinity of the Imperial Japanese Army emerged. With the emergence of hegemonic masculinity as part of subjectivity of the Imperial Japanese Military, hegemonic masculinity began to be implemented as military policy. The Sankō Strategy employed in China, meaning ‘kill all, burn all, loot all’, was generated by the Japanese army’s ‘negligence of providing a proper food supply to soldiers’ (Fujiwara 2000:29). In return, the members of the Japanese military regarded Chinese citizens as its weaker, feminised, less human adversaries. The hegemonic masculinity of the Imperial Japanese Military was thus constructed on the disregard for human life of friend and foe alike. In the military, soldiers’ bravery and aggressiveness were often compared to men’s sexual prowess with women (Yoshimi & Hayashi 1995:196). The “fully fledged” soldier of the Imperial Japanese Military was required to be aggressive in both battle and sex. The ceremony to celebrate being a “fully fledged” soldier after his completion of his first-​year military training was to visit “comfort women” (Jūgun Ianfu 110 Ban Henshū Iinkai 1992:135). Finally, enlisted virgin soldiers were acknowledged as “fully fledged” male soldiers. Thus, the hegemonic masculinity of the Japanese military was constructed through and in relation to masculine sexuality. Also, the

“Comfort women” as a gendered national subject  113 hierarchical relationships within the military among soldiers were formulated through hegemonic manhood.

Homosocial bond between “fully fledged” soldiers Rivalrous relationships between Japanese soldiers over the ownership of “comfort women” can be viewed as a constitutive element of male homosocial bonding, as illustrated by Sedgwick’s concept of ‘erotic triangles’ (Sedgwick 2015). For many rank-​and-​file soldiers, the “comfort stations” were the place to strengthen their homosocial bond through the relationships of rivalry or fraternity, thereby elevating a particular form of heterosexual masculinity to its hegemonic position within the military. The soldiers’ long queue at “comfort stations” implicitly symbolises their comrade-​hood. In other words, a visit to “comfort stations” was the ticket to the “fully fledged” soldiers’ fraternity club. Therefore, over the course of their first year of military training, “comfort women” were out of reach for enlisted soldiers (Utsumi et al. 2005:86). If new recruits had visited those women, they were subjected to beating by their seniors (Jūgun Ianfu 110 Ban Henshū Iinkai, 1992:136). This militarised male homosocial bond thus set up very strict eligibility requirements for participation, which reinforced the vertical relations that characterised the Japanese military hierarchy. The heterosexual masculinity dominant within the Japanese military became hegemonic by marginalising and excluding alternative forms of masculinity. For example, those soldiers who refused to visit “comfort stations” were labelled as strange or defective and subjected to collective ridicule or ostracism. Six Japanese veterans testified to the call centre, Jūgun Ianfu 110 Ban, which was temporarily launched by volunteers for the purpose of collecting information about “comfort women” in the wake of the 1991 silence break. They corroborated the existence of these homosocial bonds by pointing out, ‘Every soldier went to “comfort stations”. If I had not, I would have been isolated within the army’ (Jūgun Ianfu 110 Ban Henshū Iinkai 1992:135). According to additional testimony to the call centre, the only soldier consistently refusing to visit “comfort women”, among 450 soldiers, was thrown into a “comfort station” and subjected to humiliating voyeurism at the hands of other soldiers (Jūgun Ianfu 110 Ban Henshū Iinkai 1992:136). These types of practice were an integral part of a process of feminising or othering those deviant masculinities. Hegemonic masculinity marginalises abnormal masculinity in collaboration with subordinate masculinity by humiliating and persecuting it. This “leadership” and collaboration allow hegemonic masculinity to reconstruct and reinforce the hierarchy of masculinities. The reason for the refusal to be serviced by “comfort women” varied. According to the testimonies provided to the call centre, these soldiers did not visit “comfort women” for reasons such as: feeling too young to have sex; they could not afford the fees; they were starving or wounded; or they were scared of contracting venereal disease (Jūgun Ianfu 110 Ban Henshū Iinkai

114  “Comfort women” as a gendered national subject 1992:136). There were also veterans who expressed sympathetic feelings toward “comfort women” (Jūgun Ianfu 110 Ban Henshū Iinkai 1992:136), yet whose rejection of the “comfort women” was predicated either on the need to protect their dignity by avoiding prostitution sex, or because they resented the military’s control of male sexuality (Nishino 1992:53). However, none of them questioned the existence of the “comfort women” system during wartime (Nishino 1992:53). The retired Christian priest, Matsumoto Masayoshi, has continuously testified in public to his “war crime” as a bystander. He was deployed as a paramedic in 1944 to a battalion at Shanxi Yu County in China, where he helped the military doctor’s STD inspection of “comfort women”. In retrospect, he confessed that he had not wanted to taint his virginity (by having sex with “comfort women”) (Matsumoto 2016). While in the army, as an ardent admirer of Tolstoy’s philosophy of asceticism, Matsumoto felt a strong loathing for acts of sex, yet he neither raised a question nor felt guilt about the rapes of local women committed by his comrades that he had actually witnessed (Matsumoto 2016). Matsumoto also confessed that he had never considered the human rights of rape victims, let alone those of “comfort women”, until after Japan’s defeat in the war (Matsumoto 2016). Notwithstanding the fact that Matsumoto never engaged in wartime Japanese sexual practices, bystanders like him contributed to maintaining the hegemonic masculinity, thereby allowing them to be included in homosocial bonding. After the defeat of the war, all bystanders were compelled to choose sides, as Herman (1992:7) notes, ‘in the conflict between victim and perpetrators’ and it is more ‘tempting to take the side of the perpetrator’ rather than ‘to share the burden of pain’ with the victim. However, Matsumoto has taken the side of the victim and his testimony is a form of resistance to hegemonic masculinity. In many ways, it could be argued that the “comfort women” system was established to prevent enlisted soldiers raping local women. However, the reality was opposite. According to Matsumoto, six to seven Korean “comfort women” were allocated to his battalion, which consisted of approximately 250 soldiers and 50 officers. However, the women were monopolised by officers since enlisted soldiers were only permitted to visit them on Sunday afternoons (Matsumoto 2016). As the Chūkiren member, Kaneko Yasuji, points out, as a consequence of this type of monopolisation by the officers of “comfort women”, rapes of local women by Japanese soldiers increased (Kawata 2005:142). Among other things, as Kondō and a veteran called Mr M testified, rape cost the soldiers no money as opposed to a visit to “comfort stations” (Senda 1992:103; Utsumi et al. 2005:89). According to Kaneko, a monthly salary of privates was 2 yen, whereas a visit to “comfort stations” cost 1½ yen (Kawata 2005:140). According to a Japanese veteran, Kojima Takao, Japanese “comfort women” were beyond the reach of enlisted soldiers due to their high prices (Nishino 1992:159). Therefore, there were enlisted senior soldiers who sold their loot in order to visit “comfort women”, as Kojima testified (Nishino 1992:170). “Comfort stations” were thus prohibitively expensive for many

“Comfort women” as a gendered national subject  115 enlisted soldiers, yet the men were expected to need sex to be fully masculine. As a result, enlisted soldiers created “free” “comfort stations” for themselves through abduction. For example, as Mr M testified, in the Philippine city of Davao, Japanese soldiers established “comfort stations” by shooting all local men and raping local women, for which they felt little or no remorse (Senda 1992:110). In China, Japanese soldiers also employed a similar way to acquire local women (Qiu 2013). Ironically, the “comfort women” system ultimately increased the occurrence of raping local women. The exhibition of hegemonic masculinity through either raping local women or visiting “comfort stations” was integral to the homosocial bond between enlisted soldiers. As another Chūkiren member, Kobayashi Takeji, confessed, he would have suffered social exclusion from his comrades unless he had joined gang-​rapes (Riben Guizi: Japanese Devils 2000). At the same time, the military hierarchy based on rank and length of enlistment became embedded as an integral component of sexual violence perpetrated against women. There was even a hierarchy in the order of how gang-​rapes occurred, which is clearly illustrated in Kondō’s confession. He admitted that he had once participated in a gang-​rape when he was a third-​year enlisted soldier. According to Kondō, the order in which the soldiers raped the woman was determined by the length of military enlistment. The third-​year and longerenlisted soldier was first and the second-​year enlisted soldier came last. Accordingly, the first-​year soldiers were always excluded (Aoki 2006:26). Two veterans testified that it had been customary for officers to ‘taste’ new “comfort women” first before handing them down to enlisted soldiers (Jūgun Ianfu 110 Ban Henshū Iinkai 1992:23). Thus, the Imperial Japanese Military incorporated parallel fraternities based on soldiers’ ranks and they seldom met through the “comfort women” system. A form of ‘protest’ masculinity (Connell 1995/​2005), which resisted the process of the stripping of their subjectivities during the military training, was manifested by soldiers who pledged themselves to the heterosexual bond between their wives/​ fiancées, rather than to the homosocial bond between other soldiers. For example, Gomi Tamiyoshi (1913–​79), a former military police officer in China, told his wife in his 1939 letter12 that he fulfilled his duty towards the wife that he left behind in his country by proudly maintaining his self-​control over his sexuality by rejecting “comfort women” (Gomi 1939). He returned to Japan in 1940, and subsequently never served in the military due to an injury to his left leg. The Chūkiren member, Suzuki Yoshio, also testified to his long refusal to be serviced by “comfort women” whom he despised as ‘impure’ (Kawata 2005:143). In that regard, this heterosexual masculinity reproduces the patriarchal dualism of “good” and “bad” women, which was still part of the same hegemonic discourse. In spite of his strong commitment to his fiancée left behind in Japan, he started to visit “comfort women” in 1945, when he became devastated by his loss of hope for life (Kawata 2005:144). Thus, losing any hope for survival led to the loss of dignity and humanity.

116  “Comfort women” as a gendered national subject The homosocial bond between officers was strengthened in a different way from the bond between enlisted soldiers because of their privileged position within the military. Unlike the enlisted soldier, the officer could access his “comfort woman” whenever he wanted. Many women allocated to officers were Japanese women, except in an area where no Japanese “comfort women” were available. To enlisted soldiers, the “comfort woman” reserved for a specific officer appeared to be his ‘mistress’ (Jūgun Ianfu 110 Ban Henshū Iinkai 1992:23). The elite class thus maintained all their resources in order to illustrate their masculine power, including military status, money and women. In other words, the officers reinforced their homosocial bond by exhibiting the accomplishment of three masculine desires –​‘superiority’ and ‘power’, as well as ‘possession’ of women, as discussed above (Itō 1993, 1996). Ironically, officers’ privileged position had cracked the hierarchy of hegemonic masculinity within the Japanese military because their monopolisation of the “comfort women” sowed the seeds of discontent among enlisted soldiers. Official wartime military journals, such as Jinchū Nisshi, depicted a variety of irresponsible behaviours exhibited by officers. The Japanese scholar, Takasaki Ryūji, analysed some journals and concluded that officers made the best use of “comfort stations” by even expanding their privilege beyond the military rules (Takasaki 1994:41). There were testimonies by enlisted soldiers that were filled with indignation about officers’ irresponsible sexual behaviours. According to the US Report of Psychological Warfare No. 2, issued on 30 November 1944, a 23-​year-​old Japanese soldier testified that Colonel Maruyama enjoyed his “comfort woman” in the trench almost every day during the Battle of Mitokina (Nishino 2003:23). Hayami Masanori, who belonged to the 113th Brigade, heard of an officer shot dead by one of his soldiers who shouted at the officer, ‘unpatriotic citizen’, as he had sex with his “comfort woman” at a time when his subordinates were facing a life-​or-​death situation during a fierce combat with enemies (Nishino 2003:91). An enlisted soldier who witnessed an officer only in pants evacuating to an air raid shelter with his “comfort woman”, shivering and holding her hands, said, ‘Isn’t it officers who can’t fight without women?’ (Jūgun Ianfu 110 Ban Henshū Iinkai 1992:144) Ironically, the complaints and anger of enlisted soldiers against officers drove more of the former to use “comfort women” as an outlet to vent their grudges. As a result, “comfort women” became the linchpin of the Imperial Japanese Military in that they were the knot of the homosocial bond within each of the parallel masculine cultures. By visiting “comfort women”, soldiers reinforced not only homosocial male bonding but also a hierarchy of men between them by owning and controlling women. In the Imperial Japanese Military, the first-​year training of enlisted soldiers was critical to transforming young civilians to “fully fledged” soldiers and finally, to killing machines. How the transformation was carried out indicates the emergence of hegemonic masculinity as well as the interplay between manhood and humanhood.

“Comfort women” as a gendered national subject  117

The making of an imperial killing machine The first-​year training of new recruits in order to make “fully fledged” enlisted soldiers was more brutal than any other. They were repeatedly subjected to unbearable humiliation in various forms of punishments until they automatically submitted themselves to orders from their superiors, even if such military orders were wrong or irrational (Fujiwara 2000:22, 24). Ogawa Takemitsu, who went through the first-​year training in 1942, learned the military strategy, which brought out soldiers’ latent abilities for violence by relentlessly beating them until they surrendered to the authorities (Noda 1998:70). As Ogawa witnessed, trained individual soldiers became violent in order to conceal their weakness (Noda 1998:70). As soon as those first-​year privates successfully proceeded to the second-​year as “fully fledged” soldiers, they reproduced the oppressive military structural hegemonic masculinity by inflicting pain and shame upon new recruits, as had been thrust upon them (Nishino 1995:51). This chain of routine violence between senior and junior soldiers reinforced the domination–​subordination relations within the Japanese military hierarchy, which stripped subjectivity from individual soldiers, reducing them to ‘subordinate’ masculinity (Connell 1995/​2005:78–​9). This is the mechanism that ‘by means of rites of passage involving envy and humiliation, increases feelings of aggression and turns those feelings into’ consolidated power that attacks enemies (Noda 2000:55). What the state required of soldiers was to become a component of a faithful collective that never questioned dying for the Emperor. Noda Masaaki, a psychiatrist who interviewed former Japanese enlisted soldiers and military surgeons, describes the mentality of the collective: How mentally “strong” people are who live their lives conforming to the group and who possess only the weakest sense of themselves as individuals. People with no sense of self are comfortable only as long as they belong to a group. (Noda 2000:79) As addressed above, the process of military training within the Imperial Japanese Military stripped enlisted soldiers of their subjectivities in order to create “fully fledged” soldiers. Once they were recognised as such, they developed their hegemonic masculinity identity. However, it is important to note that there was some level of resistance by soldiers to the loss of their individual subjectivities. For example, soldiers who failed to totally remove their subjectivities suffered from anorexia. Ogawa, who also served as a military doctor in Beijing between 1943 and 1945, treated those soldiers who deserted from the Imperial Japanese Military during the Sankō Strategy, and found that many soldiers mobilised in China died of ‘war-​related malnutrition’ caused by their bodies simply refusing to live (Noda 1998:73–​5). This is what Connell identifies as ‘protest masculinity’ (Connell 1995/​2005:109–​12).

118  “Comfort women” as a gendered national subject These Japanese soldiers protested against the loss of their own humanity and dignity, which could tragically lead to their physical death. Believing that human beings should not be pushed to breaking point, Ogawa kept a record of soldiers who were dying by rejecting even a drip transfusion; however, his research records were all burned to ash after Japan’s defeat (Noda 1998:77, 88). All in all, a “fully fledged” soldier of the Japanese Military meant being part of an imperial war machine, which robbed soldiers of their agency in order to maintain an individual’s subjectivity by assimilating into the hegemonic masculinity. While not falling within a definition of resistance, many other soldiers visited “comfort women” in order to restore ‘his self’. A veteran explained that “comfort stations” were the space where he could reinstate his individuality free from military rules and hierarchical restrictions (Nishino 1995:63). Motoyama and other veterans also testified that “comfort stations” were ‘the only place where soldiers restored their humanness’ (Nishino 1992:22, 48). Giving consideration to how the soldiers elevated their sexual rights to their human rights, as discussed above, reconstructing the self is equivalent to reaffirming masculine subjectivity. This illustrates the dehumanising relationship between men and women in which a male sustains his humanness by removing the humanness and dignity of a feminised other. In short, women were reduced to being an object for men in order to achieve their masculinities which were damaged within the military. Affirmation of manhood by using female bodies on the battlefront conveys implications far different from peace time, because soldiers are constantly exposed to life-​ or-​ death situations. As some soldiers’ testimonies reveal, they went to “comfort stations” whenever they wanted to recognise that they were really “alive”. Many Japanese veterans said to Hirota, ‘In the frontline where I may be dead tomorrow, making love to a woman was the only proof of being alive’ (Hirota 2009:53–​4). One of the veterans told Hirota that he continued to visit “comfort stations” in Manila as long as he could afford to because he did not feel alive until he had sex with a woman (Hirota 2009:54). These accounts indicate that for Japanese soldiers being alive meant being alive as a hegemonic masculine man, not as a gender-​neutral human being. In other words, in their lives, heterosexual masculinity is more valuable and meaningful than any other. Therefore, they needed female bodies in order to reaffirm their manhood whenever their masculinity was threatened during the war. Thus, for soldiers, being alive on the battlefield was related to hegemonic masculinity. On the same grounds, “comfort women” became ‘a vital force in life’ (Yuasa 2004). Tamura Taijirō (1911–​83) was a veteran who published some “comfort women” novels based on his wartime experience. Of importance here is that in his 1947 book, entitled Shunpūden [A Life of a “Comfort Woman”], he portrayed “comfort stations” as ‘the washhouse of soldiers’ souls’ (WAM 2010:24). Here again, ‘vitality’ implicates strength of masculinity. Accordingly, for soldiers, “comfort women” were the only resource

“Comfort women” as a gendered national subject  119 available in the battlefield in order to accomplish their manhood by fulfilling the masculine desires for ‘superiority’, ‘possession’ and ‘power’ (Itō 1993, 1996). Chūkiren member Suzuki Yoshio testified that rape satisfied the desire for power (WAM 2010:31). As the abolitionist feminist discourse reveals, prostitution sex is the institutionalised form of rape and the “comfort stations” were ‘rape centres’ (McDougall 1998:28). This means that the “comfort stations” provided Japanese soldiers with women who were the objects of male ownership, control and domination. In the early modern patriarchy of Japan, non-​elite men did not have equal access to female bodies as elite men did, as discussed above. However, the combined masculinity of the citizen-​soldier democratised male sex-​rights, whereby non-​elite men/​soldiers were allowed to visit “comfort women” who were mostly from the lower socio-​economic classes. This non-​elite masculinity constituted the imperial killing machine at the command of elite masculinity. Thus, power and domination were reproduced over both working-​class men and women. We can see this articulation of manhood and masculinity in war across different cases of wartime. For example, Margot St. James (Hayton-​Keeva 1987), who sexually serviced US veterans, explains why they need prostitutes: When a man suffers the loss of a limb, or some other part of his body, he really needs sex with somebody to feel reaffirmed and whole. It’s a heavy trip, because the guy really does appreciate a hooker a lot and can fall in love really fast. (Hayton-​Keeva 1987:77) It is vital for him to reaffirm that he is still a masculine man even after losing parts of his physical body. Therefore, his deep appreciation for a prostitute’s dedication to help him accomplish masculinity is easily channelled into love. A similar development took place with Japanese soldiers. Some soldiers fell in love with “comfort women” and decided to marry them, whereas others competed against each other over their committed “comfort woman”, ending up in bloody fights (Yoshikai & Yuasa 1996:121). These stories tell us that this form of relationship between men and women signifies the ownership of women by men who fulfil their masculine desires. As Itō points out, men rarely regard women as equal human beings with diverse personalities (Itō 1996:109). Yet, strong male desire for hegemonic masculinity frames their feelings toward women.

Conclusion: beyond masculinity as humanity The mental and physical oppression of soldiers was normalised within the Imperial Japanese Military and it was a threat to their manliness. Unconditional obedience to the Emperor was forced on all soldiers through stringent military rules and cruel punishments. Such practices continuously feminised their outer and inner manhood, thereby increasing their stress

120  “Comfort women” as a gendered national subject and frustration level. Accordingly, they appreciated “comfort women” as the “gift” from the Emperor and utilised them as an outlet to vent their resentment at the military. This military strategy reveals a complex construction of hegemonic masculinity, which was achieved through the feminisation of soldiers. At the same time, their manliness shamed by feminisation demanded women for its recovery. The hegemonic masculinity of the citizen-​soldier in modernised Japan was constructed upon the divine emperor system in which Emperor Hirohito reigned over his people both as their Father and as the supreme commander-​ in-​chief of his army. It indicates that Emperor Hirohito was integral to amalgamating patriarchal paternalism in peace time with militarist nationalism in wartime. In the transition from citizenry to soldiery, male patriarchal rights to access female bodies were not only preserved, but also utilised in order to reinforce the irreversible military hierarchy through the homosocial bond between soldiers. In this vein, “comfort women” became the most “useful” resource by which soldiers, regardless of their rank, accomplished their masculinities. Yet, there was also resistance against the hegemonic masculinity and cracks within its hierarchy. The hegemonic masculinity of the Imperial Japanese Military, in Messerschmidt’s words, is ‘the idealised form of masculinity’ (Messerschmidt 1993:82) in wartime Japan, which was constituted by a cold-​blooded militarist who lost its human nature as well as a self-​less nationalist who died for the Emperor. A soldier’s individual subjectivity was erased within the military collective, which numbed his sense of guilt. This homosocial bond between soldiers is well described by Hikosaka Akira: Japanese soldiers who perpetrated dreadful atrocities against other Asians in the wartime were ordinary men who used to be good fathers or brothers in the peace time. … Even when they were engaging in brutal acts during the wartime, they were not insane. They were only doing the same things as other Japanese soldiers were doing in the same way as others were doing. (Hikosaka 2000:45) However, the extreme transition from human to killing machine through the trainings of killing people and brutal punishments put both manhood and humanhood of soldiers at risk. For them, to be alive as a human being meant to be alive as a masculine man. In this regard, “comfort stations” were the only place where feminised or dying soldiers restored their humanness, that is, their manliness. This was the logical extension of the hegemonic masculinity, and the state took advantage of it. In short, the state was in full control of individual soldiers’ feelings and thoughts by manipulating their masculine sexualities through the “comfort women” system. In order to transform Emperor Hirohito’s sons to his ideal soldiers, the state required “comfort women”. At the same time, there was resistance to hegemonic masculinity in

“Comfort women” as a gendered national subject  121 the form of deserters and those who rejected sexual activity. Of equal importance, the competition for access to “comfort women” not only reproduced hegemonic masculinity, resulting in an increase in the raping of local women, but also became sites where hegemonic masculinity, nationalism and patriotism were contested within the Japanese military itself. Soldiers’ visits to “comfort stations” were regarded as the manifestation of the hegemonic masculinity, which was the engine of the emperor-​worship nationalism. However, their indulgence in “comfort women” undermined their morale because their patriotism was questioned. Irrespective of the presence of hegemonic masculinity within the Japanese military, one of the major contradictions within this system was that the Japanese army regarded “comfort women” as more important “military resources” than its enlisted soldiers. As a Japanese veteran testified to the “comfort women” call centre, the Emperor’s “gifts” were officially categorised as “military supplies” (Jūgun Ianfu 110 Ban Henshū Iinkai 1992:67), and they were transported overseas, accompanied by shipping documents along with military provisions and ammunition (Nishino 1992:53). Even though this arrangement might have been confirmed for the convenience of the military, there were officers such as Kumai Toshinori, who took good care of Taiwanese “comfort women” in Panay Islands in the Philippines.13 This former Japanese military officer regarded it as his duty to protect the “gifts” from the Emperor (Kataronga! Lola tachi ni Seigi wo! 2011). In the military, “comfort women” were, therefore, regarded as part of the precious military procurement, in contrast to ‘disposable’ soldiers who ‘were easily mobilised with a piece of paper, Akagami, as Kaneko testified (Kaneko 2006:33). Thus, the state never hesitated to sacrifice enlisted soldiers whom it considered less than human. Yet, “replaceable” soldiers should not be deemed as equal to “disposable” “comfort women” because the latter were the victims of the sexual violence perpetrated by the former. Personal narratives told by both Kikumaru and Shirota testified to the brutality of the military sexual slavery system.

Notes 1 For example, it is referred to in Ryūji, T. (1990) Gunikan no Senjō Houkoku Ikenshū [Military medical doctors’ reports from war sites]. Tokyo: Fuji Shuppan, p. 58 and p. 129 (Ikeda & Ōgoshi 2000:178). 2 Male homosocial desire signifies the ‘continuum’ between homosocial desire and homosexual desire, that is, between ‘men promoting the interests of men’ and ‘men loving men’ (Sedgwick 2015:4). Sedgwick refers to a possible complicity between the two desires (Sedgwick 2015:57). 3 Gay J. McDougall, the Special Rapporteur, provides a legal definition of sexual slavery based on the 1926 Slavery Convention, which stipulates that “slavery” refers to ‘the status or condition of a person over whom any or all of the powers attaching to the rights of ownership are exercised, including sexual access through rape or other forms of sexual violence’ (McDougall 1998:4).

122  “Comfort women” as a gendered national subject 4 Emperor Showa abolished the imperial mistress system (Hayakawa 2005:169). 5 Chōsen referred to the Korean peninsula. 6 After the dissolution of the veterans’ association, the Chūkiren Peace Memorial Museum was established in Saitama Prefecture, aiming to pass their memory and activism on to younger generations. The museum keeps over 20,000 books, with related videos and photographs. Their quarterly magazine is Tyukiren. 7 According to Hirota, the military used this naming for “comfort women” in the passenger lists of their troopships (Hirota 2009:33). 8 In the Korean language, it is 아이고, which is similar to Oh My God in English. 9 According to the Royal Australian Navy, ‘[t]‌he Japanese plan was to initially seize the islands of Tulagi, in the Solomons, and Deboyne off the east coast of New Guinea. The intent was to use both islands as bases for flying boats which would then conduct patrols into the Coral Sea in order to protect the flank of the Moresby invasion force’. See NAVY Serving Australia with Pride: www.navy.gov. au/​history/​feature-​histories/​battle-​coral-​sea [accessed on 1 July 2021]. 10 In Japanese, chan is used for children and female friends in an affectionate manner. 11 During the war, Chinese people called Japanese soldiers ‘Riben Guizi’, meaning Japanese devils. 12 Gomi sent his letters mainly to his wife and younger brother between 1937 and 1940. His daughter, Hosaka Kinuko, happened to find them in his house after he passed away and she contributed them to the Yamanashi Peace Museum. This specific letter was shared with me through the gracious cooperation of Asakawa Tamotsu, the director of the museum. 13 Kumai was interviewed by Takemi Chieko in her documentary film entitled Kataronga! Lola tachi ni Seigi wo! (2011). According to Takemi, Kumai visited these Taiwanese women in order to ameliorate the stress caused by his military responsibility (Takemi 2016). Despite the predatory hegemonic masculinity embedded within the “comfort women” system, he treated them in a humane manner. For example, after the Japanese army was totally defeated by the Allied Forces, he safely guided them to an Allied detention camp for prisoners of war, where he was arrested as a war criminal. At the detention camp, he was able to survive because the Taiwanese women shared some of their food with him. In the documentary film, Kumai recalled this experience and even openly shed tears. Takemi’s documentary film depicting Filipino survivors of Japan’s wartime sexual slavery system was released in Japan in 2011. The Japanese title comes from Katarungan in Tagalog, meaning justice. Lola also refers to ‘grandmother’ in Tagalog.

References Primary sources Gomi, T. (1939) Letter to Gomi Tamiyoshi’s family, no date. Kaneko, Y. (2006) Chūkun aikoku de tatakatte ‘gokuakunin’ toha [I am wondering why people call me a devil, even though I fought for the emperor and my country] (The first half). Chūkiren, 36, 26–​33. Kataronga! Lola tachi ni Seigi wo! [Justice! Bring justice to Lolas!] (2011) Takemi, Chieko [DVD]. Tokyo: Lola Net. Kuwahara, K. (2006) Katararezaru tokkoukichi·Kushira: Seikanshita 「tokkou」 taiin no kokuhaku [Untold base for suicide attack·Kushira: Confession of survived Kamikaze pilot]. Tokyo: Bungei Shunjū.

“Comfort women” as a gendered national subject  123 McDougall, G. J. (1998) Contemporary forms of slavery: Introduction 1–​6. Systematic rape, sexual slavery and slavery-​like practices during armed conflict (pp. 1–​45). United Nations: Commission on Human Rights. Sub-​Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities, fiftieth session. Available at: https://​ dig​ital​libr​ary.un.org/​rec​ord/​257​682 (accessed 3 December 2021). Riben Guizi: Japanese Devils (2000) Matsui, Minoru [DVD]. Tokyo: Riben Guizi Producing Committee. Shirota, S. (1971) Maria no sanka [Maria’s song of praise]. Tokyo: Kanita Shuppanbu. Shirota, S. (1986) ‘Ishi no sakebi: Aru Jūgun ianfu no sakebi’ [An outcry of stone: an outcry of a “comfort woman”]. Interviewed by Kamizono, Osamu. TBS Radio, 19 January. Takemi, C. (2016) Interviewed by Sachiyo Tsukamoto on 13 July. Tokyo on the phone. Yuasa, K. (2004) Watashi ga shiru “Jūgun Ianfu” [The “Comfort Women” whom I know]. Kikan-​Tyukiren, 5–​1135676. Available at: www.ne.jp/​asahi/​tyuukiren/​web-​ site/​backnumber/​05/​yuasa_​ianhu.htm (accessed 29 November 2021).

Secondary sources Aoki, S. (2006) Nihongun heishi Kondō Hajime wasureenu sensō wo ikiru [Japanese soldier Kondō Hajime has lived with his unforgettable war]. Tokyo: Fūbaisha. Chapman, R., & Rutherford, J. (eds.) (1988) Male order: Unwrapping masculinity. London: Lawrence & Wishart. Connell, R. W. (1987) Gender and power: Society, the person, and sexual politics. California: Stanford University Press. Connell, R. W. (1995/​2005) Masculinities. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. Connell, R. W. & Messerschmidt, J. W. (2005) Hegemonic masculinity: Rethinking the concept. Gender & Society, 19(6), 829–​59. Dudink, S., Hagemann, K. (2004) ‘Masculinities in politics and war in the age of democratic revolutions, 1750–​1850’, in Dudink, S., Hagemann, K., & Tosh, J. (eds.) (2004) Masculinities in politics and war: Gendering modern history. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, pp. 3–​21. Dudink, S., Hagemann, K. & Tosh, J. (eds.) (2004) Masculinities in politics and war: Gendering modern history. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press. Fujiwara, A. (2000) Tennō no guntai no tokushoku: Gyakusatsu to seibōryoku no genin [Characteristics of Emperor’s army: The cause of genocide and sexual violence], in Ikeda, E. & Ōgoshi, A. (eds.) Kagai no seishinkōzō to sengosekinin [Perpetrators’ psychology and war responsibility]. Tokyo: Ryokufū Shuppan. Girard, R. (1965) Deceit, desire, and the novel. Translated by Y. Freccero. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Gramsci, Antonio (1971) Selections from prison notebooks. London: Lawrence and Wishart, pp. 245–​6. Guardino, P. (2014) Gender, soldiering, and citizenship in the Mexican–​American War of 1846–​1848. American Historical Review, 119(1), 23–​46. Hayakawa, N. (2005) Kindai Tennōsei to Kokumin Kokka: Ryōsei kankei o jiku to shite [The modern-​time emperor system and the nation state: Focus on gender relations]. Tokyo: Aoki Shoten. Hayton-​Keeva, S. (1987) Valiant women in war and exile: Thirty-​eight true stories. San Francisco, CA: City Lights Books. Herman, J. L. (1992) Trauma and recovery. New York, NY: Basic Book.

124  “Comfort women” as a gendered national subject Hidaka, K. (2004) Fujichaku [Emergency landing]. Tokyo: Chūōseihan Insatsu Kabushikigaisha. Hikosaka, A. (2000) ‘Danseishinwa karamita heishi no seishinkōzō’ [Soldiers’ psychological structure in the analysis of male-​centred myth], in Ikeda, E. & Ōgoshi, A. (eds.) Kagai no seishinkōzō to sengosekinin [Perpetrators’ psychology and war responsibility]. Tokyo: Ryokufū Shuppan, pp. 44–​72. Hirota, K. (2009) Shōgen kiroku Jūgun ianfu/​kangofu: Senjo ni ikita onna no dokoku [Testimonial records of military comfort women/​nurses: Lamentations of the women who lived at the front]. Tokyo: Shinjinbutsuōraisha. Hirota, K. (2016) Interview with Sachiyo Tsukamoto, 5 June. Ikeda, E., & Ōgoshi, A. (eds.) (2000) Kagai no seishinkōzō to sengosekinin [Perpetrators’ psychology and war responsibility]. Tokyo: Ryokufū Shuppan. Itō, K. (1993) no yukue: Danseibunka no bunka shakaigaku [Future of : Cultural sociology of male culture]. Tokyo: Shinyōsha. Itō, K. (1996) Danseigaku nyūmon [Introduction to men’s studies]. Tokyo: Sakuhinsha. Jūgun Ianfu 110 Ban Henshū Iinkai. (1992) Jūgun ianfu 110 ban [Military comfort women information call 110]. Tokyo: Akashi Shoten. Kawata, F. (2005) Ianfu to yobareta senjō no shōjo [Girls in battlefields called comfort women]. Tokyo: Kōbunken. Kawata, F. (2014) Nihonjin ‘ianfu’ Tanaka Tami san no shōgen [Testimony of a Japanese “comfort woman”, Tanaka Tami]. Shukan Kinyobi, 1019, 5 December, 28–​31. Kinoshita, N. (2017) ‘Ianfu’ mondai no gensetsu kūkan: Nihonjin ‘ianfu’ no fukashika to genzen [The space within discourse of the issue of ‘comfort women’: Invisibilisation and emergence of Japanese ‘comfort women’]. Tokyo: Bensei Shuppan. Kobayashi, A. (15 November 2017) Seibōryoku wo ‘sasainakoto’ nisuru reipu kalucha toha nanika [What is rape culture that makes sexual violence “trivial”]. BuzzFeedNEWS, 15 November. Available at: www.buzzfeed.com/​jp/​ akikokobayashi/​kimioito?utm_​term=​.tk51rE47Le#.oubXvkz32Q (accessed 29 November 2021). Kronsell, A. (2006) ‘Methods for studying silence: Gender analysis in institutions of hegemonic masculinity’, in Ackerly, B. A., Stern, M., & True, J. (eds.) Feminist methodologies for international relations. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, pp. 108–​28. Kumagai, F. (1983) Changing divorce in Japan. Journal of Family History, 8(1), 85–​108. Matsumoto, M. (2016) Interview with Sachiyo Tsukamoto, 15 June 2016. Messerschmidt, J. W. (1993) Masculinities and crime: Critique and reconceptualization of theory. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Nishino, R. (1992) Jūgun ianfu: Motoheishi no shōgen [Military comfort women: Japanese veterans’ testimonies]. Tokyo: Akashi Shoten. Nishino, R. (1995) Nihongun ‘ianfu’ wo otte: Moto ‘ianf’ moto gunjin no shōgenroku [Follow Japanese military ‘comfort women’: Testimonials of former ‘comfort women’ and Japanese veterans]. Tokyo: Nashinokisha. Nishino, R. (2003) Senjō no ‘ianf’: Ramou zenmetsusen wo ikinobita Pak Yonshimu no kiseki [A “comfort woman” in battleground: The miracle of Pak Yonshimu, who survived the Ramou extermination operation]. Tokyo: Akashi Shoten. Noda, M. (1998) Sensō to zaiseki [War and guilt]. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten. Noda, M. (2000) Japanese atrocities in the Pacific War: One army surgeon’s account of vivisection on human subjects in China, translated by Schalow, Paul G. East Asia (Fall), 49–​91.

“Comfort women” as a gendered national subject  125 Norma, C. (2016) The Japanese comfort women and sexual slavery during the China and Pacific wars. New York, NY: Bloomsbury Academic. Pateman, C. (1988) The sexual contract. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Qiu, P. (2013) Chinese comfort women testimonies from Imperial Japan’s sex slaves. Vancouver, Canada: UBC Press. Sedgwick, E. K. (2015) Between men: English literature and male homosocial desire. New York, NY: Columbia University Press. Senda, K. (1985) Jugun ianfu: Keiko (Military comfort women: Keiko). Tokyo: Kōbunsha. Senda, K. (1992) Zoku Jūgun ianfu [A sequel to military comfort women] 2. Tokyo: Kōdansha. Soh, C. S. (2008) The comfort women: Sexual violence and postcolonial memory in Korea and Japan. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Takasaki, R. (1994) 100 satsu ga kataru ‘Ianjo’ otoko no honne: Ajia zenikini ‘ianjo’ ga atta. Kyōkasyo ni kakarenakatta sensō part 17 [‘Comfort stations’ told by 100 books; Men’s true feelings: ‘Comfort stations’ spread out through Asia. War untold by textbooks part 17]. Tokyo: Nashinoki Sha. Tanaka, M. (2004) Inochi no onnatachi he [For women of life]. Tokyo: Gendaishokan. Tosh, J. (2004) ‘Hegemonic masculinity and the history of gender’, in Dudink, S., Hagemann, K., & Tosh, J. (eds.) Masculinities in politics and war: Gendering modern history. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, pp. 41–​58. Tsurumi, K. (1970) Social change and the individual: Japan before and after defeat in World War II. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Utsumi, A., Ishida, Y., & Katō, N. (eds.) (2005) Aru nihonhei no futatsu no senjō: Kondō Hajime no owaranai sensō [Two battlefields of a Japanese soldier: Kondō Hajime’s endless war]. Tokyo: Shakai Hyōron Sha. Women’s Active Museum on War and Peace. (2010) Shōgen to chinmoku: Kagai nimukiau motoheishitachi [Testimony and silence: Former Japanese soldiers facing their war crimes]. Tokyo: WAM. Yoshikai, N. & Yuasa, K. (1996) Kesenai kioku: Nihongun no seitaikaibou no kiroku [Unerasable memory: The record of vivisection by the Japanese army]. Tokyo: Nicchu Shuppan. Yoshimi, Y. (1995) Jūgun Ianfu (Military comfort women). Tokyo: Iwanami Shinsho. Yoshimi, Y. (2000) Comfort women: Sexual slavery in the Japanese military during World War II. New York, NY: Columbia University Press. Yoshimi, Y., & Hayashi, H. (eds.) (1995) Kyōdō kenkyu: Nihongin ianfu [Joint research: Japanese military comfort women]. Tokyo: Ōtsuki Shoten.

7  Epilogue

Introduction We, human beings and human societies, are processes of becoming. We are what we have been and what we will be. What we have been, what we call our past, exists nowhere else than as an idea in our minds. What we will be, what we call our future, exists nowhere else than in our minds. What we call the present is the vanishing-​point between the past and the future, a mere idea within our minds of the relationship between what we have been and what we will be. In the continuous present of our idea of our becoming, we present the past and the future to ourselves as a contrast between an actuality and a potentiality. (Allott 2001:61, emphasis in original)

This quote is an extract from a chapter of How We Might Live?: Global Ethics in the New Century (Allott 2001:61). The author, Philip Allott, Professor of International Public Law, articulates the self-​transformation of humans as both individuals and collectives in relation to our past, present and future. He calls this constant process of our identity (re)construction as ‘becoming’ in which ‘through the mental processes which we call personal memory and social history’ we can continuously ‘re-​imagine the actuality of our past’ (Allott 2001:61, emphasis in original). Also, as he proposes, we can constantly (re) define ‘the potentiality-​for-​us’ of our future; therefore, our present is situated as ‘the vanishing-​point’ to connect our past and our future (Allott 2001:61). This perspective expands the process of becoming based on the (re)evaluation of the past through the prism of the present because our re-​examination of the past in the present time can substantially affect our choice about what we want to or should become in the future. Hence, the present as ‘the vanishing-​ point’ in the interaction between our past and our future is ‘filled with the idea of responsibility, the permanent and inescapable burden of choosing the future’, thus our life is ‘a process of choosing to become’ (Allott 2001:62, emphasis in original). Allott concludes the process of becoming as followed: The moral burden of choosing the future includes the moral burden of choosing our idea of the past, of forming our idea of what we were, DOI: 10.4324/9781003203698-7

Epilogue  127 as individuals and as societies. We are what we have been, whether we remember it or not. But what we remember, and the way in which we choose to remember it, are added to what we have been in making what we will be. Memory and history shape the process of our becoming, up to and including the becoming of all-​humanity. (Allott 2001:62) Allott’s proposition completes the ‘politics of integrity’ (Morales 1998) by emphasising the impact of our present memory about our past on our future becoming. The significance of our human integrity and ethics in (dis) remembering our past is central to this book. In this vein, this epilogue provides some critical reflection on us as active agents who are constantly in the process of our becoming as individuals and societies.

Modern nation-​states as imagined communities The stories of Kikumaru and Shirota elucidate how modernity is premised upon the logics of ‘negation of humanness’ (Motta 2018:6). The 1868 modernisation of Japan as a new nation-​state was characterised by the introduction of both capitalism and militarism, as discussed in Chapter 5. On the one hand, the emergence of the market economy in nineteenth-​century Japan allowed the state to exploit the daughters of poor families who were the properties of the head of the patriarchal family through the legalised prostitution system as a lucrative source of national income. On the other hand, the advent of capitalism thoroughly demoted those indentured sex slaves through a process of social stigmatisation by commodifying and objectifying their sexualities as well as their personhood (Stanley 2012:18). This commercialisation and enslavement of poor females promoted the patriarchal dichotomy of “good” and “bad” women, and the state legitimised the binary by institutionalising commercial prostitution. Accordingly, the former was marginalised to reproductive objects, whereas the latter was reduced to disposable non-​subjects. The capitalist state also fragmented male sexuality, by taking advantage of women’s sexuality that was divided into mothers/​wives and whores as a means of its control of male sexuality (Tanaka 2004:338). The state legitimation of civilian prostitution in the form of the mistress system and the licensed prostitution system legalised the ‘sexual contract’ (Pateman 1988) of the male patriarchal right to access the female body, as argued in Chapter 5. This segmentation of female sexuality also divided male sexuality into that for reproduction and the other for pleasure, suppressing men into fragmented pieces (Tanaka 2004:338). The two different prostitution systems –​the mistress practice and state-​ licensed prostitution –​in peace time divided male fraternity into elite and non-​elite males. That is, elite men enjoyed the monopoly of a mistress whereas non-​elite men shared prostituted women. As a result, the fragmentation of male sexuality was more promoted among elite men. For poor men, both

128 Epilogue mistresses and prostitutes were out of reach. This class-​based hierarchy was embedded within the Japanese military, which seemingly democratised male access to female bodies among all soldiers through the “comfort women” system. Accordingly, officers owned their personal “comfort women” like mistresses, whereas enlisted soldiers were strictly restricted to visit “comfort stations”, which became scarce on the front line. Thus, the parallel fraternities were perpetuated from peace time through wartime. Modernity transformed the relationship between the state and women, thereby expanding in particular ways, logics and rationalities of the ‘sexual contract’ (Pateman 1988) that solely proposes the male domination of female sexuality. The modern capitalist state used the patriarchal binary of women for economic prosperity. However, as Chapter 2 demonstrated with the gendered relations between the US and Japan after 1945, the boundary between “good” and “bad” women is not fixed but redrawn and/​or removed by the state for its own benefit, based upon social circumstances and political relations with other states. It implicates what Edkins calls the state ‘prerogative’ to use violence whereby ‘the modern nation-​state works by processes of enforced exclusion, and it can change the definition of who precisely will be excluded at any time’ (Edkins 2003:6). All in all, capitalism allows women to be the property of the state as a tool to consolidate power. This statecraft also divides women and men by dehumanising the former and undermining the possibilities of humanised and liberated relationships. By failing to construct human relationships with women, men also dehumanise themselves. This dehumanisation process of both men and women through capitalist statecraft is further institutionalised by militarism. The militarisation of the nation-​state is another process of dehumanisation in modern society. The modern militarist state made women hostile to each other through the patriarchal binary and took advantage of this divide in order to accomplish statecraft. As Chapters 5 and 6 argued, the state always forced “bad” women to sacrifice themselves as a human “breakwater” in order to save “good” women. However, as pointed out above, there is no division between the binary for the state. The most powerful tool for militarisation of a whole nation is conscription. It imposes upon poor men a representation and practice of becoming the self-​sacrificing soldier who never hesitates to kill enemies to protect the country. In the Imperial Japanese Military, however, the lives of enlisted soldiers were totally ignored without even ‘a proper food supply’ (Fujiwara 2000:29) so that a great number of them died from starvation (Fujiwara 2000:131–​8). What Western modernisation introduced was ‘citizen–​soldier masculinity’ (Nye 2007; Guardino 2014). This transformation of masculinity is part of the ‘social contract’ (Pateman 1988) between the state and men, which democratises male citizenship with equal political participation and rights, regardless of class, in exchange for military service. The transformation of a peaceful citizen into a killing machine is the key to the militarist state.

Epilogue  129 Given that modernity is also characterised by liberation from a feudal society, ‘self-​motivated soldiers who were committed to protecting their own country’, as represented by French draftees after the French Revolution (Fujiwara 2000:21), could be the driving force to make the extreme transformation possible. However, the Japanese modernisation process ironically introduced an anachronistic feudal relationship between the emperor and the nation, which was central to the emperor-​worship nationalism. This is the ‘cultural roots of nationalism’ in modern Japan as the foundation of the ‘imagined community’ with ‘the belief that society was naturally organized around and under high centres-​monarchs who were persons apart from other human beings and who ruled by some form of cosmological (divine) dispensation’ (Anderson 1983/​1991/​2006:9–​36). This Japanese example also illustrates the cultural particularities in the universal representation of modern citizen–​ soldier masculinity. Modern militarism collaborates with nationalism because the modern nation as the ‘imagined community’ (Anderson 1983/​1991/​2006) gives rise to the necessity for people to feel a sense of belonging to ensure state legitimacy and consent to be ruled/​governed. My analysis of modernised Japan demonstrates the emergence of an ‘imagined community’, which transformed itself from a decentralised feudal country to a unified modern nation-​state under the patriarchal symbol of the emperor. The emperor-​worship nationalism was the vehicle to mobilise the state’s war in which both men and women played roles based on a gendered division of labour. The “comfort women” system was the device by which the state not only controlled soldiers’ sexualities, but also deceived and manipulated their manhood and humanhood in order to create the hegemonic masculinity of the Imperial Japanese Military. The emperor-​ worship as well as the “comfort women” system worked together in order to conceal the dehumanisation of soldiers brought about by the modern masculinity of citizen–​soldier. Thus, in a modern era, ‘[s]‌tates are founded on violence’ and ‘physical violence remains a tool that only the state is allowed to use’ (Edkins 2003:6). Modernity thus strips humanity from both women and men. Fragmentation and segmentation of their sexuality and personhood become the politics of binaries embedded within this particular organisation of social and economic relations and political power. Therefore, binaries such as feminised and masculinised, “good” and “bad” women, or elite and non-​elite (wo)men eliminate humanised relationships from the nation. The state also monopolises the power of historical production. This state control of the official narratives in war memory is all the more significant to perpetuate the ‘imagined community’ for the sake of its statecraft. Duncan Bell explains the nexus of memory and identity as follows: It is commonly argued that group identities require a relatively widely shared understanding of history and its meaning, the construction of a

130 Epilogue narrative tracing the linkages between past and present, locating self and society in time. It is this understanding that helps to generate affective bonds, a sense of belonging, and which engenders obligations and loyalty to the “imagined community”. (Bell 2006:5) Therefore, as Anthony Smith notes, ‘one might almost say: no memory, no identity; no identity, no nation’ (Smith 1996:383, as cited in Bell 2006:5). This innate interaction between (dis)remembering and collective identity creation manifests an official politics of memory that reveals/​ reproduces unequal power relations among contested memories. After Japan’s defeat of World War II, ‘[n]‌egotiations over the interpretation of the war, and the interpretation of the pre-​1945 nation, continue to shape interpretations of Japan as a state and the identity of its citizens’ (Trefalt 2002:115). This is because ‘[i]n modernity, memory is the key to personal and collective identity. … the core of the psychological self’ (Roth 1995:8–​9, as cited in Klein 2000:135). The “comfort women” victim-​survivors have challenged the nation-​state as “imagined communities” by transcending national boundaries. The next section illustrates how their memory gained public recognition since 1991, while examining where the public memory of Japanese victims has been situated in the development of the transnational justice movement.

The ‘Circles of Memory: The “Comfort Women” and the World’ As argued in the introductory chapter, the construction of ‘imagined communities of women’ across geographical, racial, cultural and social class borders can allow us to reach all voices of the victims of sexual violence. The ultimate goal of this book is to transcend the divide in connecting Japanese victims of the “comfort women” system and their non-​Japanese counterparts into the imagined community of victims of sexual enslavement. For this purpose, this section will critically reflect upon where Japanese victims have been situated within the ‘Circles of Memory: The Comfort Women and the World’, which is created by George Sansom Professor of History, Carol Gluck (2021). The diagram was generated by the author, courtesy of the professor (Figure 7.1). The ‘Circles of Memory’ depict how the “comfort women” came into ‘public memory’ and transcended geographical and cultural borders, moving around the world as ‘traveling memory’ (Gluck 2021). The first phase, ‘Victims and Advocates’ implicates the former as ‘memory agents’ who brought the issue to the world and the latter as ‘memory activists’ who sought official apologies and compensation from the Japanese government for the justice of the victims. This initial stage emerged in the wake of Kim Hak-​soon’s breaking of silence in 1991, which drew a wider audience to this forgotten history. Nevertheless, the sharing of memories of non-​Japanese victims was restricted within East and South-​East Asia (Gluck 2021).

Epilogue  131

Global Memory Memory Politics Diasporas in Action Human Rights of Women

Victims and Advocates

Figure 7.1 ‘Circles of Memory: The Comfort Women and the World’. Courtesy of Professor Carol Gluck, from her lecture, ‘Contested Memory and Mass Violence: Understanding the Experience of the Comfort Women’ at the event organised by the Undergraduate Committee on Global Thought’s Exploration of the Politics of Memory at Columbia University, USA, on 4 October 2021, available at www.youtube.com/​watch?v=​5tMAbgNozhk.

The emerging transnational movement for justice for the victims of the Japanese military system of sexual slavery facilitated by Korean, Japanese and other Asian feminist activists achieved a paradigm change in the issue of “comfort women” into that of women’s human rights. This humanitarian turn of the “comfort women” issue is illustrated in the second phase of the ‘Circles of Memory’ (Gluck 2021). The “comfort women” system was proposed as a system of sexual slavery in two separate reports by United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteurs in 1996 (Coomaraswamy 1994) and 1998 (McDougall), respectively. Consequently, the transnational justice movement for the victims was elevated to activism for international women’s human rights, which dealt with trafficking of women, rape as a weapon of war and crimes against humanity, as manifested in Bosnia, Yugoslavia and Rwanda (Gluck 2021). The Women’s International War Tribunal on Japan’s Military Sexual Slavery in 2000 hosted by a Japanese feminist group, Violence Against Women in War Network, Japan (VAWW-​NET Japan), was the culmination of the efforts and dedication of conscientious memory activists. In the third phase of the ‘Circles of Memory’ is ‘Diasporas in Action’. Here, memory agents are ‘Asian activists’ who immigrated to the West, such as the US, Canada and Australia, and launched ‘redress movements’ by lobbying states and/​or promoting “comfort women” memorials. The purpose of their

132 Epilogue activism is to ‘appeal to wider communities in their residing countries’. At the same time, the spread of this Asian diaspora movement on a global scale manifests the ‘politics of ethnic identity’ (Gluck 2021). In the fourth phase, the identity politics based on their past war created conflict between Japanese and non-​Japanese diaspora communities, which has caused contestation in the public memory of the “comfort women”. This contested memory of the past is a manifestation of ‘Memory Politics’ (Gluck 2021). Here, ‘wielding history as a weapon in international relations’, states politicise the past for ‘national, patriotic and populist purposes’ (Gluck 2021). In the final phase of ‘Global Memory’, ‘memory agents are diverse’ and the memory of “comfort women” is travelling around the world in the same way that the memory of Holocaust is moving around. This travelling memory of “comfort women” is ‘invoking same or different meanings in different places’ such as ‘rape in conflict zones, and the present-​day trafficking or sexual violence’. However, there is ‘no tracing of historical contexts or even colonial past’ concerning the experiences of the victims or even ‘no mentioning of women or Asia’ (Gluck 2021). Against this backdrop on the global theatre of memory, Gluck emphasises the significance of our efforts to consider the present sexual violence against women in connection with the past and the future. Situating the experiences of Japanese victims including both Kikumaru and Shirota into the ‘Circles of Memory’ helps us to re-​evaluate how the Japanese victims have been incorporated into public memory. Many Japanese victims were already confined into the state-​licensed prostitution system as another sexual slavery system, prior to being mobilised into “comfort stations”. Accordingly, all victims, including non-​Japanese women, were remembered as “prostitutes” inflicted with undeletable stigma until the first breaking of silence in 1991. In the first phase of the circles, non-​Japanese victim-​survivors who publicly came forward emerged as memory agents, whereas their Japanese counterparts (except Tanaka Tami) have kept silence thus far. Moral memory activists based in Asia, including Japan, committed themselves to restoring justice to those non-​Japanese silence breakers. In the second phase, the disconnection between Japanese and non-​ Japanese victims became even wider since the two UN Special Rapporteurs had concluded that the Japanese “comfort women” system was a system of sexual slavery and that the victims were rape victims. The representation of “comfort women” as sex slaves further ignited the counterattack from “comfort women” denialists, who repeatedly (ab)used some positive experiences of Japanese victims such as Kikumaru for the evasion of Japan’s state responsibility for its war crimes against humanity. In this contestation, the 2000 women’s tribunal organised by the VAWW-​NET Japan successfully brought the case of Japanese women as victims. However, while the backlash from the “comfort women” denialists became more and more fierce against transnational justice activism, the hope of including Japanese women in the victim

Epilogue  133 category so as to create an imagined community against the state’s wartime sexual violence drastically diminished. The third phase signifies the interaction between memory making and identity construction in Asian diaspora communities around the globe. Here, the term diaspora is loosely ‘used to denote almost any migrant community’ (De Haas, Castle & Miller 2014:83). At this stage, the local and regional memory of “comfort women” started diffusing into the world through transnational activism carried out by Asian offspring based in the West, seeking its significance in their diaspora communities. This is a process of ‘becoming’ for those third-​or fourth-​ generation Asians who are longing for their motherlands while looking for strong ties with the communities where they belong. This “be-​longing and becoming” process is also a step to create their imagined communities which fill the geographical and emotional gap between their homelands and foreign societies. In the same vein, Japanese communities in the US, Canada and Australia have also engaged in the creation of their ethnic identity as Japanese outside Japan. However, their memory activism is more complex, as illustrated in some Western communities, where they have served as counter-​memory or denialist activists and taken advantage of the situation of Japanese victims who were prostitutes before their mobilisation to the “comfort stations”. In the fourth phase, the confrontation in the public memory of “comfort women” among the Asian diaspora communities in the West was elevated to the contestation about how to remember the “comfort women” on both societal and governmental levels. Social movements ‘that are the results of grass-​ roots initiatives by immigrants and their home country counterparts’ are called ‘transnationalism from below’, whereas institutional strategies ‘conducted by powerful institutional actors, such as multinational corporations and states’ refer to ‘transnationalism from above’ (Portes, Guarnizo & Landolt 1999: 221, as cited in De Haas et al. 2014:83). The Japanese government has flexed its muscle as transnationalism from above to combat transnationalism from below by influencing international organisations and other states through its continuing efforts to control the outcome in its favour. The continuous abuse of fragmented stories of Japanese victims by nationalists and denialists in governments, businesses, academics and societies illustrates the tragedy of Japanese victims like Kikumaru and Shirota, whose life-​or-​death efforts for public recognition have been repeatedly stigmatised even decades after they passed away. Thus, the place of public memory of Japanese victims has remained outside transnational justice activism even after 1991. The final phase of ‘Global Memory’ in the ‘Circles of Memory’ would not contribute to re-​creating the imagined community for all “comfort women” victims. It would rather accelerate the dichotomy between the advocates and the opponents through sharing meanings only beneficial to their own side. It implies that the stories of Japanese victims will reside with and linger within the denialist community for its benefits for good. Here, we need to recall what

134 Epilogue the Japanese journalist/​activist Nishino asserted, as shown in the introduction chapter: It is not until the victimisation of “comfort women” who were civilian prostitutes is revealed and understood as a violation of women’s human rights, that the wider communities cannot recognise the issue of “comfort women” as that of violation of human rights. (Nishino 2016) Therefore, Gluck’s emphasis on the interaction in the triangle of the past, the present and the future is all the more important to grasp the real nature of the “comfort women” system. As Allott notes, we are always in the process of ‘becoming’ as responsible individuals and members of society in pursuit of abolition of sexual violence.

From empathy to activism as imagined communities The stories of Kikumaru and Shirota tell us the importance of ‘the listener to trauma’ (Felman & Laub 2013:57), who bears ‘witness’ to their ‘extreme trauma’ through listening (Gilbert 2018:84) and shares their memory of trauma. Given their enormous difficulties and tremendous courage in speaking of their life-​or-​death sufferings throughout their entire lives, we are responsible for responding to their traumas, as argued in the introductory chapter. Transcending the impossibility of communicating trauma between the narrator and the audience by traversing divergent binaries which divide our society into us and the “other” is the only way to be ‘the listener to trauma’. Being ‘the listener’ is thus our first step to (re)create the imagined community against sexual violence. To the victim of trauma who constantly undergoes multi-​layered fractures and fragmentations in the struggle to (re) construct her coherent life history, ‘the listener’ provides personal recognition of her suffering. This intimate recognition indicates that the listener sees her as the same human. What makes this equal human relationship between the two sides possible is the listener’s empathy towards the speaker. This ‘imagined connection’ is also possible to construct between written testimonies and readers, even though written accounts need much more imagination to be ‘the listener’ than narrations with a face and voice (Finnerty 2016:9). In contrast, stigma adversely affects our feelings of empathy since it continuously instils the “victim blame” attitudes in our minds and society. Accordingly, the stigmatised are labelled as less valuable without human qualities and regarded as disposable. The life histories of both Kikumaru and Shirota signify the total lack of this human empathy towards indentured prostituted women from poor families in past and present Japanese society. Their political agency challenged this gender and class hierarchy in remembering or forgetting the past war by overcoming the ‘conspiracy of silence’ (Danieli 1998:680). This strategy manifests the complicity between the state and society in an attempt to internalise the perpetrator’s shame and

Epilogue  135 guilt into the victim’s inner self by shaming her and silencing her voice. The victim-​survivors’ constant efforts to create their own life stories with coherence between the past self and the present self, as well as between the private sense of self and the publicly recognised self, are the manifestations of their aspiration for both dignity and integrity as women with human faces. Then, how can we contribute to restoring the dignity and integrity of Japanese “comfort women”? First of all, we should listen ‘not only to listen for the event, but to hear in the testimony the survivor’s departure from it’; however, our challenge is how we can listen to their ‘departure’ (Caruth 1995:10). The survivor’s departure from her traumatic experience is demonstrated by the moment when she has switched her strategy to cope with trauma from the ‘flight’ mode to the ‘fight’ mode (Herman 1992:199). As shown by Kikumaru in Chapter 3 and Shirota in Chapter 4, their departure indicates the declaration of their strong aspiration for public recognition as human. We need to listen to the survivors’ departure in order to help them speak out about their trauma narratives and/​or to witness and share their experiences of suffering. This intimate human connection between you and the victim is the fundamental point to create the ‘imagined community’ against sexual violence, as illustrated by the dialogues between Shirota and her listener, Reverend Fukatsu. Shirota’s activism anchored to her strong commitment to passing a better future on to younger generations also manifests the process of ‘becoming’ by situating herself in the prism of the past, the present and the future. In the 1980s, her ‘imagined community’ against sexual violence expanded out of Kanita, connecting to a broader community across Japan. In 1991, her ‘imagined community’ spiritually reached out to Kim Hak-​soon through watching a TV programme featuring her lawsuit. At this point, Shirota already shared a strong feeling of solidarity with Hak-​soon as an initiator of transnational activism against wartime sexual violence, which came into full bloom in the 1990s. In contrast to the 1970s and 1980s, when no “comfort women” denialists as concerted political and societal power had yet emerged, today’s politics of remembering the past war has become more politicised and complex, as the ‘Circles of Memory’ illustrates. ‘Imagined communities’ to endorse or oppose the “comfort women” as the victims of sexual enslavement have been transcending national borders and spreading throughout the globe as transnational activism. Here, again, we need to recall Allott’s important proposition: ‘We, human beings and human societies, are processes of becoming’ and ‘Memory and history shape the process of our becoming, up to and including the becoming of all-​humanity (Allott 2001:61, 62). As a responsible member of humanity, what kind of society would you like to choose for the future? Is it a society without any coherent interaction among the past, the present and the future at both individual and collective level? As history witnessed, communities without human integrity have transcended what Bourke (2006) calls the ‘threshold of the human’ by repeatedly inflicting pain on and dehumanising the victims for capitalist and militarist statecraft.

136 Epilogue Our future is in our individual hands. As individual moral citizen-​activists who are responsible for choosing our future ‘becoming’, we can (re)create and/​or participate in the ‘imagined community’ against all forms of sexual violence. In the age of ‘Global Memory’ (Gluck 2021), it is easier to transcend a variety of boundaries than ever before. Robin Cohen notes the new transnationalism in which transnational bonds no longer have to be cemented by migration or by exclusive territorial claims. In the age of cyberspace, a diaspora can, to some degree, be held together or re-​created through the mind, through cultural artefacts and through a shared imagination (Cohen 1996:516, as cited in Vertovec 2000:450). The new platforms of transnational activism thus provide us with an ‘imaginary coherence’ of our human identities and bestow us with ‘new subjectivities in the global arena’ (Hall 1990; Nonini & Ong 1997, both as cited in Vertovec 2000:450, 451). The ‘politics of integrity’ (Morales 1998) continues to ask us whether we have exerted ourselves to create our coherent memory and history as both individuals and members of human society.

References Allott, P. (2001) ‘Globalization from above: Actualizing the ideal through law’, in Booth, K., Dunne, T., & Cox, M. (eds.) How we might live?: Global ethics in the new century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 61–​79. Anderson, B. (1983/​1991/​2006) Imagined communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism. London: Verso. Bell, D. (ed.) (2006) Memory, trauma and world politics. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. Bourke, J. (2006) When the torture becomes humdrum. Times Higher Education, 10 February (accessed 22 November 2021). Caruth, C. (ed.) (1995) Trauma: Explorations in memory. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Cohen, R. (1996) Diasporas and the nation-​ state: From victims to challengers. International Affairs (Royal Institute of International Affairs 1944–​), 72(3), 507–​20. Coomaraswamy, R. (1994) Report of the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences in accordance with Commission on Human Rights resolution 1994/​45, The United Nations. 22 November. Available at: E_​CN-​ 4_​1996_​53_​Add-​1-​EN –​PDF (accessed 22 November 2021). Danieli, Y. (ed.) (1998) International handbook of multigenerational legacies of trauma. New York: Plenum Press. De Haas, H., Castle, S. & Miller, M.J. (2014) The age of migration: International population movements in the modern world, sixth edition. New York: Guilford Press. Edkins, J. (2003) Trauma and the memory of politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Felman, S. & Laub, D. (2013) Testimony: Crises of witnessing in literature, psychoanalysis, and history. London: Routledge. Finnerty, S. (2016) Stigma and empathy: An organising principle for the continuum of social understanding. Available at: www.researchgate.net/​publication/​307934609 (accessed 3 May 2021).

Epilogue  137 Fujiwara, A. (2000) ‘Tennō no guntai no tokushoku: Gyakusatsu to seibōryoku no genin [Characteristics of Emperor’s army: The cause of genocide and sexual violence]’, in Ikeda, E. & Ōgoshi, A. (eds.) Kagai no seishinkōzō to sengosekinin [Perpetrators’ psychology and war responsibility]. Tokyo: Ryokufū Shuppan. Gilbert, C. (2018) From surviving to living: Voice, trauma and witness in Rwandan women’s writing. Montpellier: Presses Universitaires de la Méditerranée. Gluck, C. (2021) ‘Contested memory and mass violence: Understanding the experience of the comfort women’ in the event organised by the Undergraduate Committee on Global Thought’s Exploration of the Politics of Memory at Columbia University. 4 October 2021. Available at: www.youtube.com/​watch?v=​5tMAbgNozhk&t=​1503s (accessed 2 December 2021). Guardino, P. (2014) Gender, soldiering, and citizenship in the Mexican–​American War of 1846–​1848. American Historical Review, 119(1), 23–​46. Hall, S. (1990) ‘Cultural identity and diaspora’, in Rutherford, J. (ed.) Identity: Community, culture, difference. London: Lawrence and Wishart, pp. 222–​37. Herman J. (1992) Trauma & recovery. New York: Basic Books. Klein, K. L. (2000) On the emergence of memory in historical discourse. Representations, 69, 127–​50. McDougall, G. J. (1998) Contemporary forms of slavery: Systematic rape, sexual slavery and slavery-​like practices during armed conflict. from United Nations. 22 June. Available at: http://​hrlibr​ary.umn.edu/​demo/​Contempor​aryf​orms​ofSl​aver​y_​ Mc​Doug​all.pdf (accessed 22 November 2021). Morales, A. L. (1998) Medicine stories: History, culture and the politics of integrity. Cambridge, MA: South End Press. Motta, S. C. (2018) Liminal subjects: Weaving (our) liberation. London: Rowman & Littlefield International. Nishino, R. (2016) Interview with Sachiyo Tsukamoto, 23 June. Nonini, D. M. & Ong, A. (1997) ‘Chinese transnationalism as an alternative modernity’, in Ong, A. & Nonini, D. M. (eds.) Underground empires: The cultural politics of modern Chinese transnationalism. London: Routledge, pp. 3–​33. Nye, R. A. (2007) Western masculinities in war and peace. The American Historical Review, 112(2), 417–​38. Pateman, C. (1988) The sexual contract. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Portes, A., Guarnizo, L. E. & Landolt, P. (1999) The study of transnationalism: Pitfalls and promise of an emergent research field. Ethnic and Radical Studies, 22, 217–​37. Roth, M. S. (1995) The ironist’s cage: Memory, trauma, and the construction of history. New York: Columbia University Press. Smith, A. D. (1996) Memory and modernity: Reflections on Ernest Gellner’s theory of nationalism. Nations and Nationalism, 2(3), 371–​88. Stanley, A. (2012) Selling women: Prostitution, markets, and the household in early modern Japan. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Tanaka, M. (2004) Inochi no onnatachi he [For women of life]. Tokyo: Gendaishokan. Trefalt, B. (2002). ‘War, commemoration and national identity in modern Japan, 1868–​1975’, in Wilson, S. (ed.) Nation and nationalism in Japan. London: Routledge Curzon, pp. 115–​34. Vertovec, S. (2000) ‘Conceiving and researching transnationalism’. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 22, 445–​62.

Appendix Brief life stories of some Japanese “comfort women”

This section introduces the life stories of eight other Japanese “comfort women” survivors. Its purpose is to allow the reader to see their narratives of trauma as coherent life stories instead of fragmented pieces. Their personal stories show us both similarities and differences in their experiences as “comfort women” survivors.

Keiko (Sasakuri Fuji) 1937–​45 serving privates in China, Borneo, Luzon, Mindanao, Rabaul, Burma Senda, K. (1985) Jugun ianfu: Keiko [Military comfort women: Keiko]. Tokyo: Kōbunsha. Keiko was born as the first child of 11 to a poor farming family in Fukuoka. At the age of 17, she was sold to a private (unlicensed) brothel to reduce the number of mouths to feed in her family. Her father was indebted to the brothel owner for the sum of only 20 yen because he wished to liberate her promptly from the brothel. However, by the third year of Keiko’s bondage, the debt had accumulated more than threefold to nearly 70 yen. When she almost gave up on her freedom, she encountered a Japanese soldier, Kuramitsu Takeo. He paid off her debt in appreciation of her rescuing him from being sent to the war front due to the sexually transmitted disease he contracted from her. However, Keiko could not return home to her family because she had sold her body. While still working at the brothel, she met a procurer of “comfort women” for the military and accepted an offer to work at a Shanghai “comfort station” in the hope of finding Kuramitsu, who was said to be deployed there. In reality, Keiko was among the first deployment of the “comfort women”. She followed the military from China to Borneo, Luzon, Mindanao, Rabaul and Burma. At the end of the war, she was put into a concentration camp for Japanese prisoners of war. When she returned to Japan in 1947, the Japanese yen she earned during the war had no value due to the switch to new currencies. She thought that all she could do for survival was to work in a brothel. After

Appendix  139 1958, when the Prostitution Prevention Law was enacted, she made her living by working as a maid at Japanese inns and restaurants. She always felt that she was despised and discriminated against, even by her colleagues, as they knew that she used to work as a prostitute.

Miyagi Tsuru (pseudonym) 1944–​5 serving officers in Okinawa Kawata, F. (1995) Senso to sei: Kindai kōshō seido・ ianjo seido wo megutte [War and sexuality: The state-​licensed prostitution system and the comfort station system]. Tokyo: Akashi Shoten, pp. 151–​72. Miyagi was born in Okinawa. When she was four years old, her father passed away. A few years later, her grandmother, who had become the breadwinner after her father’s death, also died. When Miyagi entered the fourth year of primary school, she started to work as a live-​in babysitter in order to help her mother financially. However, Miyagi’s brother suffered from pneumonia. In order to save his life, her mother asked her to work at a factory in Saipan. Because Miyagi did not want to separate from her family, she chose to be juri, a derogatory Okinawan term for prostituted women at the Tsuji brothels (a collective name for approximately 300 brothels). She was sold to Shōkarō, one of the best in Tsuji, and sexually served her first customer at around 16 years of age. Most of the customers in the fancy brothel were mainlanders. After the total destruction of the brothels by the US air raids on 10 October 1944, her regular customer, sergeant Miyake Subrō, rented a room for Miyagi, who was already free from her family’s debt. He said to her, ‘Let’s get married and live together, when the war is over’. Then, she became pregnant. However, she left the room and joined the “comfort station” established at Murayā in Okinawa by the Japanese army, because she felt it was bad to let the Japanese soldier into the private citizen’s house every day. What she said about the life at the “comfort station” was that she served only officers. When the US air raids began on 23 March 1945, she moved to an air raid shelter with the Japanese army, where dozens of juri, including Uehara Eiko, were staying. On 1 April 1945, the US military landed at Okinawa and their attack intensified. Miyagi finally surrendered to the US army with 12 other juri and a family, and three of them were raped by three US soldiers. Along with others, Miyagi was taken to a detention camp, where she gave birth to a boy. Because of malnutrition, she could not breastfeed him. He lived for 40 days and died. Soon after, she heard of the death of his father, sergeant Miyake. After Japan’s defeat, Miyagi married a roof-​tile workman and had five children. Due to the increase in concrete houses, her husband lost his job. She brought up her children in poverty. Her brothers despised her as a prostitute, even the one whose life was saved by her decision to work at the brothel.

140 Appendix

Mizuno Iku 1943–​1945 serving officers at a Japanese restaurant in Palau and moved to Tinian in 1944. VAWW RAC (eds.) (2015) Nihonjin ‘ianfu’: Aikokushin to jinshin baibai to [Japanese ‘comfort women’: Nationalism and trafficking]. Tokyo: Gendai Shokan, pp. 150–​1. Mizuno was raised by Mizuno Chōji, who found her abandoned by her parents shortly after she was born in Iwate in 1920. After his death, she was moved from one place to another to live with his relatives. Finally, when she was eight, they indentured her as a nursemaid at 20 yen to reduce the mouths to feed. At the age of 11, she was sold to a Japanese inn to pay off the debts of her foster-​father’s sister and her husband. When she was 14, she was raped by one of the inn’s customers. Three years later, she was raped by her new employer while working as a maid at his wholesale store. She left the employ of the storekeeper and started to work in a pub, where she met her future husband. During her marriage, she experienced not only the humiliation of infidelity, but also poverty resulting from an unemployed husband, which ultimately forced her into prostitution. After putting up her daughter for adoption, she began working as a prostitute at a brothel in Kawasaki. In 1943, in order to pay off her debt to the brothel master, she decided to work as a “comfort woman” in Palau. She recalled that the life in Palau as a “comfort woman” serving officers was ‘full of good memories’. After leaving Palau, she moved to Tinian, where she gave birth to a daughter. Unfortunately, the baby died suddenly. When she became a prisoner of war, she gave birth to a girl whose father was a Japanese soldier. After Mizuno returned to Japan with her daughter in 1946, she left her daughter at a children’s nursing centre and became a street prostitute.

Shimada Yoshiko (pseudonym) 1939–​1941 serving privates in Manchuria Shimada, Y. (1972) Imamo tsuduku “ianfu senyukai” no kanashimi no hiroku [The secret record of the continuing sad reunion between soldiers and comfort women]. Gendai, pp. 120–​6. Shimada was born in 1931 to a poor farming family in Fukuoka. At the age of 21, she was sold to the owner of a sake liquor shop, which operated restaurants providing prostitution services to their customers. When she was 26, she was attracted by a job offer from a civilian military agent. She thought that she would be able to pay off her debt by working as a “comfort woman”. She worked at a “comfort station” in China and paid off her

Appendix  141 debt in 18 months. She wanted to follow the army, but the army left her and other “comfort women” behind in order to prevent them from facing situations involving direct combat. After her return from China, Shimada never went back to prostitution. From 1949, she regularly attended annual reunion parties held by members of the brigade of soldiers that she had served as a “comfort woman”. She ultimately married a divorced man while the soldiers kept secret her wartime job as a “comfort woman”.

Suzumoto Aya (pseudonym) 1942–​3 serving privates at a naval “comfort station” on Truk Island Hirota, K. (2009) Shōgen kiroku Jūgun ianfu/​kangofu: Senjo ni ikita onna no dokoku [Testimonial records of military comfort women/​nurses: Lamentations of the women who lived at the front]. Tokyo: Shinjinbutsuōraisha, pp. 94–​103. In 1924, Suzumoto was born into a fisherman’s family as the first child of nine. In order to pay off the debt of her father, who was a drinker, gambler and playboy, she was repeatedly sold as an apprentice to geisha houses from the age of seven. At the age of 15, she was sold to a geisha venue, where she had her first sexual customer. Because she had always found the geisha training unbearable from the age of seven, she decided to leave there before turning 20. In 1942, at the age of 18, she became a “comfort woman” for enlisted soldiers in Truk Island to complete her indenture to the geisha house. She was told that if she worked as a military “comfort woman”, she would be enshrined at the Yasukumi War Shrine after her death. Therefore, at the time, she did not have an inferiority complex about her job. By 1942, when she returned to Japan, she had completely repaid her debt to the military, leaving her with approximately 10,000 yen. At her father’s insistence, she gave up half of her savings to him. At the age of 32, she became the mistress of a man who was 29 years older. Then she married a widower with two teenage daughters. He was three-​times divorced. Like Kikumaru, she recalled the memories on Truk Island as the best in her life. Suzumoto and Kikumaru never met each other even though they boarded the same ship going to and returning from Truk Island.

Takanashi Taka 1939–​40 serving officers in Saipan and privates in Makasarr of Celebes Tamai, N. (1984) Hinomaru o koshi ni maite: Tekka shōfu Takanashi Taka ichidai ki [Binding the rising-​sun flag around her waist: The life story of a battlefield prositute, Taka Takanashi]. Tokyo: Tokuma Shoten.

142 Appendix In 1904, at the height of the Russo–​Japanese War, Takanashi was born into a wealthy family. Her father, who was a gambler employed by a casino, was apprehended in a police raid shortly after the Japanese government enacted a new law that banned gambling. This incident forced her father to seek legitimate employment. However, as he was unfamiliar with physical labour, the rigours of legitimate employment ruined his health. In order to provide help for the family, Takanashi started to work at a local factory at the age of nine. Eventually her father suffered mental health issues attributable to syphilis, and he died when she was ten years old. One year later, she started work as a live-​in maid, and at the age of 14, she was sold to a geisha house. When she turned 16, she married a tailor and gave birth to a daughter. Before her marriage, she did not recognise that her husband was addicted to gambling. She and her daughter fell upon financially hard times. After her husband’s death, at the age of 19, Takanashi was sold to a brothel by her mother while her daughter was adopted by her uncle. Takanashi married a man who paid off her debt to the brothel, but she divorced him several years later. When she was 24, she moved to her uncle’s house, where her daughter was looked after. She promptly sold herself to a brothel in order to alleviate her uncle’s poverty and to provide a better life for her daughter. While she endured another failed marriage, Takanashi successfully ran away from her brothel without repaying her debts to the brothel owner. However, she was also addicted to gambling. During this time, she grew to be disgusted with her futile life and decided to work as a prostitute in Saipan in order to earn money. She was 28 when she arrived in Saipan. Returning to Japan in 1939, she took her saving of 2,000 yen and went to China in order to profit from Japan’s war effort and occupation. While stationed in Nanjing, she was designated to service Japanese military officers. Takanashi’s humour and engaging personality boosted her popularity among the officers. One of the military officers served by her forced her to return to Japan in order to protect her safety. While she was back in Japan, she was asked by a broker for local brothels to find several prostitutes in Korea. After she returned from Korea in 1942, when she was 39 years old, Takanashi followed a military brothel owner to Makasarr of Celebes in Indonesia, where the Japanese were expanding their military presence. While in Indonesia, Takanashi was designated to provide sexual services to enlisted soldiers. A civilian military man, Takanashi, paid off her debts and married her when they returned to Japan in 1943. However, in 1944, her husband was transferred to Medan in South Sea Islands and she went to Co Tara Well. Her husband was returning to Japan on a Japanese naval vessel which was attacked by the Allied Forces. After her husband’s death, Takanashi earned her living by lending money and gambling.

Appendix  143

Tanaka Tami (pseudonym) 1944 working at a military brothel for air forces in Shigehara, Japan Kawata, F. (2014) Nihonjin ‘ianfu’ Tanaka Tami san no shogen [Testimony of a Japanese “comfort woman”, Tanaka Tami]. Shukan Kinyobi, 1019, 5 December, pp. 28–​31. Tanaka was born in 1928 but at the age of five, when her parents divorced, she and her younger brother were taken care of by their father, who was a coal miner. In attempts to start his numerous business ventures, her father kept her working as a nursemaid and he finally sold her to a geisha house owner when she was 13. Then he resold her to a brothel owner in Chiba in order to secure money to set out on new business venture. Shortly after her arrival at the brothel, she was raped by the owner. A few months later, in 1944, this same brothel owner took her to a “comfort station” at a Japanese air force base in Shigehara. Because she wanted to be free from the military “comfort woman” job as soon as possible, she paid off her debt with all the money left after deducting the loan and everyday expenses from her salary. Tanaka and other “comfort girls” drew a parallel between their own lives and destinies and those of young solders designated for kamikaze suicide attack missions and actually fell in love with these soldiers. The residents in the neighbourhood appreciated “comfort girls”, telling them that they were making great efforts for the country. After the end of the war, Takana became the mistress of a resident in Shigehara but she left him when his wife and children returned to him. After ceasing to be this man’s mistress, Tanaka went back to her home town, where she was disappointed by her affluent father who was spending lots of money on his new wife and their children. After leaving her father’s house, Tanaka became a popular geisha entertainer, which precluded her from engagement in prostitution. While at the geisha house, she encountered Fusa, who had worked with Tanaka at the Shigehara “comfort station”. However, in public, they pretended not to know each other. Between 14 and 16 January 1992, one month after the first group lawsuit was filed against the Japanese government by Kim Hak-​soon and two other surviving Korean “comfort women’, a “comfort women” hotline was established in Japan. Kawata Fumiko, a Japanese journalist working the hotline, received a call made by Tanaka, who wanted to let people know about the existence of domestic “comfort stations”. Kawata’s journalist instinct led her to conclude that the caller might be a former “comfort woman”. This chance encounter gave Kawata an opportunity to interview Tanaka. As of 2014, Tanaka was 86 and ran a clothing shop. After the end of the war, Tanaka was overcoming the feelings of shame and humiliation as a former “comfort woman”, by engaging in ‘legitimate’ occupations.

144 Appendix

Uehara Eiko (pseudonym) 1944–​5 in Okinawa Uehara, E. (2010) Shinpen Tsuji no hana [New edition A flower in Tsuji]. Tokyo: Jijitsushin Sha. Born in 1915 and raised in Okinawa, at age four Uehara was sold by her poor parents to the Tsuji brothel that provided a fancy restaurant. When she was 15, she serviced her first customer without knowing what it meant. After the US air raids totally destroyed the fancy restaurant brothel in 1944, the Japanese military incorporated the brothel prostitutes into the military “comfort stations”. In 1945, while Uehara was hiding herself with other “comfort women” in a cave, they were caught and raped by US soldiers. Then, they were temporarily held as US prisoners of war. While working as a housemaid for several US military families, she was able to learn English and immerse herself in American culture. Then she opened a café in the US base, where she met and married Richard Rose, a discharged public servant. She also reconstructed a fancy restaurant where the Tsuji brothel used to be situated. Her Okinawan restaurant, Matsu no Shita, was the basis for the bestselling novel, The Teahouse of August Moon by Vern J. Sneider. Through hardships such as a civil lawsuit against her, and her husband’s death in 1971, she never lost a strong sense of pride as an Okinawan. She wrote an autobiography, in which she kept her silence on her experiences at the military “comfort station”.

Index

Abe, S. 4 Abrams, L. 9–​10, 12–​13, 17 acts of resistance 1, 11, 54 agency 8–​9, 11, 27, 36, 50–​1, 53–​4, 56, 57, 62, 64, 72, 82, 118; political agency 9, 13–​15, 50, 52–​3, 56–​8, 60, 63–​7, 71–​2, 74–​5, 134 Alexander, J. C. 21 Allied Occupation Forces 14, 36, 54 Allott, P. 126–​7, 134, 135 Althusser, L. 2, 53 Anderson, B. 12, 129 An Oath of Allegiance to Emperor Hirohito 27–​8, 30 Anti-​Prostitution Law 63, 65 Amaha, M. 71, 81 Asahi Shimbun 65, 70–​1, 75n12 Asō, T. 47n6, 100 Atomic bomb(s) 3, 22, 44 Barry, K. 38, 47, 91, 93 becoming 126–​8, 133–​6 belated 92; experience 5, 7; process 91; return 42 Bell, D. 129–​30, 136 be(-​)longing 129–​30 benevolent 22, 31, 81–​2, 92 Benjokaranokaihō’ (Liberation from toilets) 42, 61 betrayal of trust 56, 89–​90 Bethesda HoushijoHaha no Ie 58 Bloomquist, K. 6, 19 Bourke, Joanna 45, 47, 135–​6 breakwater 29–​30, 128; sexual breakwater 98 Butcher, C. 6, 19 Butler, J. 53, 77 capitalism 27, 32, 73, 82–​3, 127–​8 carrier groups 21

Caruth, C. 5, 14, 17, 45, 48, 92–​3, 135–​6 censorship 31, 44 childhood sexual abuse 90–​1 Chūkiren 100–​1, 112, 114–​15, 119, 122 chrysanthemum taboo 31–​2 Circles of Memory 130–​3, 135 citizen-​soldier(s) 98, 120, 128–​9 Civil Code 99 Cohen, R. 136 coherence of the self 60, 90; coherent self 8, 10, 11, 14, 46, 71 collective healing 59, 67, 74 collective memory 13, 19, 21–​2, 26, 31, 34, 41 Colonel Maruyama 116 Commodore Matthew Perry 29 concubinage 99 conscription 89, 98–​9, 128; Conscription Law 98; Conscription Ordinance 98 Coomaraswamy, Radhika 3, 18, 131, 136 Connell, R. W. 22, 33, 42, 47–​8, 95–​7, 115, 117 conspiracy of silence 13–​14, 42, 44, 50, 56, 60, 62, 74, 80–​1, 90, 92, 109–​10, 134 contract: indentured 83, 85, 92; original 26–​7, 31; sexual 15, 19, 26–​7, 29–​32, 34, 36, 48, 83, 86, 89, 92, 94, 96, 98–​9, 109, 125, 127–​8, 137; social 26–​7, 32, 92, 96, 99, 128 culture of: resistance 11–​12, 15, 59, 74; victimhood 11, 15, 74 Danieli, Y. 14, 18, 56, 77, 80, 93, 134, 136 daughter-​selling 84, 90 debt-​bond 2, 84, 88; see also indentured defeat/​state revisionism 25, 26 defence mechanism 8 dehumanisatiion 72, 91–​3, 128–​9; self 91 denialist(s) 1, 2, 4, 7, 35, 132–​3, 135

146 Index diaspora 132–​3, 136–​7; in action 131 dignity xv, 3, 4, 6, 9, 11, 41, 54, 59–​60, 63–​7, 71–​2, 75, 89, 91, 114–​15, 118; dignity and integrity 42, 44, 46, 135 Disembodiment and Dissembling 91 disengagement 38, 91; Disengagement and Dissembling 38 dissociation 8, 38, 39, 91, 92 Distancing 91 divided self 38, 39, 48 Double telling 92 Dower, J. 22–​3, 26, 28, 30, 32–​3 Dudink, S. 98, 123, 125 dutiful daughter(s) ix, 15, 40, 82–​3; see also filial daughters empathy 6, 7, 18–​19, 25, 73, 134, 136 Edkins, J. 5, 18, 21, 32, 34, 41, 48, 56, 77, 89, 93, 128–​9, 136 Emperor Hirohito 4, 13, 22–​3, 25–​8, 31–​32, 33n4, 44, 86, 96, 109, 112, 120; the Emperor 4, 13, 22–​3, 26, 32, 33n8, 41, 43–​4, 86, 102–​3, 111, 117, 119, 120–​1 emperor system 23, 31, 86, 120, 123 emperor-​worship nationalism 109, 121, 129 emphasised/​hegemonic femininity 22, 95, 98 erotic triangles 97, 113 Everyday practice of: the political 51, 58, 63; politics 9; resistance 74; self-​ dialogue 51 Fellers, B. F. 23 filial daughter(s) 45, 81–​5, 89–​90, 92 Finnerty, S. 6, 12, 18, 134, 136 fight mode 8, 54, 55, 56, 74, 135 flight mode 8, 54, 56, 135 for (the sake of) the country 14, 29, 39, 40, 41, 73, 85, 86, 104, 109 for the family 14, 39, 84–​7, 109, 142 Foucault, M. 2 Fresco, N. 66, 77 Fukatsu, F. 51, 52, 55, 57–​61, 63, 66–​7, 68, 75n6, 75n11, 75n12, 76, 135 fully fledged: citizens 110, 112; geisha 84, 87; man 97, 110; soldiers 110, 112–​13, 116–​18 geisha 5, 29, 35–​6, 47, 50, 55, 83–​9, 102, 141–​3 General Headquarters (GHQ) 28 General MacArthur D. 22–​3, 28

Gilbert, C. 5–​7, 12, 18, 134, 137 Girard, R. 97, 123 Gleason, N. 6, 19 Global Memory 131, 132–​3, 136 Gluck, C. 130–​2, 134, 136–​7 Gomi, T. 115, 122n12 “good” women and (versus) “bad” women 7, 30, 32, 56, 61, 80, 82, 98, 100, 115, 127–​9 Gramsci, A. 2, 18, 22, 96, 123 Hagemann, K. 98, 123, 125 Harris, T. 29 Hashimoto, T. 100 Hayami, M. 116 hegemonic 113; discourse 115; manhood 110, 113; masculinity 15, 16, 22, 42, 95, 96, 98, 110–​13, 115–​21, 122n13, 123, 124, 125, 129; memory 1; narrative 1–​2 Hegemony 2, 19, 22, 96–​7 Herman, J. 7–​10, 14, 18, 41, 48, 54–​5, 57–​60, 63–​6, 70–​2, 74, 77, 114, 123, 135, 137 Hibakusha (atomic bomb survivors) xv, 44, 47n12, 48 Hikosaka, A. 120, 124 Hirai, K. 28, 30–​1, 33n5, 33n7, 34 Hiratsuka, M. 37, 39 Hirota, K. 7, 14, 18, 35–​6, 39, 40–​5, 46n5, 47–​8, 83–​6, 93, 99, 101–​5, 109–​11, 118, 122n7, 124, 141 Holocaust 5, 17, 51, 66, 132 homosocial(male) bond(ing) 96–​7, 110, 113–​16, 120 humanhood 15–​16, 116, 120, 129 humanness 11, 16, 118, 120, 127 hysteria 42, 62 Identity construction/​formation 8, 9, 11, 21, 89, 133 Igeta, M. 46, 48 Ikeda, E. 62, 76, 121n1, 123–​4, 137 indentured 15, 16n1, 36, 40, 42, 80–​1, 83, 85, 88, 92, 102, 127, 134, 140 in-​group versus out-​group 6 International Military Tribunal for the Far East 4; see also Tokyo Trials interpellation 53 intersectionality 73, 77–​8 imagine(d) community 12, 17, 127, 129–​30, 133–​6 imagined connection 12, 134 Imperial Household Law 99

Index  147 Imperial Rescript of Surrender (GyokuonHōsō) 23, 26, 29, 30–​31, 33n4, 47n11 Isuzu 85 Itō, K. 97, 111, 116, 119, 124 Izumiryō 57, 59, 63 James, M. St. 119 Japan-​US Security Treaty 60 Jiairyō 51, 55–​7, 78 JinchūNisshi 116 JūgunIanfu 110 Ban (Military Comfort Women Information Call Centre) 99, 101, 112–​16, 121, 124 juri 139 Kaburagi, S. 30 Kamikaze: mission 111; pilot(s) 111–​12, 122; suicide attack 111, 143 Kaneko, Y. 101, 112, 114, 121–​2 Kanita (Fujin no Mura) 14, 17n13, 51, 52–​3, 60, 63, 64, 65–​7, 68–​9, 70–​1, 75n6, 75n9, 75n12, 76n13, 81, 93, 123, 135 Kawata, F. 90, 93, 111, 114–​15, 124, 139, 143 Keiko (Sasakuri, F.) 106, 125, 138 killing machine(s) 16, 112, 116–​17, 119–​20, 128 Kimura, M. 5, 11, 18, 53–​4, 77 Kim, Hak-​soon 1, 3, 12, 15, 44, 71–​2, 130, 135, 143 Kinoshita, N. 42, 48, 56, 62, 72, 75n6, 75n8, 75n10, 77, 107, 124 Kobayashi, A. 97, 111, 124 Kobayashi, T. 115 Kojima, T. 114 Kondō, H. 100, 110, 114–​15, 123, 125 Kōno Statement 3 Konuma, S. 36 Kōshō (state-​licensed prostitutes) see state-​licensed prostitution KōshūBenjo (public toilets) 42, 47n2, 100 Kubushiro, O. 51, 75n2, 75n6, 76n14 Kumai, T. 121, 122n13 Kuramitsu, T. 138 Kuwahara, K. 111–​12, 122 Kyōfūkai 75n9 LaCapra, D. 5, 18 Laclau, E. 2 Laub, D. 5, 18, 51, 66, 77, 134, 136 Lenz, I. 61, 77 Lerner, G. 82–​3, 88, 93

Lieutenant Matsuo 103 life-​or-​death 5, 13, 30, 47n13, 108, 116, 118, 133–​4 limit events 5 Linde, C. 9–​10, 14, 18, 50, 52, 77 linear time 21–​2 linguistic reference 12 Lucky Dragon Incident 44 Lynd, H. 90, 93 MacKinnon, C. 89, 93 manhood 15–​16, 110, 111, 113, 116, 118, 119, 120, 129 Makihara, T. 87 Marchand, M. H. 12, 19 masculinity: accomplish(ment)(of ) 97, 111, 119–​20; hegemonic 15–​16, 22, 33, 42, 47n8, 48, 95–​8, 110–​19, 120–​1, 122n13, 123–​5, 129; heterosexual 97, 113, 115, 118; marginalised 96; protest 96, 115, 117; subordinate 113, 117 Matsui, M. 112, 123 Matsui, Y. 4, 17n6, 18 Matsumoto, M. 100, 114, 124 Mcdougall, G. 3, 121n3, 123, 131, 137 Meiji: Emperor 15; government 15, 82, 98; Japan 15, 99; modernisation 86 memory: agents 130–​2; activists 130–​2; politics 132 Messerschmidt, J. W. 22, 33, 47n8, 48, 95, 97–​8, 120, 123–​4 Mihara, Y. 51 Ministry of Health and Welfare 43, 63, 75n9; the Health and Welfare Ministry 67, 76n13 Miriam, K. 27, 34 Militarism 73, 92, 127–​9 mistress (mekake) 99, 101, 104, 107, 110, 116, 122n4, 127–​8, 141, 143 Miyaji, N. 66, 77 Miyagi, T. 139 Miyake, S. 139 Miyashita, T. 92 Mizuage 84, 87 Mizuno, C. 140 Mizuno, I. 92, 140 Modernity 18, 32, 62, 77, 93, 98, 127–​30, 137 Modern nation-​state(s) 12, 32, 98, 127–​9 Mohanty, C. T. 12, 19 monument: stone 67, 70–​1, 73; wooden 67, 70 Mouffe, C. 2 Molden, B. 2, 19

148 Index Morales, A. L. 11–​12, 19, 42, 48, 59, 66–​7, 77, 127, 136–​7 Morikawa, S. 59–​60, 75n5–​6, 76 Morris-​Suzuki, T. 4, 19 Motoyama, T. 110, 118 Motta, S. C. 4, 9, 19–​20, 50–​1, 59, 62–​3, 66, 72, 77–​8, 127, 137 Mujawayo, E. 6, 17, 19 narrative(s) 6, 21, 89, 130; the alternative 2, 9, 21; the counter(-​dominant) 2, 50; the denialist 2; the dominant 2, 9, 15, 60–​1, 64, 72, 74, 92; the hegemonic 1–​2; the imperial 25; the national 26, 44; the state 21 Nakagawa, S. 4 nationalism 17, 20, 41, 86, 93, 97, 107, 109, 120–​1, 129, 136–​7, 140 national identity xv, 3, 12, 21, 22, 30, 32, 34, 41, 44, 137 national polity 29, 86 Nihon Ishin no Kai (Japan Restoration Party) 100 Nishino, R. 4, 16–​17, 47n6, 48, 100–​1, 110–​11, 114, 116–​18, 121, 124, 134, 137 Nishiyama 86, 109 NHK (Nippon Hōsō Kyōkai) 4, 32, 56, 65, 71 Noda, M. 117–​18, 124 non-​subject(s) 127, 30, 51, 99 Norma, C. 2, 4–​5, 16, 19, 30, 34, 45, 48, 71, 78, 82–​3, 89, 94, 100, 125 Norridge, Z. 5–​6 nostalgia 40, 42 Novak, A. 5–​6, 19 numbness 8, 55–​6 numbing 22, 54–​5, 91, 108 the occupation army 28–​9, 32 Ogawa, T. 117–​18 Okabe, N. 100 Okichi(s) 29–​30 oral history 12–​13, 17, 64 “other(s)” 19, 50, 77, 134 Our Good and Loyal Subjects 24–​5 the outer world 9, 40, 90 Pateman, C. 15, 19, 26–​7, 29, 31, 34, 36, 48, 81, 83, 86, 88–​9, 92, 94, 96, 98–​9, 109, 125, 127–​8, 137 patriarchal: binary 7, 30–​2, 80, 82, 98, 128 (see also “good” women and “bad” women); dividend 96; family 22,

25, 82, 88–​90, 127; gender order 81, 97; hierarchy 27, 95; paternalism 120; relationship 26, 89; rights 15, 27, 89, 96, 99, 120, 127 (see also sex-​rights); signifier 85; social order 31, 81, 96; society 86, 88–​9; state 28, 30–​1, 36, 61, 80, 90, 92; structure 27, 63, 84, 89, 96–​8, 47n8 “pan pan” 31, 33, 54 paternalism 88 patriotic national subject(s) 42, 44, 103 patriotism 41, 73, 86, 109, 121 personhood 11, 36, 38, 89, 90, 100, 110, 127, 129 political boundary/​ies 15, 56, 74 politics of: binaries 129; history 1; integrity 11–​12, 15, 16, 46, 48, 59, 62, 74, 77, 127, 136–​7; knowledge 72; memory 130, 131, 132, 137; remembering 135 pre-​political stage 54, 74 Prostitution Prevention Law 139 PTSD 5, 42, 62 reconnection 9, 39, 46, 54, 63–​5, 71 Recreation and Amusement Association (RAA) 14, 27–​1, 33n5, 33n6 Ramseyer, M. J. 1, 2, 4, 7, 16n1, 19, 35 reflexivity of the self 10; see also self-​reflexivity relation of the self to others 10 remembered self 10 revisionism 26, 34; state 26; defeat 26; imperial 44; post-​war 22, 31 Riben Guizi 112, 115, 122n11, 123 Rich, A. 31, 34 Rose, S. D. 9, 19, 38, 48, 56, 78, 91, 94 Russo–​Japanese War 142 Sakomizu, H. 23 Sato, T. 23, 26, 34 Salvation Army 84–​5 Sankō Strategy 112, 117 SCAP 22, 31, 44 scapegoating 23, 30, 86, 92, 109 Schaefer, Z. 6, 19 Schwester(s) 63, 67, 68, 75n5 Scott, J. W. 81–​2, 94 Seaton, P. 3, 16n3, 19, 22–​3, 34, 44, 47n12, 48 Sedgwick, E. K. 97, 110, 113, 121n2, 125 self: as-​other 8, 56; defence 56; dehumanisation 91; dialogue 51; dissociation 91; fragmentation 91;

Index  149 identity 39–​40, 46, 56, 64–​5, 90, 93; objectification/​commodification 91; justification 86, 109; recognition 9; reflection 10, 51, 57; reflexivity 52; sacrifice 29–​30, 84, 89; segmentation 38, 91; silencing 50, 57; theory of 10, 50, 52; transformation 53, 64 sense of safety 9, 14, 41, 55, 57 sex-​right 27, 31, 83, 86, 96, 119; see also patriarchal rights sexual breakwater 98 sexually transmitted diseases (STD) 106, 114 sexual violence 7, 12, 14, 16, 74, 78, 80, 91, 97, 115, 121, 123–​5, 130, 132–​7 shame and guilt 8, 14, 15, 41, 74, 80, 81, 83, 90, 92, 134–​5; shame nor guilt 101 shellshock 42, 62 Shimada, Y. 85, 93, 140 Shinachiyo 87 Shunpūden (A Life of a “Comfort Woman”) 118 Smith, A. 130 Sneider, V. J. 144 soldier-​hero 43 Spirituality 66–​7, 74, 77 Spivak, G. C. 53, 78 Sprankle, E. 6–​8, 19 Stanley, A. 81–​2, 92, 94, 127, 137 State-​licensed prostitution 4, 15, 27, 65, 88–​9, 92–​3, 99–​101, 104, 132; state-​ sanctioned prostitution 4, 15–​16, 29, 89–​90, 99, 101 state paternalism 81, 86 stigma 6–​7, 12, 18–​19, 38, 40, 44, 81, 132, 134, 136; social 18, 38, 41, 54, 82, 84, 86, 92, 110; social stigmatisation 127; stigmatisation 11–​12, 40, 44, 56, 81, 92; stigmatised attribution 7 streetwalkers 31 subject formation 11, 53, 54, 58, 60, 64, 66, 72 suicide 7, 13–​14, 30, 35–​9, 43, 46, 55, 58–​9, 65, 72, 108, 111, 122, 143 Suzuki, Y. 101, 115, 119 Suzumoto, A. 40, 85–​6, 103–​4, 109, 141 Takahashi, T. 32, 34 Takanashi, T. 141–​2 Takasaki, R. 116, 125 Tamura, T. 118 Tanaka, M. 42, 61–​2, 75n8, 78, 104, 125, 127, 137 Tanaka, T. 90, 93, 111, 124, 132, 143

TBS (Tokyo Broadcasting System) 44, 47n13, 70–​1, 76, 123 the listener 46, 50, 51, 75n1, 134 The Teahouse of August Moon 144 the threshold of the human 45, 135 Tokyo Trials 31 Tokugawa 15, 29, 81, 98 Tokuma Shoten 37, 141 Tosh, J. 96, 98, 123, 125 transnational: activism 133, 135–​6; bonds 136; feminists 54; feminist activists/​activism 3, 48, 54, 78; justice movement/​activism 62, 130–​3, 135 Transnationalism 136–​7; from above 133; from below 133 trauma: collective 13, 21, 22, 41; communicating 5, 6; and memory 8; psychological 8, 43; recovery from 8, 10, 11, 14, 15, 41, 46, 51, 56, 58, 64, 66, 71, 74; theory 5; time 21, 22; victim(s) 8, 46, 51, 54–​5, 65, 74, 92; war 22, 32 traveling memory 130 triangular desire 97 Uehara, E. 139, 144 VAWW-​NET Japan 17n7, 4, 131–​2 VAWW RAC 2, 4–​5, 16n5, 17n7, 17n11, 20, 93, 140 victim blame 7, 134 victimhood 4, 11, 15, 60, 67; consciousness 46; culture of 74; national 45; society 44; war victim (hood) 3, 25, 26, 30, 32, 44 victim of circumstances 43 violence against women 3–​4, 14, 16–​18, 77, 97, 131–​2, 136 Waka-​chan 105 war responsibility 3, 22–​3, 31–​2, 123–​4, 137 WōmanLibu (Women’s Liberation Movement in Japan ) 42, 61–​2, 75n8 Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal (WIWCT) on Japan’s Military Sexual Slavery 3, 4, 18, 32, 101, 131 Women’s Active Museumon War and Peace (WAM) 62, 76–​9, 118–​19, 125 Yasukuni (War) Shrine 85, 102–​3 Yokoi, Shōichi 43–​4, 47n9, 47n10 Yoshimi, Y. 3, 16n2, 20, 27, 34, 46n2, 49, 85, 94, 99–​100, 110, 112, 125 Yuasa, K. 100, 118–​19, 123