From a broader historical perspective, Hicks (1995) writes, “Wartime exploitation of women for sexual service is part of a long and inglorious tradition. Other armies had similar systems before the Japanese.” (p.1) Indeed “camp followers” made up of prostituted women were attached to various armies all over the world: the army of the Roman Empire, the Spanish Duke of Alva’s army in the sixteenth century, the British army in India in the nineteenth century, and the German army in World War II, to name a few. (Hicks, 1995, p. 3)
An important point found in the works of Hicks, Yoshimi, and Tanaka is that although military violence against women is heightened to extreme levels during war, such a firm-rooted tendency towards the sexual exploitation
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These rationales will be discussed in the next section.
The Comfort System: How and Why
Yoshimi Yoshiaki (2000) writes that the decision to set up the comfort stations was never made arbitrarily by units in the field to fit their needs. “Even if the concrete measures to set up military comfort stations were determined by army units in the field, the authority that actively approved and promoted this policy was none other than the Ministry of War itself.” (p. 58)
Yoshimi provides a discussion on the involvement of the Ministry of War, from issuing a key document entitled “Matters Concerning the Recruitment of Women to Work in Military Comfort Stations” on March 4, 1938, to giving authorization for the transportation of comfort women to battlefields via military ships sailing under the Japanese flag. Further details are provided by Tanaka
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(Yoshimi, 2000, p. 45) In other words, comfort women were used as a form of crowd control and a way to keep the peace with local populations. However, there were no occupied areas where rapes stopped even when there were legal repercussions, however mildly enforced. (Yoshimi, 2000, p. 66) An even more troubling fact was that many soldiers killed the women they raped so that they would not have a chance to file for charges. (Yoshimi, 2000, p. 67) Comfort women, and alcohol, were not sufficient to remedy the stress of combat, but due to logistical problems with other forms of stress release the Japanese authorities relied on comfort women. (Hicks, 1995, pp.
When most people hear the word “prostitute”, they immediately envision a person who is a disease-ridden imbecile of society. However, if one researches the statistics and personal recollections of prostitutes, they will find that they may be very moral and great women. The reflection that Beth Bailey and David Farber recall in the essay called Prostitutes on Strike: The Women of Hotel Street During WW II shows what the prostitutes were actually like in the 1940’s. In several cases of the women in Hawaii during World War II, their compassion is shown through their cooperation with organizations and with the public. Many of the things that they did, however, were not entirely as moral as they seem to appear to be. The events associated with the prostitutes that stayed in Hawaii during WWII can be thought of as both ethical and unethical, but nonetheless, they fought a war of their own to keep their occupations and ways of life.
In 1996, Captain Derrick Robinson, Sergeant Delmar Simpson, and Sergeant Nathanael Beech were arraigned for their suspected involvement in one of the biggest sex scandals the United States Military had seen. According to CNN, between these three men, charges of rape and adultery were pending in a huge case of sexual misconduct against female soldiers at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland (CNN, 2996). Following this incident, the United States Military took it upon themselves to open a telephone hotline to encourage the reporting of similar harsh crimes. Furthermore, the spike in reporting influenced extensive research to examine the prevalence of rape against women soldiers in the U.S. Military (Titunik, 2000). This paper will explore the dynamics of rape against women soldiers in the military and the research done on its prevalence.
Various socioeconomic classes of women were targeted by wartime propaganda mobilizing them to “do their part”. Customarily, single women of the lower and middle classes were recruited into the...
Goldstein, Joshua (2001) War and Gender: How Gender Shapes the War System and Vice Versa. Cambridge University Press.
Kitfield, James. “The Enemy Within”. The National Journal. 13 September 2012. Web. 4 November 2013 http://www.nationaljournal.com/magazine/the-military-s-rape-problem-20120913
The more extreme victimization of women occurs through gender violence while in service as a soldier. In the United States, the film The Invisible War recognizes that over one fifth of serving women experienced sexual assault and there is nearly no justice system to combat this. One man had raped several women in the service, but still was able to receive congressional medal of honors for his actions and bravery (The Invisible War). This promotes further gender division by having such limited consequences which sends the message that women are not nearly as important as their male counterparts. Women in the service are not the only ones who are being raped and abused; women were used as “comfort” women in World War II to ease the sexual desires of men which is ultimately a legalized form of sex slavery within the military. This further degrades women by objectifying them as objects that can be traded for security. Women
In December 1941, the government conscripted single women aged 20-30 as auxiliaries to the Armed Forces, Civil Defense, or war industries… Government figures show that women’s employment increased during the Second World War from about 5.1 million in 1939 (26%) to just over 7.25 million in 1943 (36% of all women of working age). Forty six percent of all women aged between 14 and 59, and 90% of all able-bodied single women between the ages of 18 and 40 were engaged in some form of work or National Service by September 1943. (Anitha)
This paper is a review of the book Japan’s Comfort Women-Sexual slavery and prostitution during WWII and the US occupation by Yuki Tanaka. This book was published in 2002 by Routledge. The book deals with the thousands of Japanese, Korean, Chinese and other Asian and European women who were victims of organized sexual violence and prostitution by means of “comfort stations” setup by the Japanese military during World War II.
Ode, Kim. "Sexual Trauma: Women Vets' Secret War." ProQuest, 18 Dec. 2010. Web. 20 Mar. 2012.
Peach, Lucinda J. 2009. ``Gender and War: Are Women Tough Enough for Military Combat``. In Gender in Cross-cultural Perspective, 5th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, pp. 21-32.
The US Military has a long history and jaded history of issues with sexual assault. The number of women sexually assaulted in the US Military is 5% higher than that of women in the ficivilian population; there are an estimated 20,000 sexual assaults on women service members each year. This is not, however, a strictly female problem; it is estimated that nearly half of...
Burke, Colleen. "Women and Militarism." Women and Militarism. Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. Web. 05 May 2012. .
Yoshiaki Yoshimi, 2001–02, Comfort Women: Sexual Slavery in the Japanese Military during World War II. Columbia University Press.
The Korean Council for Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan, The Research Association on the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan, et al., Eds. (1995). The True Stories of the Korean "Comfort Women". London, Casell.
Arranged Marriages Perceptions of arranged marriages often fall victim to exaggerated cultural differences between the East and West which reinforce stereotypes of arranged marriages as being forced, premodern, patriarchal and devoid of romantic love (Arranged Marriage). The biggest threat that arranged marriages face is that if either the boy or the girl is not ready for the marriage, it can lead to serious trouble for the both of them. Finding someone who truly loves you is very hard to do especially if your parents already have your future planned out on who you must marry or disapprove of the one you truely love. This is seen in the main character Nnaemeka from “Marriage Is a Private Affair” by Chinua Achebe. Arranged marriages have been