Date of Award
8-2024
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department
History
Committee Chair/Advisor
Dr. Ryan Hilliard
Committee Member
Dr. Archana Venkatesh
Committee Member
Dr. Douglas Seefeldt
Abstract
From 1932 to 1945, the Imperial Japanese military sexually enslaved approximately two hundred thousand Asian women from Japan, Korea, China, Indonesia, Taiwan, and the Philippines. This institution was known as the comfort women system, which the Imperial Japanese government created to ensure the sexual and mental health of Imperial Japanese military personnel. This provision of comfort for Imperial Japanese military personnel was enabled by cultural influences introduced in the Early Modern period of Japan, which normalized a contemptuous attitude toward sexual labor. This blend of Early Modern Japan, as well as the beliefs that facilitated the need for comfort women, creates what this thesis contends is the “comfort culture” of Japan. This retrospective study of the comfort women phenomenon includes the continuities of stigmatic conduct against sex workers, the national entity of Japan, and political sponsorship of sex work. It coincided with the discontinuities that manifested throughout Japan's imperial period, such as nationalistic ideologies, the Japanese economy, and imperial notions of race, which contributed to the creation of the comfort women system. The effects of this system did not stop following the conclusion of World War II as contemptuous attitudes towards sexual laborers relayed into postwar memory, which promoted a narrative that associated the former comfort women as sex workers rather than sex slaves.
Recommended Citation
Nicolini, Emma, "A Retrospective of “Comfort Culture:” a Paradigmatic Study on the Creation of the “Comfort Women” System Constructed by the Imperial Japanese Military From 1932 to 1945" (2024). All Theses. 4380.
https://open.clemson.edu/all_theses/4380