Unfolding the ‘Comfort Women' Debates (Modernity, Violence, Women's Voices)

In the 1990s, survivor-victims of the 'comfort women' system – sexual slavery by the Japanese military during the Second World War – started to testify to their ordeal. Their testimonies attracted huge attention and have raised fundamental and complicated questions about history and women's voices. By challenging cultural and gender essentialist analyses, this study aims to examine the 'comfort women' system through the lens of modernity, where the intersectional oppression of gender, race, class and colonialism was formed. The testimonies of victim-survivors are the key to the discussion of the 'comfort women' system as they can offer a critical understanding of the gendered dimension of history and war. Through the analysis of publicly available testimonial narratives of victim-survivors, however, the book argues that the centrality of their testimonies lies rather in their role in enabling women's subjectivities and agencies, which is achieved through the intersubjective process of testifying and listening to their voices.