Comfort Women Scholars from Diverse Perspectives Debate at HEAC Forums

On May 31 and June 14, 2024, the Heterodox Academy East Asia Community (HEAC) hosted symposiums on the Korean comfort women issue. Featuring a range of scholarly viewpoints, the HEAC was also the first English-language forum to interrogate Mark Ramseyer and Jason Morgan's controversial new book, The Comfort Women Hoax (Encounter Books, 2024).  

HEAC invited the authors, their critics, and supporters to participate. Attendees included Professors Sheng-mei Ma (Michigan State University, English), Chizuko Allen (University of Hawaii, East Asian Studies), Shaun O'Dwyer (Kyushu University, Faculty of Languages and Cultures), Xiaofei Tu (Appalachian State, Department of Languages, Literatures & Cultures), and Joseph Yi (Hanyang University, Political Science). 

Partisan Narratives and Victimhood

Due to a family medical emergency, Alexis Dudden, the primary speaker for May 31 and a noted critic of Ramseyer, could not attend.

As the secondary speaker, this author discussed the historical and political context of the comfort women issue. I also addressed the politics of victimhood that animates both progressive and conservative partisans in South Korea. 

For instance, both alleged victims of communist North Korea (defectors) and of imperial Japan (comfort women) tailor their narratives to the views of partisan audiences. This intense partisanship and malleability of victims' testimonies cloud the scholarly task of truth-seeking through rigorous research and debate. 

Following this, I dialogued with the book's authors and other participants to address outstanding questions. Participants shared their questions and comments in person or via public Google Docs. 

Key Points from the May 31 Debate

What are the best estimates for the number of comfort women and Korean comfort women?

Journalist Kenji Yoshida cited estimates from South Korean scholar Lee Young-hoon and colleagues' Anti-Japan Tribalism: 8,000 total comfort women, of whom 3,600 were likely Korean. 

Ramseyer, however, stressed the numbers are complicated and fluid. In some combatant zones, because of rapid army movements, there were more comfort women but shorter work periods. By "comfort women," Ramseyer referred to women who worked by contracts, not those abducted in war zones. Still, the total number of comfort women, especially of Korean women, does not reach the 200,000 touted by progressive activists and scholars. The latter should reveal the logic and data for that number.   

Were any women from Korea and Taiwan directly abducted by Japanese military? Or, as Park Yuha posits, deceived by corrupt officials and private brokers pretending to be soldiers?

Professor Ramseyer reported that he had not seen credible data on official abductions of Korean or Taiwanese colonial women. Such abductions would have violated Japanese laws. Some deceptive and coercive recruiting by private brokers and corrupt officials may have occurred, as it also did for ethnic Japanese women. However, such corrupt recruiting would have been minimal since large numbers of poor women seek work in military brothels in any society. 

Ramseyer writes (in public Google Doc): 

Of course, this is a terrible job but there are in most any society a group of young women from very poor circumstances who decide this is the least bad job available to them. You're not short of women who want to do this work, and so the notion the Japanese government would be forcing people to do this just intuitively makes no sense. 

What were the working conditions of comfort stations? 

Ramseyer argued that the working conditions of comfort stations, including the likelihood of managers to honor contractual terms, varied depending on location and circumstances. In established brothels in places like Shanghai or Wuhan during the early years of the war, brothel owners faced economic pressures similar to those in Japan. Such challenges included maintaining a good reputation and managing recruitment costs. 

However, because the women were in foreign countries during wartime, it was harder for them to leave. Therefore, negative reports about mistreatment were less likely to reach their home communities. This suggests a higher risk of abuse in Shanghai and Wuhan compared to Tokyo and Seoul.

In smaller, more isolated brothels, particularly those in jungles or during the later stages of the war, the situation worsened. As the war neared its end and brothel owners no longer expected to maintain long-term operations or reputations, the likelihood of broken promises and increased abuse grew. 

Ramseyer writes: 

But what happens in small brothels in the jungles?  And what happens during the final years of the war?  At this point, the brothels and prostitutes are no longer playing "a repeated game" that they expect to continue indefinitely. 

Given the near impossibility of a brothel's reputation to travel back to Japan and Korea and the increasing odds that the war is about to end, the odds that anyone will keep his or her promises become much lower.  So yes – abuse would increase even more. 

Is there right-wing harassment of Japan-based academics and artists over their views on the comfort women issue?

"Japan is a very free country in terms of academics," Ramseyer argued at the May 31 forum. 

Kyushu professor Shaun O'Dwyer partly contested this statement. Scholars in Japan may not suffer formal-legal prosecution through criminal defamation or national security laws as their counterparts do in South Korea or Hong Kong, he said. But they receive all sorts of informal threats (mostly online), including demands for job termination, he claimed. 

The June 14 forum directly addressed Ramseyer and Morgan's book. It begins with the authors recounting their personal marginalization in American academia for questioning the prevailing narrative, leading to a blend of scholarly discourse and personalized critique. 

Xiaofei Tu Comments

Xiaofei Tu (Appalachian State) argues that the book's strength is that it provides a detailed examination of the politicization of history by progressive ("left-wing") activists and academics in South Korea, Japan, and the United States. Tu writes: 

[T]he authors provocatively analyze the politicization of history, contending that the comfort women narrative has been manipulated for political gain by various actors, including Japanese and Korean left-wing factions….

Ramseyer and Morgan meticulously dissect the culture of modern-day universities, scrutinizing emails and social media interactions to reveal the self-interest and ideological biases prevalent among scholars. By shedding light on these aspects, they offer readers a disquieting glimpse into the scholarly profession.

Despite the detailed critique of the mainstream "sexual slavery" discourse, Tu argues, the authors lack a detailed, convincing alternative. Says Tu: 

Critically, the book lacks a comprehensive analysis of historical documents, testimonies, and eyewitness accounts pertaining to comfort women. While Ramseyer and Morgan argue for a portrayal of comfort women as voluntary participants, this stance appears overly simplistic, just as the mainstream discourse on sexual slavery. 

Morgan replied that the book’s appendices and notes offer a comprehensive analysis of historical documents, testimonies, and eyewitness accounts pertaining to comfort women.

Shaun O'Dwyer comments

For Shaun O'Dwyer, the book's major theoretical contribution to the comfort women literature is the Chicago-style, market-oriented, credible commitments thesis (CCT). This builds on Ramseyer's earlier theorizing of the prewar Japanese indentured prostitution system (1991) and the military indentured comfort women system that grew out of it (2021). 

Unlike some critics, O'Dwyer did not slam CCT on normative grounds. However, he did question empirically what he called its "idealizing core assumptions" of informational symmetry, contractual term compliance, and effective legal enforcement of contractual term compliance. Scholars have documented numerous instances where corrupt brokers deceived naïve women, managers manipulated or violated written contracts, and government officials failed to enforce laws against traffickers deceiving or abducting women. 

O'Dwyer wrote:

Marie Kim documents vividly the consequences of "lack of state oversight of prostitute indentures" and failures to enforce Japanese laws against human trafficking in colonial Korea: kidnappings and systematic deceptive recruitment carried out by traffickers, and the sale of underage girls by their parents into the comfort women system "outside the purview of criminal law enforcement" (484-485). 

Patchy or non-existent law enforcement extended to oversight of the working conditions of comfort women in different locations at different times of the war. There is evidence that bans on alcohol consumption by soldiers visiting comfort stations, needed for order and a minimum of protection for comfort women from abuse and violence, were being flouted more often towards the end of the war, as discipline broke down. In comfort stations closer to battle fronts where military police oversight was lacking, drunk and violent soldier-customers were also more common, according to the testimony of some Korean former comfort women.

Morgan and Ramseyer Reply

On June 13, 2024, Morgan replied (google doc): 

I take all of Professor Kim's points very seriously. But I contend that failure to enforce the law in part does not equal nullification of the law as a whole. MP enforcement is a separate matter, but I would argue that MPs policing comfort stations is evidence of the overall legal nature of those stations. There were rules to be followed, and violators stood to be punished. As discipline broke down there would surely have been exactly the kinds of incidents you and Professor Kim describe. Again, though, we circle back to whether exceptions do or don't prove rules.

In an email exchange with this author (September 15, 2024), Ramseyer disputed that his thesis made the idealizing assumptions described by O'Dwyer. 

The whole logic to the contract is that information was NOT symmetrical, and the women couldn't assume that the brothels would comply – that's exactly why the brothels paid upfront. The brothels paid in advance because they understood that the women would otherwise – quite reasonably – worry that they might not later get paid.

Sheng-mei Ma's View

Sheng-mei Ma (Michigan State University) criticized The Comfort Women Hoax, calling it a regurgitation of Ramseyer's 2019 'Comfort Women and the Professors' paper. He also described it as a morally reprehensible project to advance Japan's right-wing agenda by minimizing the documented, real-world suffering of comfort women.  

By dubbing the wartime sex slavery a hoax, Ramseyer rams into the representational black hole of comfort women, morphing it beyond recognition, aided and abetted by his collaborator Morgan. 

By dismissing what he mocks as the politically correct "trifecta" against sexism, racism, and imperialism, by laying the blame on Korean recruiters and communists, the South Korean left, and Western Humanities scholars in general, Ramseyer is not only beholden to Japanese interests, but he also advances personal and professional designs that flatten the complexity of humanity into business transactions among equal partners of inviolable self-agency.

After the forum, Professor Ma communicated to the moderator his concerns about the absence of progressive critics (besides himself) and that the panel risks being seen as a get-together of ultrarightists. Yi thanked Ma and the other participants for sharing their views at the forums or the public Google Docs.  

Diverse Views Welcome

Since the 2022 launch of HEAC, this author, O'Dwyer, and other colleagues have invited experts from various perspectives to speak on sensitive issues, including comfort women. Until June 14, 2024, progressive critics declined to speak at any HEAC forum that had also invited conservative speakers. Two progressive critics, one scheduled in a panel with Ramseyer (2023) and one without Ramseyer's presence (May 31, 2024), dropped out at the last moment. 

This was unfortunate since progressive scholars offer additional information and perspectives to supplement or contest that of conservatives, such as on netizen harassment in Japan. 

HEAC members welcome diverse voices, including progressive, and can offer a separate panel for their issues and concerns. 

Also not discussed at the two forums was the brothel system for US soldiers in South Korea. Similarly, the brothel system for South Korean soldiers during the Vietnam War was not brought up. These shall be explored in an upcoming HxA 2024 fall forum. Everyone is welcome to register and participate. 

RELATED:

• INTERVIEW | J Mark Ramseyer and Jason Morgan Discuss Comfort Women Research and Academic Fortitude
• Comfort Women Issue Focus of Tokyo Symposium With Views from 3 Countries
• INTERVIEW | Dr Ju Ik-jong on the Comfort Women History and His Challenge to Left-Leaning Scholars
  
  

Author: Joseph Yi

Dr Joseph Yi is an associate professor of political science at Hanyang University. He can be contacted via email: joyichicago@yahoo.com. Yi, an author himself, recommends English readers interested in the comfort women issue to also review Park Yuha’s new 2024 English edition.