2017 Berkshire Conference on the History of Women, Genders and Sexualities

June 01 - 04, 2017

The movement for redress for survivors of the Japanese military’s system of war-time slavery has always ‘been carried out in a transnational space’ (Mackie 2005). Yet across this movement there have been complex negotiations as to how to conceptualize the system and the women within it and what form justice should take. This session offers some critical reflections on activism related to this case.

Yamashita’s paper re-examines the initial demands made of the Japanese government in the early 1990s by the Korean survivor Kim Hak Sun (1924-1997) who was supported by The Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan. Yamashita revisits their critiques of the male dominated imperialist state in order to problematize the view of the South Korean and Japanese governments that their December 2015 agreement was the “final and irrevocable resolution” of this issue.

Focusing on the activism of the iconic Indonesian survivor Mardiyem (1929-2007), McGregor examines the gendered dimensions of joint Japanese and Indonesian activism. McGregor asks how Mardiyem’s engagement with transnational activists and her visits to Japan affected her activism and how she coped with limited domestic support for her cause.

Finally Tsukamoto assesses the place of Japanese women in transnational activism for survivors. Tsukamoto asks why Japanese and non-Japanese activists alike have been reluctant to recognize Japanese women as victims. She suggests that this is strongly related to the process by which Japanese women were incorporated into the modern patriarchal nation-state.