Tanaka Toshiyuki’s father, and several of his other male relatives, served in the Japanese military during World War II (p. 2). Tanaka, a history scholar and professor at Japan’s Hiroshima Peace Institute, notes in his work, Japan’s Comfort Women, that these family members often told stories about their time in the military, citing their most honorable actions during the war, but never speaking of the dark, open secret the Japanese government so desperately wanted to keep quiet (pp. iv, 2-3). For the duration of the World War II period, the Japanese military provided “comfort women” for their soldiers, which Tanaka explains to be a system of forced prostitution and likens it to the more modern, and more accurately named, Bosnian “rape camps”
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He explains that this is expressed particularly clearly when the Japanese began putting foreign women, from places recently conquered by their military, into these comfort camps (p. 4-5). He writes that it was a symbol of dominance; it was as if these soldiers were claiming foreign lands and then taking the victory a step further by conquering their women, and sickeningly, their children (p. 4-5). It is this kind of ideology, this disturbing peek into the psychology of the situation that explains why these camps and systems lasted for so long with no punishment, no consequence, and in some ways, actually gained support from multiple, previously opposing nations (p. 4). Tanaka also makes it clear, throughout his writing, how closely national and international relationships and ideas impacted citizens on a much more individual level than many might think. The battlefield victories encouraged the expressions of toxic masculinity; the pillaging and raping were actions taken by individuals after national accomplishment made the soldiers feel more fearless of consequence (p. 178-179). A military’s failure to protect its homeland and people allowed for the capture and enslavement of women and children; when the government and military became defenseless after a loss, there was no one to defend or save the people who picked off the streets and pulled from their homes and these individuals who were captured were basically punished repeatedly for their nation’s ineptitude (p.
He explains that this is expressed particularly clearly when the Japanese began putting foreign women, from places recently conquered by their military, into these comfort camps (p. 4-5). He writes that it was a symbol of dominance; it was as if these soldiers were claiming foreign lands and then taking the victory a step further by conquering their women, and sickeningly, their children (p. 4-5). It is this kind of ideology, this disturbing peek into the psychology of the situation that explains why these camps and systems lasted for so long with no punishment, no consequence, and in some ways, actually gained support from multiple, previously opposing nations (p. 4). Tanaka also makes it clear, throughout his writing, how closely national and international relationships and ideas impacted citizens on a much more individual level than many might think. The battlefield victories encouraged the expressions of toxic masculinity; the pillaging and raping were actions taken by individuals after national accomplishment made the soldiers feel more fearless of consequence (p. 178-179). A military’s failure to protect its homeland and people allowed for the capture and enslavement of women and children; when the government and military became defenseless after a loss, there was no one to defend or save the people who picked off the streets and pulled from their homes and these individuals who were captured were basically punished repeatedly for their nation’s ineptitude (p.