Korean Comfort Women

Why were the Korean Comfort Women “silent” so long? Why could the words and actions of Japanese officials and government be interpreted as attempts to further silence them?

They were made to feel shame, when the government forced them to provide sex services, who should feel the shame for taking the purity of the girls. The women were to provide comfort to the men on the front lines. They were earning good money, so it wasn’t discrimination in the eyes of the men. The woman cannot escape the memory of the rap during the war; it is a part of them. The woman thought that the solution would be that rape, sex education, should be taught to prevent it from happening again.

The principals of the schools manipulated the children into choosing to go to the war line, so that the woman could become comfort woman. Some of the woman on the ships to the front line had their first menstrual periods and then were forced to have sex with men, which resulted in such pain and disrespect that led them to be unable to carry children.

The women were in court and punished. The men justify that the problem of morality has never been solved. Mankind is the cause of the comfort woman. They sought consolation because there was a possibility that they might die tomorrow. The men threatened the woman by telling them they would kill them if they didn’t follow five “simple” orders. The argument of money was not a valid argument in the eyes of the woman because there was no use for money in the military. There was nothing to trade for, they were provided with everything they needed. The men gave nicknames to the condoms, such as “lets attack”. They sought rape as another way for them to gain power of the women. Japanese men were very prideful and saw shame in anything which they didn’t gain or control.

The documents were destroyed that had any evidence of the comfort women; moreover documents of the war were destroyed. The Japanese didn’t win, it was shameful in their culture, and they didn’t want any record of their loss. The women were beat to the point that they lost their hearing, bones were broken, scares of puss were formed, and they did not receive any medical attention. It was sex with beasts, not humans.

Documents were burned. The testimonies of the women were not true unless there was proof. The government acted as if nothing had ever happened. The government should put aside its pride and acknowledge the issue, but that was against the Japanese culture. The government failed. They failed to take care of its woman, its people, at the most serious time it needed to, wartime. The government was more focused on fixing the economy than fixing its moral issued. It was more focused on itself than its people. The women were not valued.

The government sealed everything with treaties and stamps, but couldn’t apologize to its people. Shots were given for the pain the women. The women fought with the men all night, but they were just too strong.

The women were stripped from their rights of life. Since they were viewed as shameful because of something they had been victim of, no one wanted to marry them. They were forced to live alone with the taunting memories of what had happened to them right at their very first menstrual period. They were stripped of youth and stripped of life. They were forced to grow up and them left alone.

The government officials never recognized anything was gone to the women and acted as though there was nothing wrong with them. They were found shameful in society and had to live lives alone because they were looked down upon because they were not pure and could not bear children. No one wanted to be with them. Thus they were left alone to carry the pain and the terrifying memories that they were victims of. The Japanese had a corrupt government in the sense that they were not even acknowledged until the early 1990s. The women were silenced on the outside, but never dealt with the inner self screaming daily. There was no escaping the memory of torture, especially by their own people.

FDR's Freedoms

In my opinion, I believe that when FDR gave his Four Freedoms Speech at the State of the Union address in 1941 he meant that the “freedom from want” was breaking loose of any bondage to longing for things that were not necessities and that the “freedom from fear” was a security in the nation and others surrounding countries to be without war. FDR’s nation and allied nation, England, were in an unstable state. He had to give some hope to the American people, that although they were in war right now, there was a peacetime that would bring a goal of the four freedoms he had expressed.
As the leader of a growing world power, in the time of war, with other European allies, the things that FDR expresses as freedoms resulted in an optimistic mindset for the home front as well as the battlefield. The “freedom from want” arose greatly in the 1930s with the Great Depression when the economy of both the American people and the European people was greatly affected and it was hard for either people to even get the things they needed, yet alone the things they wanted. FDR knew the people’s desires, therefore was trying to hit them on the dot.
With the war surrounding Europe and the American people, the “freedom from fear” would ensure the use of fewer weapons so that the threat of war at peacetime will not be so threatening. Although America had not entered the war yet, Europeans had been in ragging war for a while. The American people were surrounded by fear for their safety as a country, as individuals and as loved ones. But we have to keep in mind that FDR was not only speaking to America, but to the soon-to-be Allies in the European countries and the opposing Germans and their followers. He wanted to ensure the responsibility to the American people, yet please the other European countries as well. He knew what he was doing, just like most politicians to play smart and safe.