The violence of silencing

Abstract

In December 2020, the International Review of Law and Economics (IRLE) published an article by Harvard law professor J. Mark Ramseyer, ‘Contracting for Sex in the Pacific War’, that is premised on the unsupported and scholarly-consensus-defying claim that thousands of young women and girls mostly from Korea, who ended up in Japanese military ‘comfort women’ stations during the Pacific War, were paid sex workers. Scholars were quick to criticize Ramseyer’s research and the journal’s decision to publish, but we argue that the full significance of the Ramseyer affair can only be seen by situating his article within an historically nuanced understanding about gender-based violence in general and the sexualization and fetisishization of Asian women in particular. We do so by using feminist inquiry to better understand the embodied and intimate experiences of Japan’s ‘comfort women’ scheme and the implications of Ramseyer’s denial of their lived experiences. Our approach attends to the visceral, intimate and affective matters that are clearly overlooked in Ramseyer’s piece.

Keywords:

• Comfort women
• gendered violence
• racialized sexism
• sexual violence
• victim-blaming

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank the three anonymous reviewers for their constructive feedback. We also thank many GPC editorial board members for their encouragement in writing this piece.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Orhon Myadar

Orhon Myadar is an Associate Professor in the School of Geography, Development and Environment at the University of Arizona. Her research focuses on geographical understandings of place, displacement and forced mobility. Email: [email protected].

R. A. Davidson

Ronald A. Davidson is a Professor in the School of Geography and Environmental Studies it the Calinfonia State University at Northridge. As a cultural geographer his research focuses on public space in the US and Japan, nationalism, and humanistic geography. Email: [email protected].

S. Mollett

Sharlene Mollett is an Associate Professor and Chair in the Department of Global Development Studies. She holds the title of Distinguished Professor in Feminist Cultural Geography, Nature and Society at the University of Toronto, Canada. Email: [email protected].

M. Fannin

Maria Fannin is Professor of Human Geography at the University of Bristol, UK. Her research focuses on reproductive politics and gendered notions of risk and responsibility in the healthcare sector. Maria Fannin Email: [email protected]