Chunghee Sarah Soh or Sarah Soh is an American professor of
Anthropology
Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of behavi ...
at
San Francisco State University
San Francisco State University (commonly referred to as San Francisco State, SF State and SFSU) is a public research university in San Francisco. As part of the 23-campus California State University system, the university offers 118 different b ...
. She is a
sociocultural anthropologist who specializes in issues of women, gender, sexuality.
Her book ''
The Comfort Women: Sexual Violence and Postcolonial Memory in Korea and Japan'' delivers new insight into the nature of the
comfort women
Comfort women or comfort girls were women and girls forced into sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Army in occupied countries and territories before and during World War II. The term "comfort women" is a translation of the Japanese '' ia ...
issue.
Careers
She graduated from
Sogang University
Sogang University (SU, Hangul: 서강대학교 Hanja: 西江大學校, literally "West River University") is one of the most prestigious private research universities in Seoul, South Korea. It was established in 1960 by the Wisconsin Province of ...
in
Seoul
Seoul (; ; ), officially known as the Seoul Special City, is the capital and largest metropolis of South Korea.Before 1972, Seoul was the ''de jure'' capital of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) as stated iArticle 103 ...
and earned master's degree and then Ph.D from the
University of Hawaii
A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, th ...
in 1987. She taught cultural anthropology at universities in Hawaii in 1990, Arizona from 1990-1991 and Texas from 1991–94. She joined San Francisco State University in 1994.
Comfort women
Soh has said "there can be no denial of the tragic victimization of forcibly recruited women who suffered slavery-like conditions." According to Soh, "it was Japan's colonialism that undoubtedly facilitated the large-scale victimization of tens of thousands of Korean women".
She wrote a book titled ''The Comfort Women: Sexual Violence and Postcolonial Memory in Korea and Japan''. In the book, she provocatively disputes the simplistic view that comfort women were victims of a war crime were solely the fault of Imperial Japan. Instead, she argues that both the Japanese military and the Korean patriarchy are at fault. She asserts that because of the patriarchy that dominated Korea at the time, homes were unstable and thus young girls were more likely to leave, a situation which allowed comfort station owners to recruit them into brothels. Additionally, she argues South Korean nationalist politics and the international women's human rights movement have contributed to the incomplete view of the tragedy that still dominates today.
Works
*
*
*
See also
*
An Byeong-jik
An Byeong-jik (born 1936) or Ahn Byong-jick is a Professor Emeritus at Seoul National University and a co-founder of the Naksungdae Institute of Economic Research. He is the representative director of the New Right Foundation. His research foc ...
*
Lee Young-hoon
Lee Young-hoon (이영훈, 李榮薰, born 1951 in Daegu, South Korea), Lee Yong-hoon, Rhee Yong-hoon, or Yi Yŏnghun is a former professor of economics at Seoul National University and the president of the Naksungdae Institute of Economic Res ...
*
Park Yu-ha
Park Yu-ha (박유하, 朴裕河; born March 25, 1957) is a professor at the College of Liberal Arts, Sejong University. Her research focuses on Japanese-Korean relations. Her 2013 book '' Comfort Women of the Empire'' criticized the Korean inter ...
*
Diary of a Japanese military brothel manager
''Diary of a Japanese Military Comfort Station Manager'' is a book of diaries written by a clerk who worked in Japanese "comfort stations", where the Japanese military trafficked women and girls into sexual slavery, in Burma and Singapore during ...
References
External links
Home pageBook reviewPages 10-11 of her book 'The Comfort Women'
Living people
South Korean academics
San Francisco State University faculty
American anthropologists
Sogang University alumni
University of Hawaiʻi alumni
American women anthropologists
South Korean women anthropologists
Year of birth missing (living people)
{{Korea-academic-bio-stub