Talk:Comfort women/Archive 9

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Lead sentence

I'm opening this discussion to head off what looks like a developing edit war over this. So far, it involves myself, Jpgordon, and Bavio the Benighted; this is the most recent edit. The crux of the matter is the word were. Later in the article, it is made clear that Comfort Women included not only women and girls forced into sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Army, but also other women, some of whom might have been involved in such activity prior to WW-II, and/or some of which might be involved in this activity voluntarily. The linked most recent change reverted the wording back to use the word were, which might be taken to imply that Comfort Women consisted only of the particular women and girls mentioned immediately thereafter, with an edit summary saying that a change to make it clear that others might have been involved requires discussion. Please discuss. Barring consensus to the contrary, I propose that this last change be reverted or that wording to the same effect be adopted. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 18:29, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

• Support "Comfort women were mainly women and girls forced into sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Army in occupied countries and territories before and during World War II, or who participated in the earlier program of voluntary prostitution" or something similar. It's a more accurate opening statement. --John B123 (talk) 19:40, 31 January 2021 (UTC)
• I'm only involved because of the edit warring; I don't have a strong opinion otherwise. --jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆 𝄐𝄇} 00:49, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
• I think it would be poisonous to insert a false balance into the lead sentence by giving the tiny fraction of voluntary prostitutes any kind of mention. Of course we should tell the reader about them later, but not in the first sentence. The tiny fraction of voluntary prostitutes is not why we have this topic. Rather, the women and girls who were coerced and forced into sexual slavery are the topic. By far the majority of our sources describing this topic do so by first telling about the forced and coerced girls and women. We should follow that style. Binksternet (talk) 06:16, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
• Agree with Binksternet. Also, the intro lead already has a reference to it anyways as "Originally, the brothels were established to provide soldiers with voluntary prostitutes in order to reduce the incidence of wartime rape, a cause of rising anti-Japanese sentiment across occupied territories". I think it'd be fairer to not include reference to 'voluntary', which seems to form only a minority of comfort women in the rest of the article and was mostly before much of the controversy, to which this topic is relevant, arose. NettingFish15019 (talk) 07:42, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
• Support A non insignificant number were willing prostitutes, I find issue with the "sex slave" wording as most historians avoid that label, there were an amount who were deceived by independent brokers and recruiters but they did not make up the majority and they were not sex slaves , however thats not a discussion im willing to have right now.

Source/further reading if anyone is interested in learning in depth about this issue:

Wartime Military Records on Comfort Women: Information War against Korea, United States, and Japan by: Archie Miyamoto

Comfort Women and Sex in the Battle Zone by: Ikuhiko Hata

To say that only a tiny fraction were voluntary prostitutes is simply historical distortion. XiAdonis (talk) 08:13, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

• Just responding to the 'voluntary' argument here. I've added my argument and sources against this (which suggest that the broad majority of comfort women were coerced and did not volunteer) below in the "Relevance of Ramseyer" section, which I won't copy-paste here just to save space. I'd like to comment on XiAdonis's suggestion regarding the term 'sex slave' and point out that this label was officially been recognized by several academics and organisations, such as by the United Nations in McDougall's 1998 report (added in the section below). It would therefore not be inappropriate to use it. NettingFish15019 (talk) 14:06, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

• I've been looking at the talk page archive for this topic, and it seems there was a consensus reached around this opening statement "Comfort women were women and girls forced into a prostitution corps created by the Empire of Japan. The name "comfort women" is a translation of a Japanese name ianfu (慰安婦). Ianfu is a euphemism for shōfu (娼婦) whose meaning is "prostitute(s)". The earliest reporting on the issue in South Korea stated it was not a voluntary force, and since 1989 a number of women have come forward testifying they were kidnapped by Imperial Japanese soldiers" (from Archive 6). Much of the archived talk page seems to support against using 'voluntary' as false balance (though this is based on my skim-reading of the talk pages). I thought it'd be relevant here. NettingFish15019 (talk) 14:23, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

• A couple of points:

• I don't find a source-supported assertion in the article to the effect that all but a "tiny fraction" (from above) of comfort women were forced into providing sexual services. Discussion above seems to hinge on an editorial consensus re the tininess of this fraction. If reliable sources exist supporting a characterization re the tininess of this fraction, it seems to me that the article ought to characterize this and ought to cite those sources. If sources differ, this ought to be handled according to WP:DUE. In the absence of this, or in the absence of a consensus among sources that the fraction is tiny, I think that the implicit assertion, were, in the lead sentence, which relies on the fraction being tiny, does not belong there. added: This 1993 NYT article reports that the Jpapense government has acknowledged that there were a large number of comfort women and that "recruiters resorted in many cases to coaxing and intimidating these women to be recruited against their will". It doesn't have any information re the proportion forced, though.
• The false balance article wikilinked a couple of times above is "about the media term", and probably not directly applicable here. Argument to moderation seems closer, but not dead on; I have the impression that the argument being made here re that is similar to the argument there that "one should not be looking for a middle ground between information and disinformation." The problem with that is the difficulty of distinguishing which is which.

Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 18:32, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

• I get your point Wtmitchell. but I guess my concern is even if there's no consensus in this talk page re the fraction of those who were forced (and I don't think we will reach a consensus on that), the question is whether any reference to 'voluntary' should remain in the lead sentence. It's in itself a source of great controversy between Japan and countries from whom comfort women originated. My overall point is that putting in the lead sentence would risk WP:FALSEBALANCE (the link I meant to use, not the one going to the wikipedia article in general). The article has already addressed the concerns of those who want to keep it in the lead sentence (and it is already in the intro itself), but the most common understanding of the term 'comfort women' is for those who were forced into providing sexual services. The proportion, I agree, is up to much debate, mainly because most of the records coming from that time have been destroyed. The National Archive, for example, is aware of this problem, and is providing help in finding resources related to "Any materials related to the so-called "Comfort Women" program, the Japanese systematic enslavement of women of subject populations for sexual purposes". But most media, academic and diplomatic sources (a simple Google search suffices) show that the term 'comfort women' is linked with women who were forced, not those who volunteered. To include 'volunteer' would add undue weight, in line with WP:WEIGHT. NettingFish15019 (talk) 06:09, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

This would be historical distortion, though. The fact of the matter is that all women who served in comfort stations were referred to as "comfort women". There were 50 000 - 400 000 in total, and the vast majority had been hired as prostitutes and were treated and paid extremely well compared to their contemporaries in local brothels (source: "Contracting for sex in the Pacific War" by J. Mark Ramseyer ; memoirs of Mun Ok-ju ; several books by independent investigators published in the 2010s).

On the other hand, we only know of few cases of sexual slavery. Only 16 cases in fact, based on 16 testimonies. That's less than 0.1%―a vocal minority―so this in itself would amount to WP:FALSEBALANCE. According to most neutral, recent investigations, the previous claims asserting that a significant fraction of comfort women had been forced into sexual slavery appear to have been economically and ideologically motivated revisionism by former comfort women, feminists as well as Korean activists. The reason the Allies took no issue with the Comfort Stations nor made them a major talking point in the Tokyo Trials is almost certainly exactly because most of them operated legally. I did an in-depth examination of current evidence in the Relevance of Ramseyer section; to summarize, no current evidence (inc. all sources cited in the Wikipedia article here) corroborates the idea that more than 1% of comfort women would have been forced to work against their will.

In articles that concern historical constructs, maintaining historical accuracy should be regarded as a matter of tantamount importance, regardless of modern media portrayal of said concepts. At the very least, I don't think we should bend the definition of a historical concept just because modern media depiction focuses on a tiny subset of said concept. Bavio the Benighted (talk) 08:08, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

NettingFish1501, my concern is not with the word volunteer, it is with the word were. I think that it is clear that the ranks of comfort women included some women whe were forced into sexual slavery and also included some women who were in that situation voluntarily -- the question is, "Was the proportion of those who had been forced into sexual slavery so overwhelmingly large to make it reasonable to say in the lead sentence that comfort women were women forced into sexual slavery, begging the inference that this was true of all comfort women?". Another question, equally important in Wikipedia, is, "What reliable source supports this implicit assertion that this proportion was so overwhelmingly large?".

memoirs of Mun Ok-ju, I will be interested to see the source you mention when it appears in the Volume 65, March 2021 issue of the International Review of Law and Economics. I don't know whether I will be able to see it online but I'm guessing that, since I am presently located in the U.S., I will be able to get my hands on a copy through my local library.

Bavio the Benighted, thanks; your examination has been more thorough than mine. I would add that, as WP editors, we need to assure that WP article content observes WP:V and (importantly here, I think) WP:NOR. The use of the word were in the lead sentence must be based on some content in the article body which is supported by some cited RS(s) -- but I'm not sure of what that content is, of what those sources are, or whether they can be verified to support the sense of the use of were in that context. It seems to me that MOS:LEADCITE applies here.

Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 10:12, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

• Japanese government has officially and clearly indicated objection on the terms, "forced" and "sex slaves", and large numbers like " 360,000" based on historical research facts in "Diplomatic Bluebook 2019 / The Issue of Comfort Women." The second point, expression of "sex slaves" contradicts the facts and should not be used, noting that this point had been confirmed with South Korea ain a Japan-South Korea agreement 2015. Please take a look at this page and consider these points.Yasuo Miyakawa (talk) 07:56, 3 February 2021 (UTC)Yasuo Miyakawa (talk) 10:28, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

That 2019 Japan MOFA statement does not seem to agree with the 1993 NYT article which I mentioned above. That article used the term, "virtual slaves", but it seems to be based on the 1993 Kono Statement which, FWICS, is not so explicit in that regard. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 10:44, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

• WP:FALSEBALANCE is being misapplied here. The guideline refers to "viewpoints on any topic" and includes "conspiracy theories, pseudoscience, speculative history, or plausible but currently unaccepted theories". This is not a matter of viewpoint but a matter of fact. A pertinent part of the BBC quote in WP:FALSEBALANCE is "make a distinction between an opinion and a fact". As this a question of fact not opinion/viewpoint, then WP:WEIGHT is the relevant guideline. Putting aside the argument about the relative numbers of voluntary and forced women, the generally held view is that most of the women were forced. Comfort women were mainly women and girls forced into sexual slavery .... satisfies WP:WEIGHT. To simply state "Comfort women were women and girls forced into sexual slavery .... is inaccurate and misleading. --John B123 (talk) 17:53, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
  • I would be fine inserting the word "mainly" without the voluntary component mentioned in the first sentence. Binksternet (talk) 18:11, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
    • I'd be ok with that as the voluntary part is brought out later in the lead. --John B123 (talk) 18:31, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
    • Me too, as an unsupported view taken to be commonly held. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 19:32, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Using the word "mainly" implies non-neutral POV. The only thing we know for a fact is that comfort women were prostitutes. Some coerced, others voluntary.

Scrutinizing the sources forced me to re-evaluate my position on the leading sentence. We should remove all conjecture. References to sexual slavery and/or volition inherently introduce bias and have no place in the definition of the concept itself. We are in no place to define the lives of 400 000 women based on the testimonies of 16, especially if those 16 contradict testimonies and memoirs of other comfort women (some of whom were pressured to silence by activists), and especially given the high likelihood of financial and ideological motivations affecting the content of said testimonies.

At this point I urge all editors to review the evidence we have: I repeat, there is nothing to indicate―even indirectly―that more than 1% of comfort women had been forced to serve the military. Defining the term as such would be expression of opinion, not fact. On the contrary, much evidence now suggests that only a tiny fraction were subjected to the type of treatment that is the source of the controversy today. The definition of a historical concept should not be based on the (financially and ideologically motivated) statements of a vocal minority amounting to <0.1% of all the people who fall under said definition, especially given that we have suspiciously few testimonies from the rest of the <400 000, not to mention from the tens of millions of friends, boyfriends, siblings, cousins, parents, grandparents, teachers, neighbors and so forth who should presumably also have been aware of this "forceful recruitment of women". Yet we only have 16 testimonies; this, if anything, proves that we are indeed looking at an exceedingly rare issue that only affected a very, very small minority of comfort women.

The notion of most comfort women being forced to work being "mostly taken for fact" is outdated. I refer to my arguments above and the Relevance of Ramseyer section. The notion is now rejected not only by Japanese researchers (whom many here seem to believe are somehow inherently biased, ignoring the fact that the most damning evidence for isolated crimes against comfort women are based on Japanese studies, not to mention that the outrage itself originated in Japan) but also by Korean investigators (see the sources below).

In light of all current evidence, the most accurate, neutral way to define the term would go more along the lines of:

"Comfort women were prostitutes who worked at military brothels ("comfort stations") established by the Imperial Japanese Army in occupied territories during World War 2.

The brothels gained infamy following the publication of a novel depicting kidnappings and incarceration of girls into comfort stations by Japanese novelist Seiji Yoshida, which, at the time, was thought to be based on real events. This was followed by 16 testimonies by former comfort women concerning poor treatment as well as deceptive and coercive recruitment practices. These revelations incited international outrage, with many likening the brothels to institutions of sexual slavery, although this notion has recently been challenged by researchers in Korea, Japan and elsewhere whose findings indicate that the vast majority of comfort women had been legally contracted for the job and were well-remunerated for their services."

Sources:

* Source 1: The Comfort Women: Sexual Violence and Postcolonial Memory in Korea and Japan (Author: Sarah Soh)

* Source 2: Comfort Women of the Empire (Author: Yu-ha Park)

* Source 3: Confronting Korea's Censored Discourse on Comfort Women (Article by Joseph Yi)

* Source 4: Memoirs of Mun Ok-ju

* Source 5: Wartime Military Records on Comfort Women: Information War against Korea, United States, and Japan (Archie Miyamoto)

* Source 6: Comfort Women and Sex in the Battle Zone (Author: Ikuhiko Hata)

* Source 7: "Contracting for sex in the Pacific War" (Author: J. Mark Ramseyer)

With the above changes, I agree to removing the word "voluntary". There is very little factual information we can rely on to determine how 99% of comfort women ended up working at the stations. I would argue that them being much more well-treated and well-remunerated than most other prostitutes of their time would indicate a high likelihood of a large fraction of them having worked voluntarily, but given the lack of evidence in that regard this type of conjecture should, at the very least, not be mentioned in the definition itself. Bavio the Benighted (talk) 02:47, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

• Comment - This is rather a non-issue to me. When a Wikipedia article is created, it's because the topic is notable. "Comfort women" is notable because of the sexual slavery issue; the "voluntary prostitutes" has never been a part of it. "Comfort women" is also the common name for the women abused in sexual slavery by the Japanese in WWII. We only need to define what "comfort women" is commonly known as. STSC (talk) 15:16, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

Look at the Wikipedia page for Nazi Party. Is the party defined as "the people who killed Jews for no reason and tried to conquer the world"?

That's how the term "nazi" is used in common parlance, and very much the extent to which the Nazi Party is perceived by most people in modern society. That's also very much the extent of its "notability", as far as the average person is concerned.

This is not how the Wikipedia page defines the Nazi Party, though.

Why? The answer is simple: because that would be a sweeping generalization and thus historically inaccurate. And even then, that, in terms of sheer numbers, would still likely be far less of a generalization than claiming that comfort women "were sex slaves".

How the word is used in modern contexts is irrelevant; on Wikipedia, historical distortion is generally not tolerated for any reasons, regardless of public opinion. That said, if you feel this runs contrary to Wikipedia's policies and you wish to edit the page describing the Nazi Party to better fit modern usage, you may feel free to do so. However, I doubt this would be appreciated by any historians who use Wikipedia.

The exact same treatment should be given to all historical articles. Wikipedia should not re-define a word based on media sensationalism, because the site was never intended to parrot the claims of mass media outlets. Articles are supposed to be factual, and as such definitions should stick to verifiable facts and dispense with non-neutral POV.

Here is our current best candidate for an improved, neutral, objective and purely evidence-based definition (suggestions are welcome):

"Comfort women were prostitutes who worked at military brothels ("comfort stations") established by the Imperial Japanese Army in occupied territories during World War 2.

The brothels gained infamy following the publication of a novel depicting kidnappings and incarceration of girls into comfort stations by Japanese novelist Seiji Yoshida, which, at the time, was thought to be based on real events. This was followed by 16 testimonies by former comfort women concerning poor treatment as well as deceptive and coercive recruitment practices. These revelations incited international outrage, with many likening the brothels to institutions of sexual slavery, although this notion has recently been challenged by researchers in Korea, Japan and elsewhere whose findings indicate that the vast majority of comfort women had been legally contracted for the job and were well-remunerated for their services."

Do we have consensus with this definition? If not, why not, and what changes would you suggest? This definition incorporates the allegations of sexual slavery by the activists, thus perfectly addressing the issue of notability. It also contains no mention of "voluntary prostitutes"; as such, it seems to take into account all concerns that have been expressed thus far.

Unless I'm missing something, contrary to previous definitions, this one is also completely in line with all primary sources, both those given in this talk page as well as everything cited (directly or indirectly) in the actual article. And again, please, I urge everyone to re-examine all sources; once you do so, it becomes glaringly obvious that the article, as it currently stands, is largely based on opinion, not fact. I refer to my arguments above, as well as to those below, in the Relevance of Ramseyer section. If you have counterarguments or suggestions for improving the definition above, please let me know. Bavio the Benighted (talk) 17:12, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

And note that if we do decide to redefine the term based on popular conceptions, all references to the total number of historical comfort women (i.e. 20 000 - 400 000) will need to be removed, and the Japanese "ianfu" can no longer be mentioned as a synonym either, because both only apply when "comfort woman" is used as a translation for "ianfu". If we redefine "comfort women" as "the subset of ianfu who were subjected to sexual slavery based on testimonies", information pertaining to historical comfort women in general will completely lose relevance in the context of this article. Bavio the Benighted (talk) 17:50, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

• I strongly disagree with Bavio the Benighted's suggested lead, as it would introduce a severely unbalanced POV. It effectively ignores and marginalizes the many sources that indicate the coercive practices that were inherent in the comfort women system (sources presented elsewhere in this talk page), indicated by phrasing such as 'vast majority' and 'thought to be, at the time, based on real events'. While I appreciate that Bavio the Benighted says they have responded to those sources below, it seems to be unduly moving away official and neutral sources, especially by only focusing on one particular source (ie. Yoshida's novels) to advance this 'wholly voluntary' viewpoint that the this lead sentence seems to be suggesting. This is not to mention some of the sources cited don't seem to support the lead sentence's suggestion. The references to Soh, Park and Yi, for instance, only note that there were some women who enlisted voluntarily, without supporting the claim that "the vast majority of comfort women had been legally contracted for the job and were well-remunerated for their services". In any case, the rest of the article already addresses some of the user's concern.

What matters is what made the term 'comfort women' notable. The analogy to the Nazi Party seems irrelevant here, which is a broad-ranging topic and is notable for reasons outside of the user's selected events. On the other hand, the term 'comfort women' has become notable due to the sexual slavery issue. and is commonly used as such. As John B123 says, the generally held view is that most women who were considered comfort women were forced. John B123's suggested lead (along with agreement by Binksternet, Wtmitchell and STSC, though correct me if I'm wrong to assume so) seems to be better and there seems to be a consensus drawing around it. NettingFish15019 (talk) 04:24, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

I feel my suggestion above does address all of these concerns quite well. Going point by point:

1. No sources indicate that coercive practices were inherent in the ianfu system in itself. Recruitment was left to local middlemen, some (though not necessarily the majority) of whom used coercive and deceptive tactics to recruit women. This practice seems to have extended not only to comfort stations, but to non-military, lower-class brothels as well. Also, this would not amount to sexual slavery, but would instead represent an instance of forced prostitution, given that the contracts were legal and that the women were remunerated relatively well based on Ramseyer's findings and e.g. the memoirs of Mun Ok-Ju.

2. The definition I suggested above does not assert that all or even a majority of comfort women had served voluntarily; as you say, this would not be supported by the sources. What it does claim is that the vast majority of comfort women were legally contracted and well-remunerated for their services. As per Ramseyer's paper, the brothels paid the prostitutes the equivalent of several years of salary in advance. This, in some cases, lead, according to e.g. Park's book, to fathers selling their daughters to the brothels. Again, this is forced prostitution and may indeed have been rampant at the time. This could explain why so few of the former comfort women chose to testify, since they may not have wished to incriminate their own parents. Either way, we have little evidence indicating that this would have affected the majority of comfort women, hence we should err on the side of caution and remove all conjecture regarding how the comfort women ended up in the brothels from the definition of the word itself.

3. The comfort woman system is inherently notable from a historical perspective, as it represents a rare attempt by a military to combat the spread of STDs and the incidence of wartime rape by providing soldiers with prostitutes. The 16 allegations of sexual slavery are in fact a relatively minor point of interest in this larger historical context.

4. The current definition is only supported by old sources based on financially motivated allegations by activists, as opposed to the suggested definition, which prioritizes new and neutral sources, thus achieving better alignment with Wikipedia's policies of Age matters, Biased or opinionated sources and WP:UNDUE. No recent official source supports the notion that the majority of comfort women had been illegally forced to work in the brothels (whether or not forced prostitution could have been legal in the 1930s - 1940s in Japan and China being a potential source of dispute) and it has been flatly rejected by some "official sources" such as the former Prime Minister of Japan (not that appealing to authority would matter in this context; authority alone will never prove anything unless corroborated or contradicted by actual, traceable evidence).

5. The term "comfort woman" or "ianfu" has a strict historical definition, referring to prostitutes (forced or voluntary) who served members of the military in brothels known as "comfort stations" established by the Imperial Japanese Army in occupied territories during World War 2. This is the definition used by historians, and re-defining the term based on common conceptions would thus create a discrepancy between one part of the article using one definition and another part using another. My analogy to the Nazi Party does seem relevant here. The article mentions estimates of the numbers of comfort women, around 20 000 - 400 000. This is not the number of involuntary prostitutes―it is the total number of prostitutes who worked at comfort stations. Now, if we decide to redefine the term as "comfort women who were forced to work at the comfort stations", those estimates will no longer apply and would need to be removed. I suggest that if deemed notable enough, comfort women who were subjected to kidnappings and deceptive recruitment practices could be given their own article. However, this article pertains to the historical concept on a general level and should therefore prioritize neutral sources and historical accuracy.

I agree the suggested definition may be misleading in its current form, though. It could be more optimal to rephrase the final sentence by de-emphasizing the "vast majority" part and making the part about remuneration more objective, e.g. along the lines of:

"Comfort women were prostitutes who worked at military brothels ("comfort stations") established by the Imperial Japanese Army in occupied territories during World War 2.

The brothels gained infamy following the publication of a novel depicting kidnappings and incarceration of girls into comfort stations by Japanese novelist Seiji Yoshida, which, at the time, was thought to be based on real events. This was followed by 16 testimonies by former comfort women concerning poor treatment as well as deceptive and coercive recruitment practices. These revelations incited international outrage, with many likening the brothels to institutions of sexual slavery, although this notion has recently been challenged by researchers in Korea, Japan and elsewhere whose findings indicate that most comfort women were legally contracted for the job and were well-remunerated relative to non-military prostitutes."

Unless I'm misunderstanding someone's argument, this version seems to address all concerns expressed thus far. Bavio the Benighted (talk) 06:41, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

• I think it'd be easier for me to respond point by point first.

1. Many sources indicate that coercive practices were inherent, contrary to what you suggest. The UN Report, as well as the various sources already included in this talk page, clearly show that whatever the surface appearances there may have been, there was clear coercion. Not to mention, 'forced prostitution' is a sub-set of sexual slavery, with the sources mentioned clearly stating that many women were not remunerated or, if they were, inadequately. I've already responded to the Ramseyer report below. As for the memoirs you link, the reality is that whatever wages they may have gotten was severely inadequate compared to the state of the economy, to the point where the wage was mostly nominal. In any case, the representation of one woman does not counteract that systematic coercion that happened in the comfort women system.

2. It does, in fact do so, by your lead sentence as "comfort women were prostitutes", with no mention of coercion or sexual slavery, and the suggestion that "this notion (of sexual slavery) has been challenged", without referring to any sources that contradict the sources provided. It implies that the majority of women were not subjected to sexual slavery. Many of the documents relating to the comfort women system were destroyed, yet the research undertaken by the UN and US, as well as scholars such as Hayashi, Jonsoon and Szuzki. In any case, the sources provided in the suggested lead do not provide any support for the statement that "most comfort women were legally contracted for the job and were well-remunerated relative to non-military prostitutes"; they only acknowledge that some women enlisted. Soh, in particular notes that it would be dangerous to do so, and that it would risk advancing denialism and revisionism relating to comfort women.

3. A simple Google search shows that the comfort women is notable due to the sexual slavery issue. Most of the discussion around this topic, and indeed in this talk page, is around whether and how women were forced into providing sexual services. I don't know why there's so much focus on '16 allegations', given the ample sources already provided in the talk page.

4. Referencing 'biased or opinion sources' and 'WP:UNDUE' seems inadvisable here, as the sources that show that comfort women were mainly coerced are being ignored in favor of Ramseyer (who I've already addressed below). Also, the 'age matters' hyperlink again has little relevance, when the sources trying to show the consensus, or at least why this topic is notable, have not been rejected. Getting rid of any source just because it's older is not the purpose of this Wikipedia policy. In any case, if you want more recent sources, Ahn Yonson's 2020 book "Whose comfort? : body, sexuality and identities of Korean 'comfort women' and Japanese soldiers during WWII" shows that comfort women were mainly coerced. But this kind of 'who's got the most recent source' is, again, not the policy's purpose.

5. The lead sentence proposed that 'comfort women were mainly women and girls forced" already reflects historical accuracy. Comfort women as a term and concept is broadly notable due to the coercion. The Nazi Party on the other hand, is notable for a host of different reasons, and is therefore of little relevance here.

In any case, there seems to be a consensus around John B123 suggested lead and this is the one that should be followed. NettingFish15019 (talk) 07:43, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

I'll break down the points further to make it easier to address specific arguments:

1. This point has already been rebuked, repeatedly even. Nowhere has anything of the sort been proven; it has only been assumed based on 16 potentially biased testimonies. If you feel I'm wrong, I urge you to cite your sources here.

1B. The point regarding whether or not the prostitutes were in fact well-remunerated by absolute standards has been addressed by the latest change in my suggestion. Based on Ramseyer's findings the prostitutes were indeed well-remunerated compared to non-military prostitutes, and based on Mun Ok-ju's memoir, they were not poor by any means. However, I agree absolute claims regarding their pay should be avoided in favor of relative ones.

1C. You mention sources stating that women were not remunerated. However, you do not cite a specific source. In addition, this fails to take into account the advance payment; the prostitutes received several years worth of money in advance for their services that they (or their parents) could use to pay off debts. This would explain why some received less pay than others.

2. The term "prostitute" does not indicate voluntary service. See the Wikipedia article on forced prostitution. Defining the comfort women as prostitutes is an objective fact supported by all sources, even if they were, indeed, coerced to serve in the comfort stations. This definition will also hold water if it turns out that most comfort women did, indeed, enlist of their own free will. This is why the definition itself should be expressed as such, without taking a stance on whether or not the majority were served voluntarily or against their will. This is the only fully neutral, fully objective definition that has been proposed thus far.

2B. Here, again, it's worth noting that "legally contracted" simply means that there existed a legal contract that bound them to work at the brothels. The issue of remuneration, again, should take into account the advance payments paid to the comfort women or their parents. And while you don't mention the particular quote by Soh that warned agained revisionism, I believe she was referring to the notion that the majority of comfort women served out of their own volition. Volition is never mentioned in the suggested introduction, so it perfectly addresses this concern in particular.

3. You confuse Wikipedia's definition of notability, which is a measure of whether or not a topic deserves its own article, with relevance. WP:N directly states that "determining notability does not necessarily depend on things such as fame, importance, or popularity", and instead defines notability as a characteristic of any topic that is sufficiently covered by reliable sources. Here, too, the nazi analogy illustrates the point. A simple Google search shows that nazis are mainly "notable" for their involvement, either direct or indirect, with concentration camps and other atrocities; but that does not mean that the majority of the nazis operated concentration camps or that they took part in other war crimes, though, nor that the majority were directly involved with the initiation of WW2. Saying that the subject is "notable", in Wikipedia's terms, simply means that it deserves its own article.

3B. I focus on the 16 testimonies because they are the primary source that most secondary sources cited in this talk page rely on. If you can point me to any other primary source (aside from Yoshiaki's 1995 and 2000 books, which I mention in my first and latest posts in the Relevance of Ramseyer section) I would be interested in examining them as well, of course.

4. You mention Ahn Yonson's 2020 somehow "showing that the majority of comfort women were forced to work in comfort stations". I personally do not have access to this book at the moment, so I would appreciate it if you would elaborate how the author managed to prove this. Here, verifiability, namely, the traceability of the argument is of paramount importance. Based on the summary of the book, it does not seem to contain any new research on the subject of volition, unlike Park's, Soh's and Ramseyer's works, in which case Age matters does not apply here. Also, I hope you would refrain from misrepresenting my position: just like I never espoused the idea that comfort women were "100% voluntary" (because this notion is neither supported by hard facts nor logic) here, I made no calls for the removal of sources based on their age. I said they need to be deprioritized relative to new sources, which is what Wikipedia's policy dictates, i.e. that the article should no longer be written from a one-sided perspective based on old, potentially biased testimonies. And regarding your arguments on Ramseyer, I addressed them in the relevant section below (I marked the post with a ■ to make it easier to find).

5. This definition is inherently based on opinion, not facts. Again, the estimated numbers of comfort women mentioned in the article are the total numbers of prostitutes who worked at the comfort stations; here, we use the term "comfort woman" to denote all prostitutes, both forced and voluntary. If we then decide to redefine the term as "girls and women mainly forced to work as sex slaves in comfort stations" we are making an unsubstantiated assumption and these numbers may no longer apply. Again, assertions must be strongly supported by evidence, as per WP:VERIFY, and currently, there is no strong evidence to suggest whether or not 99% of comfort women worked in comfort stations out of their own will.

6. Consensus is irrelevant if unsupported by reliable sources or if affected by systemic bias on the editors' part, as per Wikipedia's policies. If no one is unable to counter arguments in favor of removing the "sex slave" definition and yet the consensus settles on retaining the non-neutral, one-sided presentation, we will simply have to call in more editors for dispute resolution to continue the debate until an evidence-based consensus is reached.

So, the following still seems to be our best candidate for a neutral, objective definition:

"Comfort women were prostitutes who worked at military brothels ("comfort stations") established by the Imperial Japanese Army in occupied territories during World War 2.

The brothels gained infamy following the publication of a novel depicting kidnappings and incarceration of girls into comfort stations by Japanese novelist Seiji Yoshida, which, at the time, was thought to be based on real events. This was followed by 16 testimonies by former comfort women concerning poor treatment as well as deceptive and coercive recruitment practices. These revelations incited international outrage, with many likening the brothels to institutions of sexual slavery, although this notion has recently been challenged by researchers in Korea, Japan and elsewhere whose findings indicate that most comfort women were legally contracted for the job and were well-remunerated relative to non-military prostitutes."

The leading sentence, at the very least, seems indisputably to be the only way to objectively define the term "comfort woman", since this is in complete agreement with all sources presented thus far and is contradicted by none of them. What follows next is more arbitrary, and suggestions are certainly welcome here (e.g. whether Seiji Yoshida deserves a mention, whether the wording of the following sentences is misleading, etc) but even in its current form it does seem to address all concerns expressed thus far without cherry-picking evidence or ignoring the other side of the argument. You said it fails to mention evidence supporting the idea of widespread sexual slavery, but this is simply not true: it cites the 16 testimonies that all the other sources, including the 1996 UN report, use as their primary source, presenting the best evidence we currently have to corroborate the notion that a significant fraction of comfort women may have been forced or deceived into working at the comfort stations. It also does not directly dispute this notion; rather, it mentions that the notion of widespread sexual slavery has merely been "challenged" based on newer research, which is absolutely true and should be mentioned near the definition as per WP:NPOV. Again, I think this introduction encompasses all of our points of view quite well. ■ Bavio the Benighted (talk) 09:44, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

Being somewhat familiar with some of the listed resources myself, I concur that the suggestion by Bavio is, in my humble opinion, the least academically controversial definition of Comfort Women, and provide a much more balanced view than the current lead in light of the available evidence. In all good faith, I invite interested editors to verify the provided resources if it hasn’t been done yet - and provide reasons to dismiss these sources in the lead sentence, or consider suggesting alternative propositions which would better reflect the state of academic consensus. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Doragoram (talk • contribs) 17:30, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

I'll need to re-read all of that more carefully to better appreciate the detail but, overall, it seems clear that this discussion now ranges over several separate usages of the term comfort women -- • the term itself, • the program, and • the women.-- and that there's enough meat on each of those bones for a separate article. This article is long and complicated and seems destined to become longer and more complicated; so... how about recasting this article as an article about the term and, in that article, summarizing and linking to separate articles about the Japanese WW-II program and about the women? Particulars about those separate articles could be worked out on their separate talk pages. The mechanics of this would be complicated. An existing article titled The Comfort Women is about the book with that title, there are currently 42 articles in Category: Comfort women, and appearances of the term are no doubt wikilinked to here from many other WP articles. I won't attempt to even guess at the complications here, but I'll initially suggest articles titled Comfort women (the current article title) about the term, WW-II sexual slavery#Japan about the program (a detail article of the current Sexual slavery#Japan during World War II article#section), and WW-II Japanese comfort women about the women (with sections about voluntary and conscripted women and, probably, subsections for notable conscripts and links to individual articles about some of them). Such a reorganization would require a lot of work and, while I might participate, I'm not really into this topic enough to be a major contributor. Something to think about and perhaps discuss, though. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 11:24, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

@Bavio the Benighted: I have reverted your changes to the lead. You need consensus to make these changes, "most recent suggestion" isn't the way it works. --John B123 (talk) 20:27, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

@John B123: The current consensus has remained uncontested on the talk page for 9 days. You can see this above: no one has mentioned any counterarguments for more than a week. This indicates that the lead sentence should absolutely be changed, given that no one is defending it anymore.

If you feel the previous lead was better, please provide your reasoning above and wait at least 3 days so that other editors have time to discuss your suggestion. If you feel you have nothing more to discuss, the current best suggestion (the one you just reverted) will replace the old, non-neutral lead sentence as per WP:NPOV, WP:UNDUE, WP:AGE MATTERS and WP:BIASED as explained in the arguments here and in the Relevance of Ramseyer section.

Note that reverting changes that have been established on the talk page without making any attempts to challenge the consensus amounts to vandalism, as per WP:VD, especially in the case of sourced, good-faith edits. The same can be said about the recent "minor" edit by STSC which apparently attempted to shut down the discussion in favor of keeping the old, less neutral, contested lead.

And this would apply even if consensus has not been established though, in this case, it has―the arguments presented here are leaning heavily in favor of the above suggestion compared to the current version―since the change is based on several sources citing new primary evidence, gaining weight over the old sources as per WP:AGE MATTERS.

I'm beginning to suspect strong systemic bias on the editors' part for this page in particular, given that so many here seem to be arguing in favor of of a biased lead. Defining the concept using the word "sex slave" in itself is clearly in violation of WP:IMPARTIAL, given that the sources indicate that the comfort women were prostitutes by definition and in practice. Bavio the Benighted (talk) 20:53, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

@Bavio the Benighted: What "current consensus"? Do you mean your latest suggestion which has been opposed by one and supported by none, that's not a consensus. Suggesting systemic bias because other editors disagree with your view is not acceptable. --John B123 (talk) 21:06, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

Bavio never had a temporary consensus to remake the article into a negationist vehicle. Bavio's arguments against the UN source were ineffective. The UN source stands as definitive. Binksternet (talk) 21:49, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

--John B123 (talk) 21:06, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

@John B132: See my post above, starting with "I'll break down the points further to make it easier to address specific arguments:" and ending with a ■. All of the arguments given there are currently uncontested. No one is defending the old lead sentence in favor of the suggested, more neutral lead. This in itself already means that the consensus is heavily shifted in favor of the suggestion above.

And given that some users here appear to be in favor of keeping the disputed definition despite all evidence indicating that it is both incorrect and impartial, clearly violating WP:NPOV, WP:UNDUE, WP:AGE MATTERS and WP:BIASED, suspecting systemic bias seems reasonable at this point. And if you don't find my arguments above convincing, Ramseyer's old paper sums up the WP:NPOV issue with our article here much better than I could: all of the sources pointing to a "sex slave" narrative are based on a single, extremely dubious primary source (Chong Dae Hyup) and contradicted by new findings (i.e. new primary sources) by independent investigators such as Park Yu-ha and Sarah Soh. If you or anyone else has a counterargument I'm more than happy to continue the discussion, but I've been waiting for a while now and the debate seems to have ended in favor of my suggestion, as you can see from the post above.

And indeed, I found it telling that user STSC tried to downplay the dispute by removing the discussion template from the leading sentence, despite being unable to defend the current definition against my arguments here and in the Relevance of Ramseyer section, and even marked their edit as "minor" so as to avoid notifying editors. This convinced me that those in favor of the old version likely have no substantial counterarguments left, and are now choosing to engage in vandalism instead to maintain the non-neutral definition. Needless to say I wasn't amused by this development, not after having spent so much time and energy arguing logically in favor of the more neutral, objective definition while faced with what seemed to be systemic bias by other editors. Bavio the Benighted (talk) 21:57, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

All of the arguments given there are currently uncontested. No one is defending the old lead sentence in favor of the suggested, more neutral lead. This in itself already means that the consensus is heavily shifted in favor of the suggestion above. For the consensus to shift to your suggestion it needs people to say they agree with it, which nobody has. --John B123 (talk) 22:17, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

Indeed. No one is able (or willing) to come up with any counterarguments anymore, yet several users remain strongly opposed to the adoption of a more neutral definition. Indeed, several users here have chosen to uncritically parrot the claims of old and disputed sources while simultaneously blindly rejecting any evidence that contradicts their views. One user has previously resorted to edit-war to push their cause (and managed to get me blocked despite being the initiator), another to vandalism, seemingly to shut down any further discussion.

I wonder what could explain these contradictions. Bavio the Benighted (talk) 22:46, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

In my opinion, you may well be heading for another ban with your continual accusations of bias and vandalism against other editors who disagree with your viewpoint. --John B123 (talk) 23:07, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

Unlikely. I never accused e.g. NettingFish15019 of bias or vandalism despite having expressed disagreement on the subject. The ones I did accuse are blatantly engaging in sneaky edits and edit-warring.

Check out the current editing history of the main article. Two users have explicitly removed calls for discussion from the leading sentence despite having been unable to present any evidence corroborating their stance for a month now. Regardless of your stance in the debate, I'm sure you agree this seems to be an attempt to prevent the establishment of a new consensus, which is both biased (by definition) and runs directly against Wikipedia's policies (hence, vandalism).

At this point it seems we should submit this topic for dispute resolution, given that none of the current editors seem willing to engage in any further debate. Bavio the Benighted (talk) 23:31, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

• If I may jump in, I once suggested an edit to the lead sentence as well, for reasons similar to the ones suggested by Bavio the Benighted. I think it is relevant I bring some of the points that were unaddressed.

My proposal was to replace "Comfort women were women and girls forced into being sex slaves by the Imperial Japanese Army" By "Comfort women were women and girls who worked in the military brothels for the Imperial Japanese Army, many of whom having been forced into being sex slaves". The proposed change is motivated by a violation of wikipedia's neutral point of view policy of the previous formulation on 2 points.

1) The first one is about the implication that Comfort Women equate sex slaves. While the modern usage of the term often confounds with sexual slavery, historically speaking, this is far from being established. As a matter of fact, while widespread coercion existed, the amplitude of coercion itself is not established by historians either. Sarah Soh, a Korean American scholar, deplores in her book "The Comfort Women: Sexual Violence and Postcolonial Memory in Korea and Japan" how equating comfort women’s experiences into a uniform sexual slavery narrative overlooks the complexity of an evolving empire-wide system incorporating “licensed prostitution and indentured sexual labor, wartime military rape and battlefield abduction into sexual slavery.”. This view is shared by many other historians, including Korean scholar Park Yu-ha. There is no question that the Comfort system led to the sexual violation of tens of thousands of women. In spite of this, definitions such as the one provided in the first sentence of the article do not offer an accurate view of the complex comfort system, and rather further aggravates the misalignment between the academic understanding and the much needed public discourse.

2) The second point is the suggestion that the Japanese Imperial Army was directly behind the coercion, as implied by the formulation "forced into being sex slaves by the Imperial Japanese Army". Once again, while the existence of kidnapping and coercion is clear, there is no evidence pointing to the Japanese Imperial Army, on an institutional capacity, having ordered these acts. As noted by Prof. Jinyul Ju, "several Korean researchers found that some victims had originally testified that their families had sold them to traffickers or pimps, and that comfort women were the victims of deceptive recruitment and coercion by Korean traffickers or pimps rather than the Japanese government. For sharing their findings, the researchers were prosecuted for slander, and in 2017, one of them was fined." There are other sources that shows the Japanese government in fact seeked to punish these contractors and agents who kidnapped some girls. The reformulation would fix this implicit bias by adopting a more neutral tone.

On a last note, and interestingly, the article used to be more nuanced in the past - see Comfort_women&oldid=426326787, for example. If you retrace the history, you would see the nuance is gradually being lost, often without proper justification. It is really crucial that the Wikipedia article stays in tune with the latest academic findings rather than merely parroting the most popular narrative of the time, as the issue of Comfort Women is a topic which tends to be politically charged and thus often targeted for manipulation. I would strongly invite you to read some of the commentaries and opinions expressed by Korean Professors, who describe how the Comfort Women mainstream narrative has become virtually impossible to contest both publicly and academically without bearing the consequence of being ostracized and, sometimes, even imprisoned. As quoted by these Korean scholars, "The suppression of critical discourse too often means that Koreans, including students, lack awareness of arguments and data challenging the dominant narrative".

Regardless of the decision, I kindly and strongly ask the editors here take the time to carefully consider the available resources, if necessary fix some of the unjustified past edits, and update the page based on the available academic work, since, if not on Wikipedia, where else would these students turn to to get information that would broaden their understanding? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Doragoram (talk • contribs) 17:25, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

References

Proposal

Seeing as this discussion is seems to have stalled, I propose that the lead, currently "Comfort women were women and girls forced into being sex slaves by the Imperial Japanese Army ...", be changed to "Comfort women were mainly women and girls forced into being sex slaves by the Imperial Japanese Army ...", i.e. inserting the word mainly. --John B123 (talk) 21:20, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

• Support. This gives a proportionate nod to those who say that the comfort women program includes the paid prostitutes who were the first recruits to the early part of the program, when Japan was first invading mainland Asia. But the largest body of comfort women, the main subject of this article, is the many thousands of girls and women who were forced into sex slavery during World War II. Binksternet (talk) 21:46, 15 February 2021 (UTC)
• Support. I have no problem with there being the word 'mainly'. It acknowledges that there have been some women who were nominally paid, but that the overriding concern in this article is the women were was coerced into being 'comfort women', which is what most people and academic research into this topic focuses on. In any case, I thought there was already a consensus forming around this proposal in the above section, so I'm not sure what the problem is. Sure, there is some opposition, but 'consensus' doesn't mean unanimous approval. NettingFish15019 (talk) 01:15, 16 February 2021 (UTC)
• I'm in opposition given that this definition is inaccurate, unobjective and violates WP:NPOV, WP:UNDUE, WP:AGE MATTERS and WP:BIASED. Based on newer and more reliable sources, the word "sex slave" should be replaced with the word "prostitute", possibly followed by a note along the lines of "in current usage, the term 'comfort woman' is often used to denote those of the comfort women who were forced to work at the brothels".

The old definition is only supported by sources indirectly citing Chong Dae Hyup, which, as described by Sarah Soh, Park Yu-ha and Ramseyer (reference) is a far-right nationalist group known to have pressured comfort women into fabricating testimonies. The UN Special Rapporteur, who wrote the 1996 report Binksternet seems to consider to be the holy grail of sources for this particular topic (despite exhibiting several red flags as I pointed out below) also received her information directly from Chong Dae Hyup without performing any fact-checking on her end. Indeed, there is no evidence that a significant fraction of comfort women had been subjected to sexual slavery, as I have already proved both in the Lead sentence and the Relevance of Ramseyer sections. Again, I highly recommend perusing this paper or reading Soh's and Yu-ha's books for those unaware of Chong Dae Hyup's influence on the current narrative and how it goes against the findings of several independent sources in both Korea and Japan.

For a neutral definition, "Comfort women were prostitutes who worked at military brothels ("comfort stations") established by the Imperial Japanese Army in occupied territories during World War 2." seems optimal. The word "prostitute" makes no assumptions regarding volition―it is a well-documented fact that prostitutes are often subjected to workplace violence and human trafficking, which matches well with our understanding of comfort women. All sources agree on this definition (only those citing Chong Dae Hyup are motivated to make it less impartial by using the term "sex slave"). Therefore, according to WP:NPOV, this is the definition that should be used in the article. Bavio the Benighted (talk) 22:36, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

Unfortunately, you couldn't resist edit warring at the same time you were trying to gain consensus. --jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆 𝄐𝄇} 01:05, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

@Jpgordon: I admit you surprised me. You blocked me for making three attempts to restore a tag on a statement that was strongly disputed on the talk page―i.e. for edits that were 100% in line with the consensus (or lack thereof) and that attempted to call more attention to the dispute to improve the consensus further; all exactly as mandated by Wikipedia's rules for establishing consensus in case of a dispute. Not only that, but you didn't block Binksternet, who was edit-warring for the sake of removing said tag, i.e. for the sake of stifling debate on a strongly disputed lede. Nor did you block STSC, who removed the tag and marked this change as 'minor' in the first place. I listed some other aspects that seemed contradictory about this block on my unblock request, but you never issued an unblock nor explained your reasoning. Daniel Case made some good points defending your decision, but he seemed to assume that Ramseyer's was the only controversial source on the page, or that I was the only one advocating for neutrality, but neither of these assumptions is true (as I'm sure you are aware given your activity on this page).

So, I'm genuinely curious: what was your rationale for selectively blocking me, but not Binksternet? Are you on Binksternet's side in the debate, or did you simply assume he's correct because he's a veteran editor? Or does Wikipedia have a rule that specifically prompted you to block me, but not him?

And if you are on Binksternet's side on the debate, why do you feel adding the template is inappropriate in this context, given the strong disagreement on the talk page and the numerous reliable sources (cited previously by XiAdonis, Yasuo Miyakawa and myself -- i.e. Ramseyer, Soh, Yi, Yu-ha, Hata, Miyamoto,...) that contest the phrasing of the lede? Bavio the Benighted (talk) 02:23, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

The lead section wording is based on the widely accepted, longstanding United Nations assessment of the issue. You have been very clear on this talk page that you think the UN source is unreliable, but you have not proved your case. Instead you insist on violations of WP:No original research in which you dissect the UN conclusion and make your own conclusion to replace theirs. That's not how Wikipedia works. Binksternet (talk) 03:57, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

The UN report was written in 1996, before investigations by Sarah Soh and Park Yu-ha, so it should be deprecated as per WP:AGE MATTERS. The UN report even uses Yoshida Seiji's novel as proof of "slave raids"; that should give you a good indication as to how rigorously this Special Rapporteur investigated the issue.

The UN Special Rapporteur also explicitly states that the only hard evidence she could find indicated that the Imperial Army set up the brothels and ensured that the women were paid and treated according to their instructions. The little evidence she did have of sexual slavery she gathered from testimonies provided by comfort women under the care of Chong Dae Hyup, a group known to have forced former victims to falsely incriminate Japanese soldiers in their testimonies, and known to have vilified any comfort women who tried to contest their narrative. Since the primary evidence the UN report uses to draw its conclusions came from a nationalist organization, the source violates WP:BIASED. And in the report, we see no mention of her performing any further investigation on the matter.

Finally, the lede has been contested by several reliable sources,. so it is further in conflict with WP:NPOV and WP:UNDUE. Bavio the Benighted (talk) 04:53, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

This discussion ended with a DRN that you filed, with the conclusion "On the other hand, if the other editors are satisfied with status quo, then the status quo is the consensus." All the comments in this subsection, except yours, have indicated support or at least non-opposition to the current lede, with discussion coming to an end a week ago. As I recommended below and has been recommended by a moderator, please drop the stick and back slowly away from the horse carcass and let it go. NettingFish15019 (talk) 05:26, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

XiAdonis, Yasuo Miyakawa and Doragoram have all expressed disagreement with the status quo.

No editor has countered any of my arguments on this talk page, nor found any tangible fault with the sources that contradict the current leading sentence (Ramseyer, Soh, Yi, Yu-ha, Hata, Miyamoto). I'm not sure why you're trying to ignore all of this. I seriously hope you're arguing in good faith here. Bavio the Benighted (talk) 07:08, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

• Support addition of "mainly". Absolutely no way will I support the supposedly neutral definition that labels sex slaves as prostitutes. What's next, calling African slaves migrant workers? Meters (talk) 04:15, 16 February 2021 (UTC)
• Neutral - In the first sentence of the article, it actually defines the topic "comfort women" in general. We should not attempt to define the meaning of comfort women as in a dictionary, so adding the specific word "mainly" is unnecessary. Besides, I don't see any sources that include "mainly" in their descriptions of comfort women. STSC (talk) 20:21, 16 February 2021 (UTC)
  • I'm actually somewhat neutral on this also. I'm agreeing to it as an attempted compromise between "Comfort women were women and girls forced into being sex slaves" and "Comfort women were prostitutes". Meters (talk) 04:13, 23 February 2021 (UTC)
• Opposed (disclaimer: since my account was first created for this issue, I am tagged as a single-purpose account. Feel free to ignore my vote, but I am making this suggestion in good faith, and would kindly invite other editors to consider the suggestion as such): the current lead, and the proposed lead does not reflect the current academic consensus (or lack thereof) surrounding the Comfort Women issue - in particular, about whether they were 1) coerced mainly, as no degree of amplitude of coercion is agreed upon, and 2) coerced by the Imperial Japanese Army, on an institutional capacity. These points are supported by several sources above - and the least one can say from the sources is that there is no academic consensus. To better reflect the academic consensus, my proposal is to replace "Comfort women were women and girls forced into being sex slaves by the Imperial Japanese Army" By "Comfort women were women and girls who worked in the military brothels for the Imperial Japanese Army, many of whom having been forced into being sex slaves", or something along these lines. As I already mentioned, it is really crucial that the Wikipedia article stays in tune with the latest academic findings rather than merely parroting the most popular narrative of the time, as the issue of Comfort Women is a topic which tends to be politically charged and thus often targeted for manipulation (by any sides). In fact, several academics, both Korean and international, have voiced concerns about the validity of the mainstream popular narrative (reflected by the current lead sentence), and about the deliberate effort by politically motivated civic groups to suppress critical discourse from both public and academic platforms (see commentaries of some Korean professors in my post above). Wikipedia should not succumb to propaganda, on neither sides. Fortunately, this is enshrined in the Wikipedia guidelines via WP:NPOV, WP:UNDUE and WP:BIASED. In particular, WP:NPOV states Avoid stating seriously contested assertions as facts. If different reliable sources make conflicting assertions about a matter, treat these assertions as opinions rather than facts, and do not present them as direct statements. Both of the points mentioned above are clearly seriously contested by a wide range of academics - I really cannot follow how the current lead is acceptable following this guideline, and the use of a less contested assertion (like the one I suggested) is clearly mandated. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Doragoram (talk • contribs) 11:37, 23 February 2021 (UTC) — Doragoram (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

Estimated numbers – summarizing a realistic range in the lead section

Should we be relaying the very highest estimates and the very lowest estimates to the reader in the second paragraph, or should we be giving a more measured and widely accepted range? I propose telling the reader the range is 50,000–200,000. Farther down in the article body we can mention the less realistic numbers which are lower and higher.

Hata's figure of 20,000 should not be delivered directly to the reader in the second paragraph per WP:WEIGHT. Hata revised his estimate downward in response to political pressure, according to C. Sarah Soh on pages 23–24 of her book The Comfort Women. Hata originally wrote that the lower boundary of estimated comfort women was 90,000, then he cranked the number downward later in the decade because of the redress movement, a politically motivated effort which Soh dismisses. Soh says that the lower boundary should be 50,000 because that figure was published in 1970 in a Korean newspaper article, and it was also published by Yoshimi Yoshiaki in the first academic study. Yoshiaki was the first person to give an estimated range of 50,000–200,000. All of this analysis is in Soh's book.

The highest estimates come from variations in the replacement rate. The range of 360,000–410,000 is the result of increasing the estimated replacement rate of comfort women from the widely accepted guess of 1.5× to the not-so-accepted level of 3.5× and 4×. This mathematical estimation process used by Su Zhiliang is described by Peipei Qiu in the Oxford University book Chinese Comfort Women: Testimonies from Imperial Japan's Sex Slaves, pages 36–39. The accepted base numbers are 3,000,000 Japanese military men served by 1 woman having sex with 29 men, to get 103,448 comfort women at any one time, and a replacement rate of 1.5× is usually applied to get 155,172 comfort women over 14 years of the program. The higher range of 360,000–410,000 is not widely accepted, and we should not be emphasizing it in the second paragraph. Binksternet (talk) 18:21, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

For what it’s worth, I completely agree with the proposition of using a measured and widely accepted range in the second paragraph, as I think it would be more in accordance with WP:WEIGHT. Also, the current formulation seems almost provocating on purpose, playing with the popular narrative that Japanese historians all downplay the war crimes, or that Chinese historians all exaggerate them. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Doragoram (talk • contribs) 18:39, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

Misrepresentation of C. Sarah Soh

On this talk page, Bavio the Benighted and his new single-purpose follower Doragoram have argued that Chunghee Sarah Soh's 2008 book, The Comfort Women: Sexual Violence and Postcolonial Memory in Korea and Japan, somehow supports the idea that only 1% of comfort women were sex slaves, and the remaining 99% were voluntary prostitutes. This is completely wrong.

Soh writes in the book's introduction that "Korean women constituted the great majority" of comfort women, who were also drawn from Japan, China, Burma, Indonesia, the Philippines, Indochina, the Pacific Islands, and any place under Japanese control from 1931 to 1945. The original core of prostitutes who volunteered for this duty was in the great minority. Wartime demand drew the much larger group of girls and women who were coerced or tricked into joining, or who were forcibly kidnapped. By far the majority of comfort women were not voluntary.

Soh says it is beyond dispute that the Japanese military committed sex crimes on a massive scale through the comfort women system. Sex crimes do not include voluntary prostitution.

Soh describes how Japanese ultranationalists are the ones who are pushing the idea that the comfort women system was mostly voluntary. She says that human rights activists and progressive scholars have opposed this effort by holding firm to the term "sex slavery" (page 33). Soh argues that "sex slavery" obviously includes the conditions found at the comfort women stations: daily acts of rape, the inability to leave, the threat and actuality of death and physical violence. I insist that Soh be removed from the list of scholars that support Bavio's viewpoint. Binksternet (talk) 20:44, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

Hi Binksternet, I realize you are an established editor on Wikipedia, and therefore appeal to your character to avoid lumping together people who disagree with you as followers of one another. Your comment almost seem to imply my comments aren't the result of my independent attempt at best applying WP guidelines to improve the article. I realize there must be many weird single-purpose accounts here, but I don't think any of my contributions calls for the disrespect (yet). Back to the topic:

1) I do not know about Bavio's positon, but I never claimed Sarah Soh's book supports the idea that only 1% of comfort women were sex slaves, and the remaining 99% were voluntary prostitutes. I cited Prof Sarah Soh as her book concludes the mainstream narrative as portrayed by the current lead, namely that "comfort women were (mainly) sex slaves", is a simplistic view resulting of partisan politics which doesn't reflect her academic findings (a simplistic view suggested to be on par with the simplistic qualification of Comfort Women as mere "military brothels"). The current lead is therefore clearly in violation of WP:NPOV. I will cite a bunch of passages to support the claim - from the prologue and epilogue, to not cherrypick some passage out of context. Nonetheless, if you have the time, I invite you to still check the context as well. (disclaimer: I wasn't sure how directly quoting a book was supposed to be handled here, so I try to provide the pages and first/last sentences. Quotes are in Italic)

From the prologue: Nevertheless, my study findings oblige me to take a critical stance against the simplified characterizations of Japan's military comfort stations as either "military brothels" or "rape centers." (...) Despite its important contributions to the international recognition of wartime sexual violence as a war crime, the Korean redress movement has employed "approximate truths" or strategic exaggerations that have effectively impeded deeper understanding of the comfort women issue and any real progress toward its resolution. (page 17)

This point is repeated in her epilogue: Categorically defining the Japanese comfort stations as “rape centers”—as the United Nations special rapporteur Gay McDougall did—is a political act in support of the redress movement. (...) However, such a one-dimensional representation would mean overlooking some aspects of the factual truth concerning the comfort system as history. (page 265-266)

In case you do not read the part in between - she also criticizes the use of "sex slaves" going against factual truths, and part of the 'approximate truths' strategy used by the redress movement.

2) Answering to your comment The original core of prostitutes who volunteered for this duty was in the great minority. Wartime demand drew the much larger group of girls and women who were coerced or tricked into joining, or who were forcibly kidnapped. By far the majority of comfort women were not voluntary.: I could not find relevant passage where she comments on whether or not women who volunteered were in the great minority. There is however mention of how most Korean comfort women were not mobilized as chŏngsindae (Voluntary Corp). This actually suggests that the South Korean nationalists' homogenizing rhetoric of the comfort women as sex slaves who were deceived as volunteer labor recruits is wrong (page 33).

As for whether those who volunteered constituted a minority or not, the only passage I could find is related to the "Dutch case", which actually goes in favor of the theory that most women were in fact not forced:

One of the major obstacles in the quest for “the truth” and justice for Japan’s comfort women is that there is no documentary evidence to determine either the total number of the women or the methods of their recruitment—except in the case of the Dutch. (...) One important, and rather remarkable, aspect of the Dutch government report is, however, that it not only acknowledges the inability to ascertain whether the Japanese authorities applied “physical force” to the majority of Dutch or European women in procuring their services as prostitutes: it also concedes, based on the examination of available data, that “the conclusion must be drawn that the majority of the women concerned does not belong to the group of women forced into prostitution.” (page 50-52)

Let me know if I missed the relevant passages you were referring to - if I missed it, it's an honest mistake.

3) Answering to your comment She says that human rights activists and progressive scholars have opposed this effort by holding firm to the term "sex slavery" (page 33). Soh argues that "sex slavery" obviously includes the conditions found at the comfort women stations: daily acts of rape, the inability to leave, the threat and actuality of death and physical violence. I do not find those message on page 33. She seems to imply the contrary (page 266): namely that historical revisionism and neonationalist activism in Japan rose precisely in reaction against the comfort women redress movement, which characterized all comfort women as "sex slaves". I'm not sure where you took the remaining of your comment from, but I think some context would be appreciated, since it goes quite against her main message, repeated in the prologue and epilogue, that characterizing the comfort women issue as "sexual slavery" is historically inaccurate.

In light of these points, I definitely maintain the work of Sarah Soh supports the revision of the lead sentence into a more nuanced phrasing which does not adopt the appealing yet not established narrative that 'most' comfort women were 'sex slaves'. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Doragoram (talk • contribs) 23:57, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

I see a continuation of misrepresentation here, with exactly the kind of cherry picking you said you would avoid.

Soh certainly presents a nuanced picture in her book. She says the situation is not 100% sex slavery, not 100% prostitution, and not 100% a war crime. She says she expects her research will not satisfy those who hold the mainstream academic view, and it will also not satisfy the ultranationalist Japanese who are criticizing the mainstream academic view. But she confirms that a massive sex crime was perpetrated by the Japanese military on tens of thousands of girls and women. This is a picture of unwilling participants numbering in the tens of thousands, not the supposed 1% involuntary stated by Bavio.

Soh is a feminist: she acknowledges that all prostitution by subservient females serving a society's dominant males can be considered a form of sex slavery. But the comfort women system went past these established societal norms and into criminal conditions. Soh identifies the global outrage against this system as stemming from the great number of girls and young women suffering involuntary coercion, trickery and abduction. Nobody knows exactly how many were abducted, but tens of thousands suffered involuntary sex crimes.

The bit about the Dutch government report stating that "the the majority of the women concerned does not belong to the group of women forced into prostitution" is not Soh's voice, nor does it reflect her research. She relays the Dutch finding to the reader for the purpose of contrasting the Dutch government position with that of South Korea, which takes a polar opposite stance of primarily coerced and abducted.

Regarding the numbers of comfort women, Soh emphasizes on pages 23–24 that the lowest estimate – 20,000 – was from conservative historian Hata Ikuhiko who revised his earlier 90,000 figure downward because of political pressure. His research pointed to the number 90,000 as the best estimate in 1993, but later in the decade he offered the lower figure as a response to Japanese political pressure. Soh herself says that 50,000 would be a reasonable lowest estimate, as it was a number published separately by two other researchers. This means she does not accept the 20,000 figure from Hata. Binksternet (talk) 01:43, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

I feel like the discussion is going everywhere, with quite a few straw men being set up. Let's clarify a few things before we keep discussing.

1) The point of the discussion is whether Prof. Soh's book is relevant in support for the change of the lead sentence to adopt a more nuanced definition of comfort women than their current categorical definition as "sex slaves" or "mainly sex slaves". I will come back to this later.

2) You seem to imply that the book supports your claim that tens of thousands of women were coerced. While this is a bit irrelevant to the discussion we're having, I will argue against this point because this seems to be your interpretation of the book, not her conclusion. Unless I missed it, nowhere does she talk about a coercion by the tens of thousands. I'd be happy to be proven wrong - but otherwise, your comment "This is a picture of unwilling participants numbering in the tens of thousands" is clearly putting words in here mouth, or doing original research. If on the other hand the coercion of tens of thousands of women is not what you're implying, I don't follow your point. In any case, I maintain Prof. Sarah Soh doesn't support the description of Japan having collected, carried, and confined Asian ladies coercively and collusively to have sexual intercourse with Japan's soldiers during their invasions across East Asia and Southeast Asia., as quoted from the WP page about sex slave, applies to tens of thousands of women.

3) You accuse me of cherrypicking, I assume you're doing so because of the mention of the Dutch case. I never intended to represent the conclusion of the Dutch government as Soh's own conclusion - I thought that was very clear - but I cited that because it is the only passage where Soh talks about a documentary evidence which gives a proxy of the amplitude of the coercion in the comfort system. The underlying point was that Soh never gave even an estimate of what she believes the amplitude of coercion to be. Again, I'd be happy to be proven wrong.

4) Finally, I really don't see how the number of comfort women is relevant in the discussion. I don't even disagree (on a personal level) that there were tens of thousands of women involved, if not more. I'm not sure what you're trying to achieve by acting as if I would not agree with that. You already did that above, but please be careful not setting up straw men. Instead, it would be nice if you could address some of the points you ignored, notably where did Prof. Soh said that The original core of prostitutes who volunteered for this duty was in the great minority? If we set up strawmen without answering to each other's point, it will be hard to have a discussion, let alone establish a consensus.

Coming back to 1): Soh is very clear on her position about the categorical definition of comfort women as "sex slaves". This is not cherrypicking, it repeated countless times in her book and conclusions.

It is tempting, and quite understandable, for progressive scholars and their supporters to want to categorically define the comfort system as sexual slavery and war crime in recognition of the undisputable degradation of countless women and the horrendous ordeals of sexual violence recounted by many victim-survivors. However, such a one-dimensional representation would mean overlooking some aspects of the factual truth concerning the comfort system as history. (page 265-266)

Soh is indeed a feminist, but laments at how feminism has been overtaken by nationalism on the issue of comfort women. While it is important to acknowledge the various crimes and violence committed against women under the Comfort Women system, this doesn't warrant sweeping categorical definition that are "partial truths". Feminism should instead transcend nationalism, as the narratives fueled by it is not productive for the identification of truth, progress towards resolution, and for opening the possibility for collaboration to combat sexual exploitation and violence against women in general (page 17-18, 269-270).

Finally, answering your comment She says she expects her research will not satisfy those who hold the mainstream academic view, and it will also not satisfy the ultranationalist Japanese who are criticizing the mainstream academic view: I will assume good faith here, but your portrayal is very unfair (and frankly biased) here. Soh indeed says her research will offend "anyone who takes sides in the sexual and identity politics of the opposing camps" (page 17, prologue), namely those who define the nature of Comfort system as "sexual slavery", "war crime" or mere "commercial sex". The opposing camps are 1) rightists and militant nationalists in Japan and elsewhere who push for the licensed prostitution narrative, and 2) Korean ethnic nationalists, and transnational human right activists, and some progressive academics who push for the "sex slave" narrative. By no means does Prof Soh imply the 2 opposing sides are "mainstream academics" vs "ultranatinoalists", and this categorization seems to reveal your implicit bias that mainstream academics push for the "sex slaves" narrative, which is putting words in her mouth. If anything, the passage illustrates yet again how the sweeping "sex slave" narrative goes against the findings of her work.

Soh is crystal clear about the "sex slave" definition being a biased partial-truth narrative heavily edited by politically motivated parties such as Korean ethno-nationalist and transnational human right activists. I really can't see how you can get to the conclusion that Prof Soh supports this definition of comfort women after reading the book. However, I am sure you have good reasons to believe it - it would help the readers understand your position if you could provide references that support your belief that the aforementioned conclusion is valid. Otherwise I don’t really see the point of this section having been created. Doragoram (talk) 12:24, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

You are correct about Soh's assessment of who are the players in the opposing sides of the debate. But Soh acknowledges that the standing definition was first established by the progressive scholars and ethnic Koreans. This puts the Japanese nationalists in the position of challengers who want to change the orthodox view. Which is what I mean by "mainstream": the definition that has been widely published and widely accepted.

Soh does not guide us with hard numbers to set a ratio; she does not say that the sex slave definition is some percentage correct and some percentage wrong. But she affirms that tens of thousands of girls and women suffered sex crimes from the Japanese comfort women system. From that, it's clear Soh considers the sex slave definition to have significant truth to it, even if not 100% truth. Binksternet (talk) 16:53, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for your comment. I suggest we move past whether the sex slave definition is mainstream among academics or not, since it is in the end irrelevant to the point we’re discussing here.

I agree that the book does not tell us to what extent the “sex slave” definition is wrong, per se. It is also clear that she agrees the comfort women experience was, in many instances, equivalent to sexual slavery. However, she also clearly states that many women joined the comfort stations voluntarily, hoping e.g. for a better emancipation in a patriarchal society. Such diverse testimonies are provided. The point she is making in her book, summarized in her epilogue, is that the collective experience of comfort women is very diverse - too diverse to accurately describe with the use manichaean definitions such as “sex slaves” or “licensed prostitutes”. The experience encompasses very diverse personal testimonies, but are also common in the context of structural and cultural dynamics which victimized women before, during and after the war. As a matter of fact, she also says how the Korean ethno-nationalist effort to label comfort women as “sex slaves” contributes to the ongoing victimization of the very comfort women, and how any such trivial and simplistic definition ultimately only serves the agenda of politically interested parties, and the perpetration of comfort women suffering.

It is clear the comfort women endured incredible sexual violence under the comfort system, yet she is also clear this does not warrant their definition as “sex slaves”. And she never says that along the lines of “well technically not ALL women were sex slaves, so it’s not a good definition” - she really means it is fundamentally trivializing, historically inaccurate, and unproductive. Therefore, I maintain she would support the reformulation of the lead sentence.

If you still disagree, I wouldn’t be sure how we’re supposed to proceed here, since we are disagreeing on the interpretation of her book. Given that there are direct quotes which support my position, I would hope that that adds weight in my favor. Regardless, even if we were to agree Prof Soh’s book would be in favor of reformulating the lead, I do not get the impression that you would anyways agree to do that (or am I getting the wrong impression?). As an established editor on WP, what would you suggest is the appropriate course of action to resolve the kind of conflict we have here? And what source would, in your opinion, be required to mandate such reformulation as per the WP guidelines, in addition to the sources already presented on this talk page? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Doragoram (talk • contribs) 18:25, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

I am open to discussing changes in the lead section. I'm not proposing changes myself because we already tell the reader in the third paragraph about how the program grew from a system of voluntary prostitution at the beginning. But if you propose something I will give it serious consideration. Such a proposal should be initiated as a new discussion thread. Binksternet (talk) 19:50, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

As far as Soh's book is concerned, I've only ever cited it strictly as a source that contradicts the "comfort women were sex slaves forced into prostitution by the Imperial Japanese Army" definition. As you can readily confirm on this talk page, I never advocated for a definition that claims that the majority of the comfort women were voluntary. Can you imagine why? Because I don't hold this opinion myself.

Since Binksternet is still misconstruing my stance, while this is off-topic to the section itself, I feel I should review what I've actually said on this talk page about "1%" or "99%" of comfort women, and explain my motive for doing so. First, here are five instances where I've mentioned these numbers:

1. "No current evidence (inc. all sources cited in the Wikipedia article here) corroborates the idea that more than 1% of comfort women would have been forced to work against their will." (08:08, 3 February 2021 (UTC))

2. "I repeat, there is nothing to indicate―even indirectly―that more than 1% of comfort women had been forced to serve the military." "As of now, the Wikipedia article uncritically parrots the claims of a vocal minority amounting to 0.01% - 1% of all comfort women" (02:47, 4 February 2021 (UTC))

3. "There is very little factual information we can rely on to determine how 99% of comfort women ended up working at the stations. I would argue that them being much more well-treated and well-remunerated than most other prostitutes of their time would indicate a high likelihood of a large fraction of them having worked voluntarily, but given the lack of evidence in that regard this type of conjecture should, at the very least, not be mentioned in the definition itself." (02:47, 4 February 2021 (UTC))

4. "None of the sources support the notion that this problem affected more than 1% of comfort women" (08:19, 6 February 2021 (UTC))

5. "Again, assertions must be strongly supported by evidence, as per WP:VERIFY, and currently, there is no strong evidence to suggest whether or not 99% of comfort women worked in comfort stations out of their own will." (09:44, 6 February 2021 (UTC))

Reading the above, can you find a statement where I claim 99% of the women worked voluntarily?

Nope. As it turns out, I did not state that here. Instead, all of the statements are calling attention to a lack of quantitative evidence; statement 2 also points out that testimonies regarding sexual slavery have only been given by a tiny minority of former comfort women. These would, by the way, be very easy claims to disprove if we had any sources that quantified the number of voluntary versus involuntary prostitutes based on solid data. But we don't.

In Binksternet's defence, in my first comment after reviewing all sources, I did hyperbolize this point: "Having traced all claims to their root, I can confidently assert that there is no "consensus" and that the vast majority of comfort women, probably more than 99%, were voluntary prostitutes." (04:02, 3 February 2021 (UTC))

Since this is where the confusion seems to have originated, let me explain why I felt compelled to make this statement in the first place. In making this hyperbole, I wanted to challenge all of the editors advocating the "sex slave" narrative to present the talk page with a single source, or a collection of sources, that contradicted it. Because surely you should easily be able to prove that at least more than 1% of the comfort women worked in the comfort stations against their volition, given that you are advocating the notion that the majority of them were sex slaves, correct? This was my reasoning at the time; I genuinely wished to see if someone had a source that could readily rebuke this claim.

And yet no one, not a single editor, provided any source that would disprove this assertion. Not a single source seems to have quantified the number of voluntary vs involuntary prostitutes with reliable data. So, if you still are unsure as to why I decided to make such a statement despite holding a more nuanced view myself, let me rephrase my point more explicitly: if no one is able to prove, quantitatively, that more than 1% of the comfort women were, indeed, sex slaves, then logically we must conclude that the current definition is conjecture. By definiton: if it's not based on data, then it simply parrots baseless claims. All sources that claim that "the vast majority of comfort women were sex slaves" would then amount to opinion pieces.

This hyperbole was an attempt to get other editors to notice that there really is no quantitative data on the subject, and that even a claim as ridiculously exaggerated as this one could not be readily disproved based on available sources.

But Binksternet, if you did read my original comment back then, you really should have seen my point. Here is the final paragraph of the same comment: "If you can find a source that mentions an actual study or records, or even indirect (but convincing) evidence that would facilitate quantifying the number of women who were coerced as opposed to being hired through legal channels, feel free to link it here. It doesn't seem like anything of the sort exists, though, in which case the article needs a thorough overhaul to restore neutrality and accuracy."

My message is very clear. To rephrase: if your stance is based on a source that quantifies the number of voluntary vs involuntary prostitutes, then we can both agree that your stance reflects reality better than mine. If not, then we have to contend that the current definition is not based on reality and should be revised.

Here is Binksternet's reply: "Wow, what a pile of unsupported nonsense. 99% voluntary? Ridiculous. You have shot yourself in foot here, losing all credibility." (04:44, 3 February 2021 (UTC)) So Binksternet did not acknowledge the lack of quantifiable data.

My reply to that was: "You seem to have completely forgotten the purpose of Wikipedia. I have zero credibility, and so do you. This is irrelevant, however, since we let the sources do the talking. So, go ahead. If you find my assertion "ridiculous", feel free to present evidence to the contrary. I read all the sources; did you? Or are you just parroting them without bothering to read through them?" (07:40, 3 February 2021 (UTC))

Again, I think it should be clear that I was trying to challenge Binksternet to show me the source(s) that made him believe so religiously in the "the majority were sex slaves" hypothesis. However, Binksternet falls back to pointing to the phrasing of the 1996 UN report, which I already showed not to contain quantitative data in my original comment.

Just so no one misconstrues my stance anymore, here is my unfiltered opinion on the subject: I believe the ianfu system was a system of prostitution, similar to modern ones in developing countries, into which an unknown number (possibly majority) of women were trafficked, and within which an equally unknown number (possibly majority, possibly minority) were forced to work against their will. I also believe that some soldiers in the Japanese military forced some of the comfort women to work at some of the stations, based on e.g. research by Yoshimi Yoshiaki, but given the available sources, it seems to me that these were isolated cases conducted by a handful of bad actors, instead of representative of the experiences of the majority of comfort women. Reading through the sources people have cited (esp. Ramseyer, which I found relatively convincing) I've come to the conclusion that a much larger fraction of comfort women were likely sold to the brothels by their families in order to pay off debts, and that a similarly large fraction (perhaps 1%, perhaps 10%, perhaps even 80%) worked voluntarily out of destitution. Based on the available sources (and taking into account that Korean sources tend to be censored to downplay the "voluntary" aspect and to exaggerate the "kidnapping" aspect) this view seems most realistic to me.

I don't advocate stances I can't corroborate with convincing evidence, and my objective here is to get other editors to adopt a similar policy, regarding this article and preferably all other articles they decide to contribute to in the future. Coming from a STEM field, I personally tend to be neurotic about word definitions, and the current definition on the article is, as I've mentioned before, demonstrably inaccurate. Frankly, that's the main reason I'm here and why I'll probably stay here until we establish an evidence-based definition. I'm also uncomfortable knowing that the Wikipedia page currently represents a view advocated by a South Korean propaganda machine instead of representing a neutral view based on all reliable sources. Bavio the Benighted (talk) 03:36, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

To claim that this article reveals "South Korean propaganda" really doesn't support your point there. Nor does the 'I was using hyperbole' defence, as it reveals more of an agenda rather than trying to leave the article as was, as established in the DRN.

As for numbers, it is quite clear that there is sufficient evidence to establish the current lede and tone of the article. The UN report states that "large numbers of women were forced to submit to prolonged prostitution under conditions which were frequently indescribably traumatic" stated in the UN report. You responded that it only refers to "16 testimonies", but the UN report details evidence in addition to the testimonies that corroborate its stance. Any further criticism has not come from any sources but rather original research, which suggests that the UN report can stay.

The UN Economic and Social Council also states "the Japanese Imperial Army forced over 200,000 women into sexual slavery in rape centres", which indicates that it has found that a sufficient number of comfort women have been considered non-voluntary participants, such that it is appropriate to say that the majority of comfort women were forced. Yoshiaki Yoshimi at Chuo University in his book "Comfort Women: Sexual Slavery in the Japanese Military During World War II" clearly documents that almost 200,000 women were "sexually enslaved" and criticizes the argument that "only professional prostitutes worked as comfort women, and did so voluntarily in exchange for monetary award" based on archival evidence from government and military sources. No evidence has been presented to the contrary to state that the majority or even "a similarly large fraction" worked voluntarily; rather there is only WP:OR criticism of the sources presented. NettingFish15019 (talk) 04:15, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

In the future, I recommend reading the comments you reply to carefully before posting a response. You are repeating Binksternet's error in that, by neglecting to do so, you have both misconstrued my stance and missed my point. You are free to interpret my personal motives as you see fit, of course, but I think we can both agree that arguing against straw men is a waste of both of our time as well as the time of other editors who may read these comments in the future.

I would never use the phrase "South Korean propaganda", and I did not do so here, either. Nor did I say the article "reveals" propaganda ― if it did, I would not need to point it out myself. On the contrary, I stated that the article as it is represents the narrative of "a South Korean propaganda machine", and, if you read my first comment in the Proposal section, you should know that I am referring specifically to Chong Dae Hyup and those aligned with them. Quoting Professor Jinyul Ju, "Proponents of pro-North Korea national socialism in South Korea used the issue of comfort women as anti-Japan propaganda.". A similar claim has previously been made by Professor An Byeong-jik. And as far as I can see, referring to it as "propaganda" does not seem to be a baseless accusation; attempts to control the narrative have been documented by several reliable sources, including Soh and Yu-ha, and mentioned by several South Korean professors, including Prof Jinyun Ju, Prof Joseph Yi and Prof Ryu Seok-chun (Lew Seok-choon). In South Korea, Park Yu-ha's book was censored for "defaming" former comfort women, all because she reasonably disputed the truthfulness of some of the earlier testimonies based on evidence of fabrication (pointing out that some comfort women originally testified that they were taken/sold to comfort stations by their parents, but later changed their testimonies, claiming that they were instead kidnapped by Japanese soldiers). If you're interested, I can give you many more detailed citations detailing evidence of fabrication of testimonies as well as the silencing of victims and academics in South Korea; I will refrain from doing so for now so as not to make this comment overly long.

Back on topic: point me to a source that details an estimate of involuntary versus voluntary prostitutes, and explain to me, quoting the source you cite, how this number was derived. Point me to any source that refers to an investigation, calculation or statistical study that convincingly shows that more than 50% of the comfort women were forced to work against their will. My hypothesis is that you are unable to cite such a source, which is exactly what the hyperbole was meant to (and did) prove.

None of the sources you cite mention a large-scale study or investigation of this nature. As far as the UN reports (1996 and 1998) are concerned, both were written before investigations by Sarah Soh and Park Yu-ha, and both rely heavily on testimonies whose veracity has since then been disputed by these two newer reliable sources. As such, the UN reports are deprecated as per WP:AGE MATTERS and WP:BIASED. And notably, the 1996 report uses Yoshida Seiji's novel as proof of "slave raids", and the second one fails to address this error, which proves that little, if any, fact-checking was performed in formulating the reports. Quoting WP:QUESTIONABLE: "Beware of sources that sound reliable but do not have the reputation for fact-checking and accuracy that this guideline requires". The UN paper currently has a reputation of failing to fact-check its claims, and can therefore, by Wikipedia's rules, not be considered a reliable source.

And again, The UN Special Rapporteur explicitly states that the only documentary evidence she could find indicated that the Imperial Army set up the brothels and ensured that the women were paid and treated according to their instructions. She mentioned no investigation or study that quantified the numbers of voluntary as opposed to involuntary prostitutes. Therefore, we must conclude that her claim that "comfort women were sex slaves" is opinion.

To address your argument regarding Yoshiaki Yoshimi's findings, let me cite and quote Ramseyer's argument from his discussion paper from 2015, where he refers to Yoshimi's statements in the first chapter of the book "Ianfu basshingu wo koete" (published in 2013):

"For most of us, the problematic nature of the statements by the most prominent comfort women puts the onus on the physical evidence: does the documentary trail confirm (or at least, not contradict) the claim that the Japanese military forcibly recruited -- "dragooned," as the Wisconsin textbook put it -- young Korean women? In truth, the documentary evidence does not exist.

When the Western scholars cite anyone, they cite activist historian Yoshiaki Yoshimi: in the words of the original 20 historians, "the careful research of historian Yoshimi Yoshiaki in Japanese government archives and the testimonials of survivors throughout Asia have rendered beyond dispute the essential features of a system that amounted to state-sponsored sexual slavery. "

In fact, though, even Yoshimi (2013; Yoshimi 2000: 29) no longer claims the Japanese government forced any Korean woman to work in a station. Instead, he details evidence of coercion only in enemy territory like China (claims no one contests). Back in 1992, Yoshimi (see 2013: 58-59) had indeed announced to great fanfare that he had located documentary proof of the government's involvement in recruiting comfort women. In fact, what he had found were documents along the lines of the following memorandum from early 1938 (Gun'ianjo 1938):

"Several matters requiring close attention have arisen with respect to the recruitment of women from Japan for comfort stations located near operations relating to the China incident. Some recruiters claim to have received the approval of the military. They threaten to damage the good name of the military, and to create misunderstanding among the general public. Some recruiters risk creating social problems by recruiting unsystematically through the intervention of military journalists or sympathetic outsiders. Some people have dealt with carelessly chosen recruiters, and they in turn have transformed recruitment into something close to kidnapping, and found themselves the subject of arrests and police investigation. In the future, recruitment should be coordinated through the local military, and recruiters should be selected carefully. In carrying out their activities, recruiters should keep any ties to the local police and military police confidential -- in order to maintain the good name of the military and minimize social problems."

The document does not suggest that the military forcibly recruited comfort women. It does not suggest that it recruited comfort women at all. Instead, it shows that the government wanted women who would staff approved brothels near its military posts. It indicates that the government encouraged recruiters to hire women for the job. And it suggests that the government knew that some recruiters had been hiring women through false pretences.

At roughly the same time that the Army issued the memorandum above, the Home Ministry ordered (Shina 1938):

(a) "For women traveling for the purpose of prostitution, approval shall be granted only to those women heading to North and Central China who are currently working as licensed or effective prostitutes, who are 21 years old or older, and who are free of venereal and other infectious diseases ..."

(b) "When receiving the identification documents detailed in the preceding section, the women should understand that they should immediately return to Japan upon the conclusion of their provisional contract or when that completion is no longer necessary."

(c) "Women intending to travel for the purpose of prostitution must apply to the police office for their identification documents in person."

(d) "In issuing identification documents regarding women traveling for the purpose of prostitution, special care should be taken in investigating the labor contract and other matters in order to insure that the transaction is not a sale of the woman or a case of kidnapping."

For its comfort stations, the government wanted only women who understood exactly the job they were accepting. It realized that some of its recruiters were cheating, and was trying to stop them without dismantling the entire licensing apparatus.

To me, this sounds like a sober and realistic view that is firmly grounded in the available evidence. I find that the same can not be said about generalized claims of widespread sexual slavery, all of which seem to be based on conjecture. Either way, if nothing can be reliably quantified at this point, the claim that "all/most comfort women were sex slaves" is opinion and should not be mentioned in the lede as per WP:NPOV and WP:UNDUE. Bavio the Benighted (talk) 06:15, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

Here you are again, Bavio, violating WP:No original research by interpreting primary source documents. This violation of hard policy cannot stand. We will never allow interpretation of Japanese military paperwork here.

Wikipedia is based on WP:SECONDARY sources. You keep trying to shoot down the various UN conclusions, but Soh acknowledges that they represent the mainstream orthodoxy of this topic. Soh's book was a shift toward a more nuanced and complex picture than the UN had painted, but she did not throw out the baby with the bathwater. Binksternet (talk) 08:01, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

Ramseyer's paper is a secondary source. The UN reports are unreliable as per WP:AGE MATTERS and WP:BIASED, as I proved above and in the Proposal section. You are not addressing any of my actual arguments.

This is the definition of a straw man argument, Binksternet. As I recommended to another user, I suggest taking the time to carefully read through the comment you reply to before posting a response so as to avoid wasting time and space. The Talk Page is bloated enough as it is. Bavio the Benighted (talk) 08:24, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

That linked Ramseyer paper from March 2019 is a "discussion paper", not a fully baked and peer-reviewed scholarly paper. It's basically a proto-paper. And if you are citing Ramseyer, please cite Ramseyer, not (Shina 1938) and (Gun'ianjo 1938). Regarding the December 2020 – January 2021 Ramseyer piece, many topic scholars have questioned its very basis. Not peripheral criticism, in which Ramseyer might be mostly right but he gets one or two things wrong, but foundational stuff such as Ramseyer ignoring swaths of information that didn't fit his thesis. Adam Cathcart at Leeds writes that Ramseyer cherry-picked the data to support his preferred conclusion, while Amy Grant et al say that Ramseyer distorted the issue by "misrepresentation, misdirection, and omission of historical sources" which undermine its footing. The paper paints a Pollyanna portrait of happy times on the comfort station, if you will. I could list more scholars here, and their very damning words, but the general shitstorm swirling around the paper might result in the journal pulling the plug, in which case we will not have a peer-reviewed Ramseyer piece to cite. With all that shattering criticism and the unanswered question of whether it will be published, it's far too early for us to be citing the Ramseyer piece as if it were fact. So your arguments here, Bavio, are based on improper research. The 1938 documents can't be used. Binksternet (talk) 14:07, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

WP:NOR does not apply to Talk pages. Indeed, the attitude towards applying one's mind to the issues seems to be a fundamental problem here. Someone argues on a Talk page that 2 + 2 = 4 and gets accused of violating WP:NOR but for the fact that "basic arithmetic" is specifically exempted even when editing the actual article.--Brian Dell (talk) 09:30, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

The talk page guidelines state that, "It is usually a misuse of a talk page to continue to argue any point that has not met policy requirements." STSC (talk) 14:54, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

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