That night I attended Hwang Geum Joo's lecture in the James Union Building at MTSU. for a little help.Ĭomfort women were unknown to me until Monday, March 12, 2001. The Japanese government has so far refused to make an official apology, so the surviving comfort women are imploring the U.S. Hwang Geum Joo and others are currently embroiled in a battle to get the Japanese government to make an official apology to the now-elderly comfort women still living. "Comfort women" were actually sex slaves - many of them young girls - placed in "comfort stations" near the front lines, who were repeatedly raped and beaten and, in some cases, murdered. Her name is Hwang Geum Joo, and she was a "comfort woman" for Japanese soldiers during World War II. Tonight, I realized when I read this that there is an actual event in my life that triggered my feminism or, more accurately, upped it from a slow drip to a full-on deluge. (I'm an infant in feminist years, it's true.) Egalitarian relationships tend to make everyone more happy than those where sex/gender determines destiny.Īnyway, it was an incomplete answer, because I'd never really considered that there might exist a point in my life where I turned the switch from "apathetic" to "feminist." I remember the approximate time frame during which I began to self-identify as feminist - spring of 2001. I said it came largely from growing up in a religious household where the man was, by virtue of his sex, the automatic leader of the family, and how that view of man at the absolute top was not only personally insulting, but also really impractical. When John H visited Memphis back in December, he asked me what made me become a feminist. Check out my book reviews and more at The Shelf Life, a book blog by the CA.Finally, a Feminism 101 Blog (recommended reading!).Gaming, Running, Politics, and other Randomness.Confessions of a West Tennessee Liberal.Bookish and Somewhat Slightly Distracted.The Shelf Life: A Book Blog (for the CA).:::Stuff I've done, do, or will do eventually:::.:::Social networking for the reality impaired:::.If you're not a total weirdo, you can shoot me an e-mail at theogeo. I am the biggest hyperbolist on the planet.