The film The Women Outside: Korean Comfort Women and the U.S. Military (1995) is an informative documentary that highlights the plight of the Korean women at the hands of the U.S. servicemen stationed in South Korea. The film starts off by exploring the various reasons which push these Korean women to engage in the act. The director then focuses on the demeaning acts Korean women endure as they work in brothels frequented by American troops due to the long held patriarchal system in Korea.
As seen in the documentary, women end up as prostitutes in military camps through various methods. The biggest factor, which is both emphasizes in the film and article by Hwang, was the mass poverty (Hwang 93). Due to the extreme poverty that has ridden the country for a long time, women from poor backgrounds have had to source their livelihood by voluntarily working in the camp towns that have developed around the military barracks. They left the farm areas first for factory work in the cities. Many women then left their onerous and low paying factory jobs which often involved forced sex with foremen, to seek better paying work around the U.S. military bases. Through sex work, many women supported their families, and sent their brothers to school.
Some of the women joined willingly; through friends or stranger, while others were literally kidnapped, sold to the “madames” of the brothels in the camp towns, and forced into sex work against their will (Hwang 95). This claim is substantiated by the story of Jun Min hun and Yang Hyang Kim in the film The Women Outside. Jun Min Hun recounts how she joined the prostitution industry when she met a soldier at the bar who offered to buy her a drink after which the soldier sold her to a brothel owner. In another scene, Yang Hyang Kim emotionally describes how she was sold to a brothel and forced to have sex with strange men since she could not perform in her previous work.
Another common reason women expressed for remaining in the camptowns after such experiences was the loss of their “respectability”. Women who have been raped and who have been forced into sex work are blamed and ostracized in Korean society. This is supported by Prof. Heisoo Shin’s claim: most of the women who join the industry are either divorced, women having broken family settings, previous experiences of rape, physical and sexual abuse, unwed pregnancy, or single ladies who cannot support themselves; an argument Hwang (93) confirms. The shame that was attached to the women and their work makes it impossible for the women to return home. Even though prostitution was seen as promoting immorality it was a means through which some underprivileged members of the society use to provide for their families.
This injustice system towards Korean women was a result of Korean’s beliefs in Confucian principles, which stress the hierarchal order of the human world, and accords a specific status to each member of a family, which lead to patrilineal practices. According to one of the contributors in the documentary, Prof. Heisoo Shin, Korean women are trained to serve without question from a young age with emphasis being placed on prioritization of the male gender. The film started off with a women in white traditional clothes (hanbok) and a narrative saying “In Korea, all young girls are taught that a good woman serves her father first, then her husband, and finally her son.” This clearly shows that one of the main idea conveyed by the director is the subordination of Korean women. Towards the end of the documentary, Elaine Kim said, “The long history of Korean patriarchal practices which makes women bodies controlled by men. I don’t think we can let Korean patriarchy off the hook. It’s in there, very intimately and integratedly involved in it, including the Patriarchal leaders of the south Korean government.” Unfortunately, a majority of these women are harassed and mistreated by the soldiers, with some of them being deserted after they become pregnant. There have been cases of aggravated assault and even murder where the American servicemen have been accused of killing Korean women (Hwang xxx); one example is captured in the documentary, the murder of Yoon Kum Yi.
Furthermore, Heisoo-shin mentioned that Korean women has been used by the state, which dominated by men, for national interest; both during Japanese colonialism, as comfort women, and the U.S. occupation. This is supported by the fact that Korean government regulated and controlled these camptowns, especially the women. In the 1970s, sex workers’ examination of venereal diseases was tightened. The practice was done to accommodate the U.S. military’s camptowns demands in response to Korean’s fear of American troops withdrawals.
The Women Outside gives the story of Korean women who provide for themselves by working in South Korean military clubs and brothels. It both uncovers the reasons behind this practice: extreme poverty and the patriarchal ideology held by Korean society. Through the film, we can see that the common features among these women is their fierce determination to make a living and survive regardless of the odds they face. Although the women are seen to have tough experiences, the director ends his film by Yang Hyang Kim’s hopeful depiction of her future with her kid; hoping to encourage other Korean women having the same agonizing life stories.