This thesis seeks to answer the following research question: “To what extent can the comfort women be considered the forerunners of the #MeToo movement?”. For this, I used qualitative data to...Show moreThis thesis seeks to answer the following research question: “To what extent can the comfort women be considered the forerunners of the #MeToo movement?”. For this, I used qualitative data to support my thesis statement. This qualitative data is secondary data, meaning I extracted information that was collected by other researchers from their research papers, as opposed to new, primary data. In order to gain a better insight in the workings of both the comfort women issue and the #MeToo movement, I discuss events connected to both the comfort women issue and the #MeToo movement that emerged before, during and after the issues became known in Korean society. By comparing, I have found that there are a significant amount of similarities between the two issues. First, i found that both issues were not completely new to the public, and were just not spoken about often. Adding to this, in both situations, the women who spoke up first had been quiet about theit abuse for a long time. Lastly, it is seen that support for the victims in both cases was built from grassroots organizations, and these organizations pressured the government into taking action. By analyzing how both the comfort women issue and the #MeToo movement have progressed over the years, I can confirm the theory that at its core, the comfort women could very well be considered the forerunners of the #MeToo movement.Show less
